Betty St. Hilaire, right, president and founder of the United Community Living Center, gives Catherine Palmer a tour of the group’s new space Thursday at 12 Spruce St. in Augusta, where a low-barrier, daytime-only homeless service center is expected to open at least partially in the next month. Eventually, it will be open seven days a week, giving homeless residents a place where they can eat, shower, use a computer lab, and access services. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

AUGUSTA — It’s 7 a.m., you’re homeless, and you’ve just stepped out of the Augusta Overnight Emergency Warming Center, which closes during the day and is only open at night during the cold winter months.

Now you’re outdoors, and you have nowhere to go for the next 10 hours to escape the cold, since a former daytime winter warming center closed last March. Nor can you avoid downtown residents and business owners, some of whom have made it clear they’re tired of people lingering around their entryways, begging for money or intimidating potential customers.

However, two groups are working in the city to create safe spaces where people who are homeless can find refuge.

One, the United Community Living Center, is expected to open in three to four weeks. It will be a low-barrier, daytime service center where people who are homeless can spend time, take a shower,  have something to eat, store their belongings, and use a computer lab. They can also get referrals to services such as help filling out applications, case management, substance use disorder treatment, or help with the mental or physical health needs.

It will be at 12 Spruce St., near the Ballard Center on the east side of the Kennebec River, and eventually be open during the day seven days a week.

The other, the Maine Recovery Access Project’s Access Center, expected to open in June, will focus primarily on people in or seeking recovery from substance use disorder, though the group recognizes that some people in recovery are also homeless, and have some of the same needs.

Thus, the center, its leaders say, will offer recovery meetings and coaching, and provide transportation to treatment. They’ll provide showers, help seeking housing, secure storage, a place where people who are homeless can get their mail, youth substance use prevention, overdose prevention tools, and referrals to medical and mental health treatment. There will be access to the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, and a climate-controlled space for anyone in need.

The Access Center will be in the basement level of 53 Water St., known locally as the Edwards Inn, in the north end of the city’s downtown area. It is expected to be open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday-Monday, from November-April, and 12:30-8:30 p.m. May-October.

Officials of both organizations say the need and demand for the services they will provide is dire and large, and that there is room for both of them to operate.

“While we initially planned to be the sole daytime warming/cooling center, we’re excited about the potential opening of the United Community Living Center because it gives people more options,” said Courtney Gary-Allen, executive director of the Maine Recovery Access Project, or ME-RAP, Access Center. “For far too long, our community has faced the challenge of unsheltered homelessness. I’m relieved to know that by next winter, people will have options for safe, indoor spaces.

“Both centers will serve different populations, and Me-RAP’s programming goes far beyond homelessness or warming/cooling resources. Furthermore, if United Community Living Center is able to cover the warming/cooling space function and there is no need for us to do that, we’re happy to let them lead in that area or fill in gaps; whatever best serves the community.”

United Community Living Center’s future home at 12 Spruce St. in Augusta is pictured in December 2024. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

Betty St. Hilaire, president and founder of the United Community Living Center, likened the two new operations as akin to Hannaford, Shaw’s and Walmart providing different options where people can get groceries in Augusta. She said the Access Center will focus on people in recovery and the United Community Living Center will focus on providing resources and opportunities for people to move their lives forward.

In recent years some downtown residents and building and business owners have complained about the impact of some transient troublemakers panhandling and intimidating them and their customers and visitors. Some said the problem worsens in the winter months when the Augusta Overnight Emergency Warming Center opens to provide overnight shelter in its 30 beds. When the overnight warming center closes at 7 a.m., some of it users, without anywhere else to go, head downtown, where some of them have generated complaints.

Some people who are homeless also spend time at Lithgow Public Library, the LINC Center, local businesses, and other places not designed to provide shelter for homeless people, overtaxing those resources.

The Augusta Task Force on Homelessness is working on a strategic plan to help people who are homeless in Augusta, with a target of having a draft plan this month.

St. Hilaire and Gary-Allen expect the two new facilities will help with those problems by providing two places people can go for the day, both within a walkable distance from the overnight warming center and other services, such as Bread of Life Ministries’ downtown soup kitchen.

The Edwards Inn at 53 Water St. at the north end of downtown Augusta is pictured in 2023. A new center servicing people in recovery from substance use disorder is set to open there this summer. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal file

Gary-Allen said the Access Center’s site is close to existing downtown services but also far enough away from downtown businesses so they won’t impact their day-to-day operations. She said the center’s team will also be on call if someone causing problems downtown needs to be encouraged to come to the Access Center instead of congregating near businesses.

With three to four weeks of cold weather until the United Community Living Center opens, homeless people will have to get by.

“It’s definitely a concern, one that keeps me up late at night,” said Gary-Allen, who is also an Augusta city councilor. “Unfortunately the reality is that people will probably continue to do what they have been doing, be outside, linger around businesses, and be cold until either or both of the centers open. Our team is working hard to get our space open as soon as we can.”

St. Hilaire said the United Community Living Center closed on the 12 Spruce St. property Jan. 31 and organizers met with a contractor to discuss renovations recently. Their goal is to open as soon as possible. She said the biggest gap is on weekends so their plan is to open first on Saturdays and Sundays with trained volunteers, and grow from there as funding becomes available to hire permanent staff and programming.

She said the funding to purchase the building came from private donations and faith-based organizations, and the group has received a couple of small grants for outreach from foundations and are pursuing other grants and holding events to raise funds to pay for programming.

Betty St. Hilaire, president and founder of the United Community Living Center, gives Catherine Palmer, left, and Darren Ripley a tour Thursday at the group’s new space in 12 Spruce St. in Augusta, where a low-barrier, daytime-only homeless service center is expected to open at least partially in the next month. Eventually, organizers expect it will be open seven days a week, giving unhoused residents a place where they can eat, shower, use a computer lab, and access services. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

Gary-Allen said the Access Center recently secured a two-year, $500,000 grant from the Maine Recovery Council that will cover renovations, staffing and supplies for the Access Center, as well as a portion of its initiative Project Doorstep, which conducts door-to-door canvassing with naloxone to provide training and education throughout Kennebec County.

Homeless people have been without a daytime shelter since Bridging the Gap’s Augusta Community Warming Center closed after the end of the 2023-2024 winter season.

Sarah Miller, outgoing executive director of the nonprofit Bridging the Gap, said they decided to close the warming center because it was no longer safe or effective to run it out of its 700-square-foot space that was also used as a waiting area for their other services, Addie’s Attic Clothing Bank and Basic Essentials Hygiene Pantry.

She said the organization began exploring options to relocate and engaged with local service providers but those plans never evolved. She said Bridging the Gap officials made the difficult decision to close the warming center last March out of concern neither their space nor staffing was adequate to safely accommodate both the warming center and its other services, which are provided to some 3,600 individuals a year.

She agrees the need is still there.

“A low-barrier, daytime center is an important option for individuals experiencing homelessness and can also have a positive impact on the well-being of an entire community,” Miller said.

Last year, United Community Living Center officials unsuccessfully sought to open a 40-bed homeless shelter and community center on Green Street just west of the city’s downtown. The Planning Board rejected the proposal after opposition from neighbors and downtown business owners.

St. Hilaire said the organization is made up of caring individuals who have built relationships with the unhoused community, care deeply about them, and want to help.

She knows the new, daytime facility will not fill all the needs the Green Street overnight homeless shelter would have, but said “we feel it is what we can do now that will in some way help people move their lives forward. We hope to continue and listen to the community and our programs will evolve and grow over time to address the existing challenges that this vulnerable population faces day to day.”