CARRBORO — Downtown’s main drag changes from Franklin Street to Main Street at the town line, but the problem remains the same: some business owners don’t want the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service community kitchen nearby.
IFC executive director Chris Moran told the Chapel Hill Town Council last month he was consulting with architects to renovate the agency’s building at 110 W. Main St. The building already houses the IFC’s food pantry, crisis services and administrative offices. It could add the soup kitchen when the IFC moves the men’s homeless shelter out of the building it now uses at Columbia and Rosemary streets to Homestead Road in the next couple of years.
"We have to move the kitchen somewhere, and the kitchen needs to be in a downtown location somewhere," Moran said last week. "You’ve got to be where people are. That’s our job. That’s our responsibility."
Upon receiving news of Moran’s announcement, Carr Mill Mall manager Nathan Milian sent an e-mail to other downtown business owners asking them to lobby the Carrboro Board of Aldermen to stop the relocation of the soup kitchen.
"I know we want to keep this group positive and marketing oriented, but this is too potentially devastating to overlook," he wrote. "We need to start being heard by the town leaders NOW."
Reached by phone last week, Milian said some soup kitchen patrons would loiter downtown and beg his customers for money.
"I expect that it would have the same effect that it has on the businesses in downtown Chapel Hill," he said. "It’s very negative.
"If it needs to stay downtown, then keep it downtown Chapel Hill," said Milian. "I don’t think that’s the proper place for it either."
Both Milian and Moran said they want to hear from each other about potential alternative locations for the kitchen. But Moran is only interested in downtown locations and Milian is only interested in those outside downtown.
"We’ve looked for property since the year 2000," said Moran. "We’ve been doing this a long time. We’ve looked at every conceivable location you could possibly imagine. Property is at a premium price right now. ... We have no other choices.
"We own this building," he said of the Main Street location. "We would like to make it a better-looking building in downtown Carrboro. ... It will be a place where you or I or anyone else would want to go to."
The IFC aims to combine the kitchen and pantry programs under a new name: FOODFIRST.
"We’re talking about people who could lose their homes, who are hungry and need food," Moran said.