Cambridge (MA) To Pay Restaurants To Make Meals For Homeless People

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Cambridge To Pay Restaurants To Make Meals For Homeless People
March 23, 2020
Adrian Ma

As Greater Boston's economy downshifts help contain the spread of the coronavirus, among the many groups of people feeling the pain are restaurant workers and people experiencing homelessness.

Starting Monday, the city is launching a program that will pay local restaurants to make and deliver boxed or bagged lunches to nearby homeless shelters. Working with Central Square Business Improvement District and Harvard Square Business Association, the goal is to deliver about 1,800 to 2,000 meals to nine different shelters by the end of this week.

In more normal times, local homeless shelters often rely on nearby restaurants to donate food, and on outside volunteers to help with food prep. But the city and statewide shutdowns have disrupted that system.

"Many of the programs were both down staff and had a reduced number of volunteers, which made providing meals to their guests much more complicated," said Ellen Semonoff, Cambridge's assistant city manager for human services.

“By contracting with local restaurants in Central and Harvard Square, where a large majority of homeless programs are located, we are able to minimize delivery challenges, and facilitate the availability of both hot and cold meals to shelters and other sites in both Squares," Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui and City Manager Louis DePasquale said in a statement announcing the initiative.

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https://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2020/03/23/cambridge-restaurants-paid-homeless-meals?fbclid=IwAR1RVwSbvImqYmswD3XCX_mDtYWQpNzn1F62ha-9dKnx3NXNHXQ0EIM7oOk