Maine
‘You can’t wait for perfect’: Portland mixes care, crackdown in homeless crisis – The Boston Globe
But where some outreach workers see peril, Dion sees a positive.
“I’m pretty proud of it,” he said of the city’s response, including opening a new, 258-bed shelter, which city officials said had absorbed many of the homeless evicted from the camps. “Some of the nonprofit world wanted a perfect answer, but you can’t wait for perfect.”
Crackdowns against homeless encampments have gained momentum in New England, after the Supreme Court ruled in June that communities can enforce bans on sleeping on public property. This month, the Brockton and Lowell city councils banned unauthorized camping on public property, joining Boston, Fall River, and Salem with some form of prohibition.
In Portland, the parks are now cleaner, but the underlying problems of homelessness remain, social workers said.
“The research is pretty clear that sweeps don’t work. We’re not supportive of the encampments, either; they’re awful places,” said Mark Swann, executive director of Preble Street. “But poverty is complex, and solutions to poverty and homelessness are complex, and people like the black and white.”
After the evictions, some of the homeless found shelter and a broad range of care at the $25 million homeless services center, which opened in March 2023 on the outskirts of the city, about 5 miles from downtown. About 15 to 20 beds are available each day, city officials said, but a far greater number of homeless are sleeping downtown and elsewhere.
The 53,000-square-foot complex contains a health clinic, dental services, storage lockers, mental health counseling, and meeting rooms for caseworkers, as well as three meals a day, laundry facilities, and shuttles that take clients to and from downtown, where other social-service providers are located.
“This place saved my life,” said Michael Smith, 33, an Army veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, who had been sleeping next to a heating vent outside City Hall before he moved to the shelter.
Clients can leave whenever they choose, but many remain for days or weeks while matches with hard-to-find housing are sought for them. No identification is required, and people are accepted even if under the influence, but substance use is not tolerated on site.
“We’ll serve 1,300 to 1,400 unduplicated individuals in a year,” said Aaron Geyer, the city’s director of social services. “I’m incredibly proud of the space we have. It had been a long time coming.”
City spokesperson Jessica Grondin said the number of homeless on the streets is smaller than the number evicted from the camps.
“Most have gone to the shelter,” Grondin said. “We will have a warming shelter in place this winter when the temperatures get to a certain level,” she added, and “outreach workers will encourage these folks to go there for the night.”
The city’s previous shelter, located downtown, had used beds and floor mats, some placed about 12 to 16 inches apart, to accommodate 154 people. In addition to the new facility, Portland operates a family shelter with 146 beds, and a space with 179 beds used by asylum seekers.
David George Delancey, 62, a former truck driver, has been living at Portland’s upgraded shelter for more than a year. “This is probably the best place to be if you want to be safe,” he said.
Delancey is still looking for housing, which Swann, of Preble Street, said is increasingly unaffordable and has contributed to the dramatic escalation of Portland’s homelessness.
“There was a time not that long ago, about seven years ago, when it was extremely rare in Greater Portland to see somebody sleeping outside,” Swann said. “There were eight or nine nonprofits running shelters along with the city at that time, and a really robust planning mechanism. That stopped on a dime.”
Under former governor Paul LePage, the state cut its reimbursement rate for general-assistance funding, which communities can use for shelter costs, to 70 percent from 90 percent, Swann said. For Portland, a tourist destination with a lively food and arts scene, that decrease squeezed its ability to serve the homeless, he added.
“People do not disappear when you do not shelter them, and almost overnight dozens and dozens of people could not find a safe place to sleep with a roof over their heads,” Swann said.
Other reasons for the spike included the mass social disruptions caused by COVID, a shortage of housing vouchers, and a steep rise in Portland’s cost of living. The city’s real-estate prices, including rents, have soared along with an increase in gentrification.
A point-in-time survey in January 2023 by MaineHousing, an independent state agency, found 4,258 people were homeless in Maine, a nearly fourfold increase over the 1,097 who were recorded in 2021.
“The other big challenge is that Maine has a serious opioid problem, one of the highest per-capita rates in the nation,” said Andew Bove, vice president of social work at Preble Street, which has 108 beds at three shelters in the city. “Many of the people we see sleeping out, a high percentage, have opioid-use disorder.”
Opioid fatalities have declined in Portland this year, to 14 deaths through October compared with 39 through October 2023, according to police statistics. But nonfatal overdoses have increased, to 459 from 399 over the same period.
Dion said opioid use in the camps, and its related safety concerns, were important drivers of the decision to raze them.
“There was a lot of violence and exploitation directed against women in that population,” as well as theft in abutting neighborhoods, said Dion, who was elected to the City Council in 2020. “It went from being incidental to dominating the landscape of the city. At City Hall, it sucked the oxygen from every other issue.”
