The Benton Harbor Soup Kitchen has been notified they must leave their current location and they have just two months to find a new place to operate. Board President K.C. Gast says the Salvation Army owns the Soup Kitchen’s current location at 233 Michigan Street — the former YMCA building — and he was notified about two weeks ago of the lease termination. He says he understands the Salvation Army’s position because the building is over 100 years old and in need of major repairs.

“At some point somebody, in this case the Salvation Army, had to make the decision, ‘Do we put millions and millions into this building and try and keep this landmark afloat for a while longer? Or would that money be better spent on helping people?’ And they made the right call.”

What the operators of the Soup Kitchen will do next is unclear. Gast says they have the resources to buy and build a new facility but finding available property with the right zoning in downtown Benton Harbor has become an ongoing challenge. He says a soup kitchen isn’t something you can just move to the outskirts of town, either, because then you leave the clientele behind.

“We are unique in that respect because we provide a place for social gathering. And a lot of our guests desperately need that. Without that peace, without the opportunity to sit down and talk to other people who are not going to judge them, who are not going to in any way hassle them, they run into problems. They need that socialization. So we feed people and we provide them a safe, warm, dry place to gather.”

The Soup Kitchen was started by Saint Joseph Catholic in 1980. Gast says they’ve been serving an estimated 40 to 50-thousand meals a year. Gast says he’s actively following a couple of leads and is hopeful one will become their new home.