With summer rapidly approaching, it’s important to stay hydrated. This can be especially difficult for unhoused San Diegans who struggle to access housing and public services.
The mission for City Heights-based mutual aid organization Water and Kindness is spelled out in its name. For the past year, they have provided clean drinking water to the area’s unhoused community members.
The key idea behind Water and Kindness is mutual aid, not chasing institutional funding, Founder Jes Stephens said.
First, water. Then, helping people with specific personal needs. Though focused on City Heights, Water and Kindness aims to strengthen collective community efforts across San Diego.
Water and Kindness has three distribution centers where water bottles with custom labels can be picked up and distributed by volunteers. Stephens puts in upwards of 60 hours a week of back-end work to ensure the operation runs smoothly.
Stephens started the group when she realized economic conditions were about to get a lot worse for her unhoused neighbors. A former business owner and volunteer at the U.S.-Mexico border, Stephens figured she could put her organizing skills to work to benefit her own community, which she said gets less attention from San Diego County nonprofits.
With proposed budget cuts to public restrooms and other homeless services looming over the city, bigger advocacy organizations like the Lucky Duck Foundation are also preparing to respond to higher needs with fewer resources, especially water.
Lucky Duck Foundation CEO Drew Moser said handing out water is more than just providing people with essential hydration, it’s about “building rapport.” Once volunteers have rapport, they can go further to provide unhoused people with resources that could improve their lives.
Water and Kindness has achieved this in multiple ways. Along with handing out water, they distribute clothing and basic supplies every weekend, and help community members sign up for social services.
One success story is an elderly volunteer who everyone calls Sherene. She began volunteering when she saw Water and Kindness distributing supplies outside her apartment complex. Eventually, they helped her get an electric wheelchair.
“I built a lot of good relationships [with] people I work with,” Sherene said, “And even some that are outside of it, who just come on a regular basis.”
Over the past year, Water and Kindness has built relationships with small businesses, local organizations, and even a political candidate, to improve the lives of residents, regardless of economic status.
By coincidence, Stephens found herself the next-door neighbor to longshot Congressional hopeful Frances Yasmeen Motiwalla — someone also heavily involved with food and water distribution. Motiwala’s campaign has a home in Water and Kindness’s Pop-Up Winona location. She works with Activist San Diego, which has connections to mutual aid networks across the globe.
But it all starts with water.
Recall the efforts throughout downtown San Diego by John David Ross. For a decade, the man known as Water Man Dave was another source of water and kindness. The veteran used his social security income to buy water for unhoused people—even at the risk of harassment from police. Some say he gave out one million bottles over the course of a decade.
Water Man Dave died in 2018, but his legacy carries on through every San Diegan who stepped up for their community, even to do something as simple as share water. SDSun
