HOULTON, Maine — State emergency heating funds are helping overnight warming centers in Houlton and Calais open this Friday and Saturday night for people experiencing a heating or housing crisis.
The two Aroostook Mental Health Services locations — Aroostook Recovery Center of Hope,106 Main St., Houlton and the Downeast Recovery Support Center, 311 Main St., Calais — each received about $36,000 from the Maine Housing Authority for the warming centers that will be open from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. until April 30.
The two centers will be open on Friday and Saturday, but more days will be added as staffing increases, Program Director Clement Deveau said. Because they are not homeless shelters, they do not have meals, beds or showers.
Nonetheless, they will have snacks, hot drinks and bottled water, Deveau said.
The state funding helped the centers purchase foam mats, blankets and pillows. Additionally, there are tables and chairs for people who might want to stay for just a few hours to get warm.
The centers anticipate fewer than 10 people each night and Deveau said there are six people he is aware of in Calais that may use the shelter. But without a designated homeless shelter in Houlton or Calais it is hard to quantify the number of homeless in each community, he said.
Still, AMHC selected Houlton and Calais for the warming center because anecdotally they believe there is a problem in those communities, according to Debra Jacques, an AMHC spokeswoman.
Funding for the overnight centers comes from the $21 million in emergency heating funds approved by the Legislature and Gov. Janet Mills in January.
Eleven other centers throughout the state were also awarded state funding for temporary warming centers. These include: Gathering Place, Brunswick; Amistad, Wiscassett; Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter, Waterville; Union Street Brick Church, Bangor; Bangor Area Homeless Shelter, Bangor; Augusta Warming Shelter, Augusta; York County Shelter, Alfred; Town of Monson, Monson; State Street Church, Portland; Maine Immigrants Rights Center, Portland.
Within nine days of the bill becoming law, notices of funding availability were released with grant proposals due on Feb. 3; seven days later awards were announced, according to the Maine Housing Authority.
There are immediate openings for temporary staff to support the overnight warming centers in Houlton and Calais. The position comes with an overnight shift differential and a completion bonus for staff who stay through April 30. For more information and to apply, contact Cory Tilley at ctilley@amhc.org.
