The city of Portland has about nine weeks to house the remaining 88 families of asylum seekers sheltering at the Portland Expo.
“What we don’t want to have happen is on Aug. 16 to have 300 people with no place to go,” said Kristen Dow, Portland’s director of health and human services.
The city said part of the reason it chose that deadline was because the Portland Expo has contracted events scheduled as early as September.
“That will allow us, allow city staff time to restore the building. It’s not meant to be a 24/7 shelter,” Dow said.
Developers Collaborative and the Center for Regional Prosperity originally planned to develop a new emergency shelter from an old warehouse on Blueberry Road near the Portland International Jetport.
The city saw the Expo as a way to offer something as a shelter until that facility could open, but last month the developers announced they were looking at other sites.
City leaders are still hoping that something else will come together, even if it’s not at that location. But with the Expo closing, the city admits that it needs help.
“The city of Portland has been trying to meet needs and we haven’t been able to,” Mayor Kate Snyder said.
Snyder said she and City Manager Danielle West have been making weekly trips to Augusta to speak with Gov. Janet Mills and lawmakers about financial help.
Snyder hopes the passage of a new bill will increase state reimbursement for general assistance from 70 percent to 90 percent.
“We have a good partnership with the governor and we wanted to make sure that she knows where we are, and the struggles that we face,” she said.
City officials said the experience from shutting down shelter operations at the Expo in 2019 is going to help them find housing for the dozens of families inside by that Aug. 16 deadline.