
The exterior of the Homeless Services Center in Portland is pictured in 2023. Members of an Augusta task force heard Tuesday from a Portland city official who said the new shelter has been a success. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald file
AUGUSTA — City officials may develop a homeless shelter model similar to one used in Portland to bring people in off the streets and into safe housing.
Augusta’s new homeless task force on Tuesday hosted a Portland official to hear about how services in Maine’s largest city have helped people escape homelessness in the long term.

A proposal to convert the Green Street United Methodist Church building in Augusta into a comprehensive facility to help homeless people was rejected last year, highlighting the challenges that arise when a city attempts to site a new shelter. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal file
They also discussed their concern with a proposal from Gov. Janet Mills to limit the amount of time someone can receive General Assistance for housing, saying that it could pull the rug out from under people before they’ve found stability, and allow them to fall back into homelessness.
Members of the Augusta Task Force on Homelessness members noted the opposition a 40-bed homeless shelter proposed at the Green Street United Methodist Church in Augusta prompted from neighbors and downtown business owners. Michael Frett, a city councilor in Hallowell, said the task force has found it challenging to find a place for a homeless shelter that both meets requirements — including being near other services and accessible by homeless people — and is accepted by neighbors.
Frett asked Aaron Geyer, social services director for the city of Portland, how Portland was able to site the Homeless Services Center in Riverton in 2023.
Geyer said before selecting the site for a new homeless shelter, officials looked at city-owned parcels of land that met certain criteria, including being accessible by public transportation, and then worked hard to engage residents of the area where the shelter was ultimately located.
An advisory committee to the shelter includes members of the business community and residents, and meets regularly to try to immediately address any neighborhood or other concerns about the shelter, which opened with 208 beds but has since expanded to 258. Geyer said the shelter averages 96-98% capacity and has brought in numerous people who used to camp in tents around the city.
The shelter, which receives funding from the city of Portland, is open 24-7, year round. It offers services meant to help clients find permanent housing and address substance use and physical and mental health problems, and has an average stay of 62 days, Geyer said.

People tour the men’s dormitory at the Homeless Services Center in Portland in March 2023. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald file
Rep. Traci Gere, D-Kennebunkport, House chairwoman of the Legislature’s newly formed Housing and Economic Development Committee, said leadership from city officials could be key in successfully developing a facility to provide services to people who are homeless.
Amanda Bartlett, a consultant for Developers Collaborative and former executive director of the Augusta Housing Authority, is facilitating the Augusta Task Force on Homelessness. She anticipates having a draft plan of the group’s recommendations ready in February, and holding public hearings to present and take public input on the plan Feb. 24 and 25.
Task force members also said Gov. Mills’ recently released supplemental budget proposal, which would limit the use of General Assistance on housing to three months within any one-year period, could make things worse.
General Assistance is administered by municipalities and funded jointly, with the state paying 70% of costs and municipalities 30%.
State officials have said the proposal is intended to lower General Assistance spending, which skyrocketed during the COVID pandemic.
Task force member Jon Reynolds, of Mobilize Recovery, said the majority of people in recovery from substance use disorder that he works with use General Assistance funding to help find housing, which gives them time to get their lives together as they seek both recovery and longer-term housing.
Over a year’s time in Augusta, the city assisted 180 individuals via General Assistance, with 47 of those receiving over three months of assistance, Nichole Mullens, director of health and welfare for the city of Augusta, said Wednesday.
“Oftentimes folks need assistance beyond the three months,” Geyer said. “So that’s at the top of mind for me, thinking about (the proposed limit) and the way we transition folks and making a plan that directs people to self-sufficiency, which sometimes takes more than three months.”
He said in Portland 592 households received more than three months of General Assistance in a year’s time. Without that assistance, he said, some could lose their housing.
Greg Payne, senior advisor on housing policy with the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, noted the governor’s budget proposal does not restrict funding for emergency homeless shelters, and the three-month limit on housing assistance includes exceptions for people with disabilities.
He said the state budget process is likely to be more painful now, with federal pandemic relief funds gone and hard decisions to be made. He also said the Legislature can and often does change the budget, and the proposal was going to the Appropriations Committee for consideration Thursday.
Payne said there is likely to be a significant amount of discussion about housing policy and ways the state could encourage the development of more housing to address the ongoing housing shortage.
And, Payne said, the state’s new Housing First initiative will provide funding opportunities for more proposals that seek to help people who are chronically homeless obtain both housing and services to help bring them stability.
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