North Bay soup kitchen pauses work in Sturgeon Falls due to lack of funding

North Bay's soup kitchen, The Gathering Place, is pausing its outreach service to West Nipissing due to a severe lack of funding and the loss of its outreach services kitchen used to cook food.

Staff would normally serve around 700 meals a week for the town's homeless and others who need a meal.

"Is it heartbreaking? Absolutely it's heartbreaking for us,” said executive director Dennis Chippa.

“We know people wouldn't be taking the meals if they didn't need them."

Staff had some previous funding from the United Way, other grants and donations to kick-start its outreach services for West Nipissing in 2021. It used a separate kitchen, apart from its hub on Cassells Street, to prepare those meals.

In the past few years, the organization saw the need to ramp up its outreach in North Bay’s surrounding areas.

But a problem arose. The lease in that kitchen expired and there's not enough funding to continue to support the program.

"I have to constantly worry about funding. We are still a donation-based agency,” said Chippa.

“It's simply that we don't have enough funding to support that kind of program right now."

The team is working with the District of Nipissing Social Services Administration Board (DNSSAB) to secure a new kitchen location sometime in the New Year.

Even if that happens, the outreach likely won’t be back up and running until the spring.

The Gathering Place executive director Dennis Chippa said the decision was 'heartbreaking.' (Eric Taschner/CTV News)

"We know rural food insecurity is a crisis and it's a critical crisis right now,” Chippa said.

The cost to run the outreach program to Sturgeon Falls is around $100,000. Some work will continue in North Bay and likely for Nipissing First Nation and Dokis First Nation. But that will only be in a limited capacity.

"We're a local soup kitchen but we have to make sure we keep the doors open,” Chippa said.

A grassroots organization called ‘No More Tears West Nipissing’ knows that, through interaction, there are at least 20-26 people living on the streets in the town and that these people rely heavily on the outreach service for their food.

"I think the need is going to be quite bigger," said the organization’s chairperson Josee Rainville.

Some have found a vacant parking lot on Coursol Road to pitch their tents.

Some of the homeless have found a vacant parking lot on Coursol Road to pitch their tents. (Eric Taschner/CTV News)

The organization runs its own soup kitchen out of Our Lady of Sorrows Church. That meal service only runs every second and fourth Wednesday of each month.

The group is holding a meeting to discuss solutions.

"I hope that maybe we can open the soup kitchen once a week to fill that need,” she said.

Chippa estimates at least 150 people in West Nipissing rely on their outreach services.

The Gathering Place staff are also working with the town’s paramedics to give out meals should they be needed when they are dispatched. This will be done at their discretion.

Meanwhile, West Nipissing Mayor Kathleen Thorne Rochon said she will be meeting with DNSSAB board chair Mark King and its acting CEO next week to have further discussions on homelessness in the community.

• Download our app to get local alerts on your device
• Get the latest local updates right to your inbox

“We do not have the resources in West Nipissing to properly serve unsheltered individuals, who often have complex needs and multiple barriers to stable housing,” she wrote in a statement to CTV News.

“These specialized services, provided by DNSSAB, are all based in North Bay. We need increased support from DNSSAB to provide qualified outreach to those in need in our community that successfully connects people to the services that are available.”