On the streets, the homeless continue to congregate during the day, primarily in the Bayside neighborhood, which is home to several social service providers.
Matt Brown, who founded an outreach group called Hope Squad, said it’s painfully apparent that more needs to be done, especially with winter approaching.
“I see people here, and I can almost see putting them in a [body] bag,” said Brown, a former federal parole officer, as he walked through Bayside recently.
“The uncertainty of what’s going to happen in the next few months is really scary,” he added. “Your garden-variety citizen doesn’t know exactly what’s going on.”
Brian MacQuarrie can be reached at brian.macquarrie@globe.com.
A woman died Monday after a fire on East Main Street in Fort Kent.
Woman Died after Fire in Fort Kent
Fort Kent Fire and Rescue said “Upon arrival, Chief Pelletier was unable to confirm that all tenants of the apartment building were accounted for.”
Fire at the Front of the Building and Second Floor
Firefighters battled the blaze at the front of the building and another crew attacked the second floor.
First Floor Fire Put Out
The fire on the first floor was quickly extinguished.
Crews Learned Someone was Still in the Building
Crews got information that there was someone inside the building.
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Woman was Located in the Building and First Responders Tried Resuscitation
“Shortly thereafter, firefighters located a civilian victim and rescued her, unfortunately resuscitation efforts by ASI and Fort Kent firefighters were unsuccessful,” said Chief Pelletier with Fort Kent Fire and Rescue.
Maine Fire Marshal’s Office Investigating the Cause of the Fire
The Maine Fire Marshal’s Office responded to the scene and is investigating the cause of the fire.
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Name and Age Not Released Pending Family Notification
The woman’s name and age were not released pending notification of the family.
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Multiple Agencies Responded and Assisted with the Fire
Assisting Fort Kent Fire and Rescue were the Eagle Lake Fire Department, ASI, Fort Kent Public Works and the Red Cross.
LOOK: Are These 16 Classic American Meals Finally Making a Comeback?
From casserole-night favorites to full-on beige-on-beige comfort, these American dinners fell out of fashion — but could they be on their way back?
Gallery Credit: Stephen Lenz
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How many of these over-the-top ’80s candies — sweet, sour, and sometimes downright ridiculous — do you remember from your childhood?
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If you’re gluten-free or have celiac disease, you know the feeling: sometimes you just want what everyone else is eating. Wings, fries, pizza, those classic comfort foods that can often feel off-limits. Thankfully, Maine is really starting to show up for the gluten-free community. More restaurants are adding gluten-free options to their menus, and even better, more places are investing in separate fryers to help keep us safe.
One local favorite that deserves a reminder is 104 Main Public House in Topsham. They’ve been serving gluten-free wings, pizza, and fries for quite a while, but it’s worth highlighting again because they do it right. Their menu includes gluten-free wings and gluten-free pizza options, and they are known for accommodating gluten-free diners.
As someone who has personally eaten their wings, I can confidently say they’re delicious and I’ve always felt safe ordering them. Knowing they have a dedicated fryer makes all the difference when you’re navigating celiac disease and trying to enjoy a meal without worrying about cross-contact.
The real question is: are you a ranch or blue cheese person? Do you go for classic BBQ or are you all about the hot wings? Either way, if you’ve been craving crispy, flavorful wings this summer, 104 Main should be at the top of your list.
It’s great to see more Maine restaurants making gluten-free dining easier, and tastier, for all of us.
8 of the Best and Most Cozy Portland, Maine, Cafes
Gallery Credit: Allyssa Marson
12 Things That Absolutely Surprise People When They First Visit Maine
Let’s chat about the things that shock you when you visit the great Pine Tree state.
Gallery Credit: Lizzy Snyder
Pilots of the Atlantic Explorer, which lifted off from Presque Isle Thursday in a quest to make the first trans-Atlantic crossing by hydrogen balloon, smile after heading out over the open ocean Friday. From left are Alicia Hempleman-Adams, Bert Padelt and Peter Cuneo. (Courtesy of Peter Cuneo)
Days after Bert Padelt completed a history-making 2,852-mile balloon journey from Maine to Europe across the Atlantic Ocean, the whole experience still felt like a blur.
The closet-sized basket where he and his co-pilots endured torrential rain, snow and freezing temperatures was packed up, its voluminous canopy deflated, but the world record-holding American balloon builder couldn’t believe he had finally accomplished a lifelong dream.
“I kept waking up thinking, did this really happen?” Padelt said in an interview with the Bangor Daily News from Luxembourg, where the Atlantic Explorer landed on June 7. “It’s now starting to sink in, and it has turned out better than I ever thought it would.”
