PORTLAND, Maine (NEWS CENTER) — Young people in Portland with no place to stay have a new shelter to turn to.

The Joe Kreisler Teen Shelter has twenty-four beds, eight more than the current Lighthouse Shelter. It was also designed to be a shelter, so the teens will have more personal space, with areas to do homework or meet privately with staff members. Teens who have stayed at the Lighthouse Shelter say the new shelter provides a level of comfort most of us take for granted.

“I mean, you walk in here and you see a bunch of beds and things like that, and you think, ‘Oh this is nice,'” former teen shelter client Crystal Swain said. “But for us? Because it’s clean, it’s large and everything else like that, it’s like, oh my God, it’s the most exciting thing in the world!”

There are four hundred young people taking advantage of Preble Street’s services every year.