Florence House to open doors for homeless women

PORTLAND – For the past three years, the closest thing to home for Shellie Duncan has been a folding cot in a corner of the community room at Preble Street, a social service agency in downtown Portland. And that was a step up from her previous “home,” a floor mat at the city’s Oxford Street … Read more

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 … Read more

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 … Read more

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 … Read more

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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 … Read more

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 … Read more

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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 … Read more

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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 … Read more

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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 … Read more

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 … Read more