Padelt — who is from Pennsylvania — alongside fellow American Peter Cuneo and British explorer Alicia Hempleman-Adams, are now the first people to cross an ocean in a hydrogen-powered open-basket balloon, and just the 20th team ever to mount a successful trans-Atlantic balloon flight.
The trio spent more than 70 hours in the air after taking off from a Presque Isle field early June 4, traveling as fast as 90 miles an hour and as high as 25,000 feet as they navigated strong winds and a storm above the open ocean. They set down near the city of Diekirch in northeastern Luxembourg on a “very peaceful” morning, a stark contrast to the conditions they had faced earlier.
“It was almost like we were on another flight altogether,” Padelt said. “You could hear birds chirping, roosters crowing, cows mooing. You saw fog in the valleys, which was indicating calm winds. Our final hour in the air was an extremely peaceful, wonderful moment.”
The Atlantic Explorer set off from Presque Isle after hours of delays from high winds. The delay prevented the team from getting ahead of bad weather that would catch up to them later, Padelt speculated.
The first day went well, he said. All their equipment functioned perfectly and the balloon flew well. The team crossed New Brunswick, then Prince Edward Island over the first 12 hours, surpassing where the Atlantic Explorer had been forced down in its previous two attempts due to bad weather and a gas leak.
By that evening, they cleared Cape Breton Island and headed for Newfoundland, the last landmass before the open ocean. A few hours later, Padelt, Cuneo and Hempleman-Adams committed to the crossing and ventured out over the Atlantic.
Atmospheric conditions on the second day meant the team had to drop more ballast — jettisoning sand bags from the basket to gain altitude — than they wanted to.
“We basically knocked off two days of duration [of] ballast,” Padelt said. “But the saving grace is we knew that the speed was going to pick up, so we weren’t all that concerned.”
Then came the storm.
“It was a surprise,” Padelt said. “We knew the weather was there with the hopes that it was going to be south of us.”
With little more than a thin rain cover, the Atlantic Explorer battled heavy precipitation through the night. It rose into the clouds, where temperatures dropped as low as 17 degrees below zero and snow built up on top of the balloon, forcing it to sink. The snow turned to rain and then the process repeated itself.
“This continued probably for about four hours or so,” Padelt said. “But when the sun came up, it was a bright blue sky above us and [the storm] was beyond us.”
The pilots had projected a successful flight would take four to six days averaging around 35 miles per hour. But as the wind picked up and the sun beat down on the balloon the morning after the storm, the Explorer topped 90 miles per hour. The balloon crossed the open Atlantic Ocean in approximately 37 hours.
They passed over the beaches of Normandy along the French coast on the evening of June 6, the 82nd anniversary of the D-Day invasion, when the Allied forces used hydrogen powered barrage balloons to prevent German aircraft from attacking their position from a low altitude.
They flew inland overnight, crossing into Luxembourg as the sun rose on June 7, and landed in a field.
Besides being the first hydrogen-powered trans-Atlantic trip, the journey set a world distance record for the size and type of balloon. Hempleman-Adams, once the youngest person ever to visit the North Pole, also became the first woman to cross the Atlantic in a gas-powered balloon, and the second to do so in any type of balloon.
The balloon’s chase team reached the site within an hour. That group included Padelt’s wife, Joanie, with whom he built the Atlantic Explorer.
“All the times I’ve been thinking about this flight and how I wanted it to end, I wanted it to end with a stand-up landing with my wife there to see the balloon,” Padelt said. “The odds of that are very slim when you think about how far you’re flying … but as it turned out, it worked. And so when she arrived, there were some strong emotions, for sure.”
Members of the Cercle Luxembourgeois de l’Aérostation, a nearby balloon club, also arrived to help the crew deflate and pack up the balloon.
As their successful crossing drew attention, the royal family of Luxembourg invited the group to the Palais Grand-Ducal — the country’s royal palace. Padelt, Cuneo and the chase team met with the Grand Duke Henri, whom they presented with one of their final two bags of ballast from the flight.
“He was very, very interested in the flight and how it turned out,” Padelt said. “He was asking quite a few questions and so forth and went to great efforts to welcome us to Luxembourg.”
The crew headed back to the U.S. on Thursday, capping off an adventure Padelt had dreamt of since he was awed by the first trans-Atlantic balloon flight. That balloon, the Double Eagle II, launched from Presque Isle in 1978.
As the Atlantic Explorer took off from the same city last week, hidden in the canopy was a 1978 silver dollar, both a good luck charm and an homage to the Double Eagle II, as a new group of balloonists made history.
“I knew it would be hard. So there were no surprises,” Padelt said. “But the sense of reward afterwards is exactly the feeling I was looking for.”
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