Help us help our veterans!

To the editor:

     The Maine Continuum of Care conducts an annual “Point in Time” count of all people who are homeless on a single night in January, throughout the state of Maine.

     The Aroostook County Maine Military Community Network (ACMMCN) focuses our count on veterans in order to better understand veteran homelessness in our communities and the veterans experiencing it. This helps us in our work to end veteran homelessness.

     The ACMMCN is one of nine groups of the Maine Military Community Network. This network is a community effort to understand, prevent, and help deal with the lingering aftereffects of war on service members, their families, and their communities.

     On the night of Wednesday, Jan. 27, volunteers will outreach in local communities across Aroostook County to survey homeless veterans.

     On Thursday, Jan. 28 and Friday, Jan. 29, volunteers will be at the Houlton Higher Education Center and Caribou VFW to connect with homeless veterans and collect information for the count. If you know of anyone in the Houlton area experiencing homelessness, please help them to arrive at 18 Military Street.

     The state mission of MMCN is to serve as a single touch point for service members, veterans and their families made up of Federal, State and local military advocates; all coming together to identify unmet needs and connect them with local solutions.

     For more information, call Jean Henderson at 207-521-3100, ext. 3103 or by email at jean.henderson@maine.edu in the Houlton area; John DeVeau at 207-498-9880 or by email at jdeveau915@gmail.com in the Caribou area; or Patrick Blanchette at 207-694-5550 or by email at patrick.blanchette@maine.edu in the St. John Valley.

Jean Henderson, Houlton
John DeVeau, Caribou
Patrick Blanchette, 
Fort Kent