It’s been a year since a camp-out on the steps of Portland’s City Hall, as people experiencing homelessness and their advocates called for city-wide reform.
But now they say, they didn’t get anything they asked for.
According to our CBS13 news partners, it started last July when they noticed a large group of people experiencing homelessness in Deering Oaks. Advocates told them then it was the worst they’ve seen in decades.
“We were told by our partners and the infectious disease specialists by the CDC that that was just a disaster waiting to happen. That was unsafe,” said Preble Street Deputy Director Donna Yellen.
Last July, in response to the pandemic, Preble Street was serving meals around town– instead of all in one place. The organization still makes the stops and helps connect people to resources when they do.
“We go to the different sections where people stay or sleep at night or live or they have appointments during the day and we bring the meals there,” Yellen said.
But the city took issue– saying they needed a license or an agreement to do that.
“We were asked not to bring meals into the park. And we haven’t done that since we were asked well over a year ago,” Yellen said.
The issue took off and in just a few days, people were set up outside city hall to draw attention to the issues they faced.
“One of the best things about it was the opportunity for education and engagement on the larger community level from different organizations,” said Maine People’s Housing Coalition Community Organizer Jess Falero.
The group came up with a list of demands for the city– such as establishing overdose prevention sites, decriminalizing camping out and adding more public bathrooms for people to use.
“Actually, none of our demands were met,” Falero said. “There was definitely some politicians engaging with the encampment or engaging with different organizers of the encampment, but there was no real change on a state or local level.”
For Falero, it’s still disappointing.
“Especially since we’re kind of in the same place that we were last year, the only difference is there’s not an encampment to kind of point it out,” Falero said.
But Falero says their organization, Maine People’s Housing Coalition, now has more organizers and others engaged with their work.
“We very easily have helped over 100 families in the past couple months with housing, medication or transportation,” Falero said.
And more work still lies ahead. For Preble Street, the organization is worried that federal funding will run in in September to house people in hotels. It comes at a time when their work is still very needed.
“The year before the pandemic, we had served about 600,000 meals. This past year, during the pandemic, we served over one million meals,” Yellen said.
Saturday at 11 a.m. advocates will meet at Monument Square before marching to city hall. They’re hoping to bring attention to ongoing issues around homelessness.
