NEWS & UPDATES
Baldacci to Serve Up Spaghetti to Help Preble Street
Baldacci says he wants to help fill the financial gap created when the Catholic church pulled its funding from the program over the same sex marriage issue. Gov. John Baldacci will be serving up some spaghetti next week in Portland to raise some money for Preble Street, a program that helps the homeless. Recently, the Catholic
Florence House offers what homeless women need most
There are a lot of factors that work together to make someone chronically homeless. Someone may have a mental illness, a physical disability or addiction to alcohol or drugs. But the undeniable common factor is that they don’t have a home. For a group of women who have been long-term homeless residents of the city,
Donors help Preble Street replace funds revoked by diocese
PORTLAND – Gay activists from around the nation are sending checks to Preble Street to replace funding that the Catholic Church withdrew from the agency’s Homeless Voices for Justice program. The agency’s director said that since Wednesday, about 150 new donors have given nearly $10,000 to Preble Street, which provides a range of services to
Florence House ready to serve homeless women
PORTLAND, Maine (NEWS CENTER) — Advocates for the homeless are excited about the opening of a new permanent home set to open to serve the needs of homeless women in Portland. Florence House, a collaboration between Avesta Housing and the Preble Street Resource Center, took five year to plan and build and cost nearly $8
Samaritan didn't need preconditions
When you’re taught by the Roman Catholic nuns and brothers, you hear a lot of parables over the years. But decades later, I still remember one by heart. It’s the story of the Good Samaritan. According to the Gospel of Luke, it all started one day when a lawyer-type questioned Jesus on the commandment that
Diocese penalizes homeless aid group
PORTLAND – A social service agency’s support for same-sex marriage has cost it local and national funding from the Catholic Church’s anti-poverty program. Preble Street’s Homeless Voices for Justice program has lost $17,400 this year and will lose $33,000 that it expected for its next fiscal year. Officials with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland
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
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
