Iqaluit (July 24/06) - Dozens of homeless and hungry in Iqaluit were left without a daily meal last week after the city's soup kitchen shut down because it's out of money.

The kitchen is run by the local Anglican church. Archdeacon John Tyrrell said the kitchen owes food wholesalers money and can't cut its costs any further.

Archdeacon John Tyrrell stands among empty tables in Iqaluit's soup kitchen that would normally be bustling on a Wednesday lunch hour. The kitchen is closed for the time being after the city cut its budget by half. - Chris Windeyer/NNSL photo

City council voted July 18 to grant the soup kitchen $59,000 in funding, which is less than half of the $120,000 it needs, Tyrrell said, though he reckons the kitchen could get by on $85,000 to $90,000.

"(Fifty-nine thousand dollars) is not enough to run the program," he said. "Plan B right now is we're shut down."

The soup kitchen is funded under a federal program to combat homelessness that saw its Iqaluit funding drop from $1.2 million last year to $450,000. That left the Niksiit committee, which oversees the city's social services, with little room to manoeuvre.

"There's a need, unfortunately," Gillis said of the soup kitchen. "The Niksiit Committee is trying to fill the needs of the community."

Mayor Elisapee Sheutiapik wasn't available for comment.

Tyrrell said the soup kitchen serves anywhere from 45 to 65 people a day, seven days a week. When he took a reporter to visit the downtown building on Wednesday, a handful of people came by looking for a lunchtime meal. Tyrrell turned them away with a heavy sigh.

"There will always be a core of needy, unemployable people here, as there are everywhere, and those are the people I'm most worried about," he said. "The core of that group is going to go hungry."

Before the budget cuts, the kitchen operated seven days per week, year round. Tyrrell said the kitchen may have to limit its operation to the coldest winter months.

The current building near the Royal Canadian Legion is donated by the Qikiqtaaluk Corporation but lacks a proper kitchen.

Tyrrell envisions a permanent site that's big enough to rent out as a multipurpose room to provide counselling and skills training. But those plans are now on hold.

- with a report from Derek Neary