Unsafe soil delays plans for new Oshawa soup kitchen

An Oshawa-based charity says it is indefinitely pushing back plans for its new, accessible soup kitchen after a contractor discovered the land it’s supposed to be built on may not be safe.

Durham Outlook says its contractor has discovered an oil tank in the soil of the Simcoe Street South plot of land. It has since spent most of its saved money remediating the soil, and they need $300,000 more to finish the job.

“It’s going to cost half-a-million dollars to do this,” said Roger Ramkissoon, the president of the organization, “and we don’t get funding from any level of government.”

This comes after another contractor, which Ramkissoon says was hired by the last organization on the land, Midas, told the nonprofit that the land was safe. Durham Outlook says it is considering legal action against this firm. Global News reached out to this company and it said it could not confirm which clients it has taken on and cannot discuss private cases.

The Durham Outlook team broke ground on the new land last fall, and Ramkissoon says he had expected to be moving into the new spot by this summer. But, the dug-up spot remains filled with dirt and dust, and there hasn’t been any work on building the actual structure.

He says up to 200 people use St. Vincent’s kitchen every day at its current location at King Street East and Albert Street, but he is hoping more people visit its new kitchen because it will be more accessible, as it’s on flat land.

The kitchen is now in the basement of the building, and Oshawa resident Brenda Nakashima, who says she relies on soup kitchens for her meals, say it’s difficult to walk up and down using her cane. “It’s… scary,” said Nakashima, who has arthritis. “The stairs are too narrow.”

St. Vincent’s kitchen supervisor Donna Marks says the organization wants the public to donate what they can so the charity can finish the groundwork and start building. “We want to reach out to the community in Oshawa and beyond because they’ve been very supportive of us for 27 years,” she said. “Now, we need their support to help us raise the additional funds.”