Cambridge to contract with local restaurants to help feed the homeless during the present crisis

Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui and City Manager Louis. DePasquale announced today they're signing contracts with several restaurants in Harvard and Central squares to cook meals for the city's homeless population, at a time when local homeless shelters are having trouble with staffing for own kitchens.

The restaurants will prepare bagged or boxed lunches for delivery to local shelters, the officials said.

The Central Square Business Improvement District (BID) and the Harvard Square Business Association are identifying restaurants in their Squares that can help provide meals to the shelters in need of food next week. The city will then be seeking to identify additional restaurants for contracts and meals beyond next week.

If restaurants are interested in supporting this initiative by providing individual hot and/or cold bagged or boxed meals for distribution to the homeless population at various locations, they should contact the City of Cambridge’s Purchasing Department at [email protected] by Monday, March 23 at 9 a.m. Once the city has a list of interested vendors, the Purchasing Department will send the vendors who inquire a formal solicitation of quotes for them to submit prices to Purchasing.