The Open Door Soup Kitchen in Glens Falls serves more than 60,000 meals a year, but because the building it sits in is scheduled to be demolished, the kitchen's board members need to find a new home. As our North Country Bureau Reporter Matt Hunter explains, that task is proving to be a challenge.

  To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

GLENS FALLS, N.Y. – "I live on a controlled income, it's not a lot,” said Alphonse Mark, who volunteers and eats a few meals a week at the Open Door Soup Kitchen in Glens Falls. “It helps me so I can eat every day."

"I was drug and alcohol dependent,” said Troy Ross, another volunteer. “And just from being here, that alone helped me out."

Located on the ground floor of the Madden Hotel, the Open Door Soup Kitchen has been serving meals since 1991. Because the hotel is scheduled to be demolished, board members needed to find a new home by the end of the month. They thought they had until the city planning board voted down their bid to move to the former Home for Aging Women on Warren Street.

"It was a tremendous surprise,” said Bruce Hersey, the Open Door’s executive director. “Because we had met with the city officials ahead of time to go through what problems there were on the site plan and what problems would come up and that definitely did not surface."

The Home for Aging Women is located in a residential neighborhood. In addition to the soup kitchen, board members planned to have a 30 bed homeless shelter there.

The unanimous decision from the Planning Board came after neighbors circulated a petition asking the city to reject the move.

"I have five children, I do not want it in my area if there's going to be child molesters in the area," said Wilbert Sutphin, who lives roughly a block from the site.

"There would be a lot of stealing, a lot of people going up to people, causing trouble, trying to break in, grabbing kids,” said Dawn Bailey, who lives on Warren Street with her four grandchildren. “We just don't need it."

Glens Falls Mayor Jack Diamond has publicly criticized the Planning Board's decision.

Hersey says rooms would not have been given to sex offenders had the deal been approved. He says limited services will temporarily be offered at three local churches, but they'll no longer be able to meet the growing need.

"It doesn't matter the cause of the decision that took place, people are going to get hurt and that's the thing that bothers me," Hersey said.

“I can see where they’re coming from, but it is a little insulting,” Mark said.

"They're trying to stereotype everybody here because of other people out there,” Ross said. “It's not fair."