Batavia providing temporary home for interfaith food pantry
The Batavia Interfaith Food Pantry and Clothes Closet will soon have to leave its longtime home.
But the city of Batavia has arranged for a temporary replacement, and will help pay the rent.
The city council Tuesday agreed to rent space at 431 N. Raddant Road, in an industrial park on the east side of the city, for two years. The base rent for two years is $162,139. The pantry will pay half that.
The food pantry opened in 1981 and has been in a small city-owned building at 100 Flinn St., next to the sewage treatment plant, for 31 years. The city didn't charge rent, and paid for electricity and water. Nicor picked up the gas bill.
The city has been expanding the plant for several years. Construction on the next phase starts in October, and requires razing the pantry building.
The move to Raddant will put the pantry closer to many of its clients, who live in the Batavia Apartments at Kirk Road and Wilson Street. Eighty-eight percent of the complex's apartments are reserved for subsidized housing, where tenants pay no more than 30% of their adjusted income for rent.
City and pantry officials have been looking for a new home for the pantry since 2017. The pantry lost an outdoor area, where it processed food donations, conducted immunization clinics and hosted job fairs, when the sewage treatment plant project began in 2018. At times, the clothes closet has stored off-season clothing at other sites.
In 2021, the city considered buying a building next to the public works facility on Raddant. Besides housing the pantry, the building would have provided storage for an annual Christmastime toy drive, the Retired Senior Volunteer Program and CHIP-In Batavia, a charity that aids students in the Batavia school district.
It also would have provided storage for the public works department, but the plan fell through.
The city has been approved for a $3 million federal grant to buy and renovate a permanent home for the pantry. However, the grant money cannot be used to rent the temporary space, City Administrator Laura Newman said.
City and pantry officials continue to seek a permanent new home for the pantry.