Boston to shift $2.5 million in federal funds from composting to leasing cold storage to help food pantries provide refrigerated food

The Boston City Council today unanimously approved a measure in which the city would shift federal Covid relief money originally targeted to increasing the composting of garbage to leasing a 5,500-square-food cold-storage facility to give food pantries and soup kitchens a central place to store refrigerated foods - including food "rescued" from restaurants and markets.

City Councilor Gabriela Coletta (East Boston, Charlestown, North End), said city officials realized they're not going to be able to build out the extra compositing systems to handle more garbage before the federal grant runs out in 2026.

In contrast, she said, the city has a chance now to lease a large cold-storage facility that Amazon is giving up on Northampton Street to solve a problem getting meat and vegetables to residents who need them: Food pantries and organizations such as ABCD and the YMCA, which distribute food to people who may not be getting enough to eat, sometimes face delays in deliveries of refrigerated food for redistribution, which means they might not have the food in time for their once-weekly - or even less frequent - distribution days.

With their own central food repository, though, the groups that run the programs could be assured they could pick up food they were promised on time for the days they are open.

"This is huge, this is transformative," Coletta said, calling on her colleagues to pass a measure approving the change in the use of the $2.5 million immediately, so that the city could sign a lease before the landlord rents the space to somebody else.

Proposals typically go to a council committee for study first, but Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson (Roxbury) said there was just no time for that, because the cold-storage space might otherwise not only be rented to somebody else, but have the refrigeration system dismantled.

City Councilor Ed Flynn (South Boston, South End, Chinatown, Downtown), who has tried to put the brakes on such suspension of normal council rules, at least for measures he doesn't support, said that he supported immediate passage of this measure.

Flynn recalled the generations of problems Irish immigrants had because of their own lack of food security after the Great Famine of the 1840s and said he agreed residents deserve good nutrition. He said in addition to remembering the Irish, he has seen residents in his district, in particular in Chinatown, "who go without nutritional meals because they don't have the money."