The city of Portland’s plan to host a winter warming shelter at a Preble Street facility in Bayside has become uncertain one month before it’s supposed to open, and staff are now reviewing alternative options.
While a plan to return the city’s winter shelter to a downtown location appeared to be settled last month, new questions over zoning restrictions and neighborhood impacts have officials scrambling to finalize a plan and secure funding.
The City Council held a special workshop this week to discuss its options, but the bulk of the meeting was held behind closed doors in executive session — despite criticism from residents who argued that the public is being left out of the conversation.
“I think it is safe to say that we’re frustrated by the lack of transparency and engagement throughout the process,” said Robert Sylvain, treasurer of the Bayside Neighborhood Association, on Thursday.
Last month, city officials announced that the Biddeford nonprofit Seeds of Hope would operate a nightly warming shelter in the basement level of Elena’s Way on Portland Street from mid-November to April, which reflected a council goal to partner with a social service agency and return the seasonal shelter to downtown.
Earlier this month, city staff told the Portland Press Herald that using the space as a warming shelter would not require council approval because it is a temporary use, and that staff would likely add conditions that the shelter operators would be required to meet.
However, at the workshop this week, officials said the existing conditional use standards in place for the Elena’s Way shelter would make it impossible to get a warming shelter up and running there in a timely manner.
Assistant City Manager Dena Libner said the planning director has the authority to approve a temporary use, but that doing so at Preble Street’s building would contradict zoning requirements already in place there.
“That’s not something staff is willing to administratively override,” she said.
The conditional use standards for Elena’s Way stipulate that the sleeping area be limited to the upper level, and that a maximum of 40 shelter guests are allowed at one time.
A recent city inspection of Preble Street’s operation also found that the organization is not following parts of its management plan, including its responsibility to monitor safety in the area, which compounded neighbors’ concerns about doubling the nightly capacity.
Councilor Sarah Michniewicz, who represents the neighborhood, said Thursday that she’s not comfortable with the options laid out so far.
“At this late date, I don’t see a timely procedural path to use Elena’s Way that would protect current shelter guests and families next door, or satisfy the public that the council is acting diligently and transparently,” she said.
Michniewicz said some officials have suggested that declaring a limited state of emergency would allow the warming shelter to proceed at Elena’s Way. But she argued the city should be focused on “finding a location that will be successful both for people seeking shelter and the community around them, not navigating around the legal safeguards that were put in place to prevent overcrowding and unsafe situations.”
The council then went into executive session to consider other options and obtain legal guidance.
In a letter to the council, Sylvain said officials should “re-evaluate more appropriate alternative locations,” including the Cumberland County facility behind Union Station or the city’s Homeless Services Center on Riverside Street, where services already exist.
“The idea that Elena’s Way is the only remaining solution is simply untrue. If compromises must be made, safety must not be one of them,” he said.
Councilor Anna Bullett, who chairs the health and human services and public safety committee, said Friday that she’s “deeply committed” to ensuring that a nightly warming shelter on the peninsula moves forward.
“I’m grateful to Seeds of Hope for their flexibility as city staff urgently expand the community partners search,” she said. “Fingers crossed that we will have a plan to announce next week.”
Bullett added that the situation is “a glaring reminder that Portland shoulders the burden of inadequate state and federal funding for therapeutic and low-income housing and of the county government’s general disinterest in helping the unhoused.”
The shelter effort was recently awarded $361,000 in MaineHousing funding, which staff said represents about half the estimated cost.
Maggie McLoughlin, the city’s director of health and human services, said the budget to host 45-50 people per night, along with food and access to services, would cost roughly $688,000. That figure includes Seeds of Hope staffing and an expansion of the downtown ambassadors program to support area safety, she said.
The council is slated to take a first reading Monday to allocate $350,000 in opioid settlement funds to make up the gap. A staff memo states that details regarding the warming shelter will be finalized and published before the council votes on the item Nov. 2.
Last winter’s city-run shelter, located at the former shelter for asylum seekers in the Riverside Industrial Park, received $400,000 in state funding and opened based on temperature and precipitation thresholds that were often criticized.