NEWS & UPDATES
Celebrate the 50th anniversary of Preble Street! Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Please join us to honor and celebrate the 50th anniversary of Preble Street! GATHER with supporters, former and current staff, volunteers, partner organizations, and community members to CELEBRATE all that we have accomplished in the last 50 years to find solutions for homelessness and hunger in Maine. This event is free to attend. Advance registration is requested. EVERYONE
TAKE ACTION TO KEEP ALL PORTLAND SHELTERS OPEN
Updated – May 1, 2025, at 4:06pm Preble Street is asking Portland residents to reach out to the City Council and urge them to support the City Manager’s recommended FY26 budget which calls for no cuts to municipal services through ‘the use of $8.8M in Fund Balance.’ And, we also ask the Council to reject
Feeding Maine sustainably
Climate change affects everyone, but people living in poverty — especially people living outside — are most vulnerable to rising temperatures, natural disasters, and global threats to food security. Sustainability is built in at the Preble Street Food Security Hub (FSH), where we address urgent food security needs. The Food Security Hub is currently undergoing
Betty: A volunteer’s story
Betty Haymon has been volunteering at Preble Street every month for 25 years. In the summer of 2000, she signed up to do the breakfast shift at the Resource Center Soup Kitchen on the first Saturday of each month. Shortly after, she was given a tour of the Teen Center and told that their kitchen
Medicaid: a lifeline for Mainers
For more than 400,000 Mainers, Medicaid (also known as MaineCare) is a vital support that helps people stay healthy, housed, and fed. Whether it’s someone managing a chronic illness, a parent struggling to make ends meet, or an individual experiencing homelessness, Medicaid helps keep people from slipping further into crisis. But proposed cuts and new
Preble Street Volunteers are #CompassionInAction
For 50 years, volunteers have been a key part of Preble Street, helping ensure that the agency is able to meet the basic human rights of Mainers. In fact, the agency was staffed solely by student interns and volunteers for its first 10 years! Today, over 1,500 volunteers contribute 20,000 hours of service each year.
Maine Needs and Preble Street Announce Partnership to Help More Mainers Meet their Basic Needs
Preble Street is excited to announce a new partnership with Maine Needs that will support both organizations’ goal to meet the basic needs of Mainers experiencing homelessness or who have recently moved out of homelessness. As of April 18, 2025, Preble Street will no longer accept individual in-kind, non-food donations. All clothing, hygiene, and household
TAKE ACTION TODAY: Ensure Mainers stay housed and can access basic needs
General Assistance is a statewide program that helps Mainers in crisis meet basic needs. This temporary, emergency relief program is administered by municipalities across the state, and serves as a last resort for people facing extreme hardship, allowing them to afford food, diapers, medicine, rent, heat, electricity, or other necessities. TAKE ACTION This Monday, April 7,
Five Years Later: How Preble Street’s Response to COVID-19 Shaped Its Future
During our 50 years in operation, Preble Street has had to adapt to changing needs and a shifting landscape many times. Never was this truer than in the days, months, and years that followed March 16, 2020. Five years ago this month, while the world was urged to stay home, a question loomed over staff
Food Is a Human Right: Protecting Access to Nutrition in Maine
In honor of National Nutrition Month, we take a look at the emergency food system in Maine. Food pantries and anti-hunger non-profits like Preble Street play an important role in ensuring people experiencing food insecurity have consistent access to healthy and nutritious food. Since opening in 1975, Preble Street has worked to ensure that everyone
50 years of Compassion in Action – 20 years of 24/7 supportive housing
“I feel like I’ve got a new lease on life. I can now heal. I can stretch out these last years a bit,spend time with my mother and my daughter.” – Logan Place Tenant 20 years ago, on March 24, 2005, Preble Street and Avesta Housing opened Logan Place, the first permanent supportive housing program
TAKE ACTION TODAY: Help keep Maine’s emergency shelters open and accessible
Maine’s 41 emergency shelters are at capacity almost every night and still struggling to meet the growing need with current state funding levels. According to a recent study by MaineHousing, it costs an average of $102 a night to operate a shelter bed in Maine (including administration, staff, and support services). Currently, emergency shelters only receive $7
