NEWS & UPDATES
New Hunger Coalition to help growing number of families in need
PORTLAND (NEWS CENTER) — A new coalition of businesses, farmers, food pantries and people who use them has formed to collectively combat the growing problem of hunger in Maine. Maine is experiencing a sad and shocking distinction: in the last few years, we’ve had the largest increase in the country in the number of families
Budget cuts in mental health care cost more over time
PORTLAND – Over the past year, we’ve seen and heard more and more media reports about police interactions with people who are mentally ill. Portland’s new police chief has publicly stated that his department’s No. 1 problem is not ethnic gangs or Old Port bar fights, but crisis calls dealing with the mentally ill. Law
Vigil for the homeless
PORTLAND – Steve Huston believes that in a nation this prosperous, no one should die because they can’t find a place to live. Yet homelessness is prevalent, including in Maine’s largest city. Huston was among 200 people who walked from Preble Street to Monument Square on Monday night for Portland’s annual memorial for homeless people
In the cruel fact of homelessness, kindness is welcome
During the last two weeks, we have used this space to highlight organizations that serve animals and children, respectively, as a way to show people how they can help the less fortunate during the holiday season. This week, the focus falls on homelessness, which becomes an even more urgent problem in the winter months. The
Maine's Homeless Take Up Call for Housing Assistance
On any given night in Maine, about 800 homeless people are lucky enough to get into shelters. But advocates say shelters have been beyond capacity for months. That means an unknown number of others are literally living on the streets. Today a few of them took up microphones at a Lewiston news conference to urge
Homeless tired of waiting for help
LEWISTON, Maine (NEWS CENTER) — People who call the streets their home are more than fed up with long waiting lists for housing assistance. Homeless advocates spoke out in Lewiston about the need for more Section 8 vouchers. Homeless Voices For Justice collected letters from the homeless throughout the state. The Christmas wishes for more
Helping The Homeless With Housing For The Holidays
Preble Street Homeless Voices For Justice is working to give hundreds of Mainers a Christmas gift they say could help change lives. The group is making a big push to get more housing vouchers for the homeless in time for Christmas. They say shelters across the state are crowded and many people have no place
Mark Swann ’84 Champions the Fight Against Homelessness in Down East
“Housing first,” a revolutionary concept for ending homelessness, offers safe, permanent housing to the chronically homeless as a first resort rather than a last-ditch effort, and then provides the services they need to treat mental illness, addictions and physical ailments. Logan Place, a collaboration between Avesta Housing and the social service agency Preble Street, is
A Clean, well-lighted place
There’s a revolution afoot to solve homelessness in America. Portland, Maine, is helping to lead the charge. How’s this for an idea: Find the thirty bleakest street cases in the city – the least loved of God’s creatures, the ones cops know by name. The ones purpled with scars, napping under loading docks, towing barges
More work needed to combat hunger in Maine
PORTLAND-One recent morning, a mother took her two young boys out for breakfast and "chose" the busiest place in town. Seventy-nine people were already standing in line, 220 more followed. It was cold and drizzly, and the boys huddled next to their mom, waiting at the Preble Street Soup Kitchen door. Heroic work happens every
Hundreds line up for new L.L. Bean store
FREEPORT(NEWS CENTER) — Hundreds of people showed up Saturday for the grand opening of the new LL Bean Home Store in Freeport. Melissa Zuk said she got to the store at 9 p.m. and was first in line for the opening. The incentive? The store was giving away gift cards to the first 500 customers.
Here's hoping…
Ask a dozen Mainers what they want as a holiday gift, and you’ll get a dozen different answers, right? Well, not this year. In this season of hope, we asked a wide variety of Mainers – a sheep farmer, a museum director, a member of Congress and others – what they would put at the
