The shelter committee recommended the overall development of 51 to 119 more shelter beds to meet the need of Lewiston residents and another 30 to 40 shelter beds to meet the needs in Androscoggin County. Saddlemire and the committee, through a comprehensive report, provided officials with staggering data on homelessness in Maine, and while the committee was tasked with providing information and recommendations to Lewiston officials, a section of the report looks at the rest of Androscoggin County, including Auburn. The city currently has 88 beds between four private shelters, but the new regulations could result in additional beds. "In the absence of adequate public services and resources, we get members of the public operating small charities being faced with impossible situations," said Craig Saddlemire, who recently served as co-chairman of Lewiston's shelter committee.įollowing a monthslong debate over a new shelter ordinance in Lewiston and the very visible homelessness issue on both sides of the Androscoggin River, some advocates, and even city officials, are pressing Auburn to rethink current policies.Ī few weeks ago, the Lewiston City Council ended months of contentious talks with a set of new shelter regulations, which stipulates where and how shelters can operate.
When the last of the tents came down at the Pleasant Street church, some people had been rehoused, but some simply returned to the woods as winter approaches. Auburn's zoning, citywide, does not allow overnight homeless shelters, except for survivors of domestic abuse and human trafficking, for which some beds are available. And while city staff were working on solutions with church officials, by all accounts the efforts to find housing for those on the property were moving too slowly to offset neighborhood safety concerns.Ĭhurch officials and homeless advocates said this week that the encampment was a symptom of unmet needs in the community, including a lack of an overnight shelter. Neighbors were getting fed up with trash and disturbances.
What had started as a drop-in center in the church's basement providing services to the unhoused had grown into a situation with no good outcomes. The resolution, and Gilligan's comments, came a week after the city ordered the First Universalist Church of Auburn to remove a homeless encampment from its lawn due to multiple zoning and public health law violations. You can't shove them in the corner somewhere," he said.
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