neighbor to neighbor

My colleagues and I are working with Seattle Public Utilities on a food waste study. My team conducted research to learn how people use (and don't use) the food they bring home. Another team will take the insights we made and create a campaign with them. We want to reduce how much food people waste, and encourage them to compost the food that isn't edible. The problems our respondents shared will feel familiar to most readers. People buy too much food, often more than they plan to use. A sale or bulk buy from Costco might load the cart heavier than they expected. The next thing you know, you have a huge bag of onions, or half a pint of heavy cream, or eggs that are close to expiring. Hint: might be time to make a frittata! One of my colleagues suggested a way out of this still-good food going bad in our fridges. People want to know their excess food is going to a good cause. We could start a program that picks up this food and gets it to people who could eat it.

I wasn't excited about the idea based on my own experience in food banking. I didn't think food banks' existing infrastructure could handle an exchange like that. It's a lot of logistics to get food from one place to another in a safe way. I asked instead, "could we promote a neighbor to neighbor approach? something like, 'I have extra tomatoes I can't eat. I'll ask my neighbor if she wants them.'" We could cancel the refrigerated trucks waiting idle nearby. Instead, we'd encourage people to walk down the hall and ask their neighbor if they want it. Easy! Done by lunch. Well. It might be their lunch now.

Is it that simple, though? If I were on the receiving end of a campaign message like that, what would I do? Who would I offer my excess food to? I don't even know most of my neighbors. To many, it seems easier to imagine a complex distribution network for our leftovers than it does to talk to our neighbors. We would rather someone pick up our sad half-bag of spinach than knock on a door near our home and ask if they want it. This bring me back to some of the tension I feel when people talk about community. What does it mean to be a part of one? Are we in community just because we live near each other? Do we need more than that to consider ourselves in kinship with one another?

Are things different for people who don't live in a big city like I do? My parents know all their neighbors (and like most of them). They do things for each other when someone goes out of town. People may come over for a barbecue or a backyard sit. These are things I assume only happens in a small town or a neighborhood of single-family homes. Neither of those cases will be part of my life anytime soon, nor for the many people I share a grid of streets with. So why does it feel so hard to ask a person who shares a wall with me if they want to split a jumbo box of croissants? Some ideas why:

It's hard to know who's interested in our stuff. Lots of folks in society have an aversion to leftovers. Lots of folks, myself included, think dinner is often even better the next day. Connecting these two groups is tough as it is. At the same time, we must reject the expectation that poor folks should take what they can get.

Existing relationships aren't set up like that. There's a huge stigma against appearing poor, much less being poor. For a lot of people, cooking still feels limited to the needs of an immediate household. When people do share food, it's likelier to be at a distance in something like a Little Free Pantry.

The hard times don't feel the same for everyone. Economic segregation within neighborhoods has gotten worse over time. Setbacks in the economy always hit different incomes differently, and this one is no different. Some folks have great incomes, even now. They can afford everything they need. Other folks want to give the impression they’re in that first group. Credit card debt is sky high as people take out loans for takeout. The truly poor have fewer avenues into relationships with the first two groups. This makes it harder for homes with extra to share it with a household who could use it.

talking to our neighbors

I've only known a few of my neighbors in my many years as a renter. Last year, I was reading in the living room in relative silence. It was still enough that I started to hear music wafting up from the apartment below. It was exactly within the tastes I have—some synth, some dance, and the kind of plaintive indie music I love. A part of me wanted to walk downstairs or leave a note, but I never reached out. I didn't want to puncture the illusion of isolation that our homes in the city give us. But the truth is, my decision wasn't without consequence. The person downstairs moved out a month or two later; the worst case scenario was that I lost a potential friend.

Beyond crying together to Sufjan Stevens albums, there are many reasons to get to know your neighbors. They're often closer than an emergency contact and could hold onto a spare key. They're a potential friend that doesn't have to travel across town to hang out. If I were to make a campaign for getting to know your neighbors, this is where I'd start.

Practice vulnerability. A simple smile or "hey how are you?" repeated over months can go a long way. You can adapt the approach to your level of social comfort. You can leave a note instead of knocking on the door, for example. Be willing to accept rejection, too. Not everyone will respond exactly the way we hope they do, but that doesn't mean losing hope.

Break the ice. Be the person who says hello first. Julie Beck and Becca Rashid talked with Pete Davis about his book, How to Talk to People. They make a good point that lots of people want to be the one who others approach. But at least half of us need to do the approaching.

Take your time. I tell the folks I work with that they can't connect with their community only in the moment they need something. It takes a while to build trust and rapport with almost anyone. We also have to start with a genuine desire to connect. Kat Vellos says that we should try to be curious in ways that are true to us without being creepy.

the practice of being in relation

I'm still reflecting on the impulse to seek out services that take away the things we don't want. The thought that there will always be someone who will take what we're tired of can excuse our drive to consume. But we can't remove the friction out of every inconvenience. It's worth taking the time to be part of a neighborhood or community rather than just living in it.

I doubt it's a coincidence that people feel so disconnected from each other. To some extent, many of us have lost the need to be close to the people around us. Society insists we only need help from our closest friends or immediate families, but that isn't true. Communities don't end at our front door. That's where they begin.