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A few state lawmakers want Maine to either allow campsites for unhoused people or end the practice of removing them.
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Dozens of tents have occupied half of the park-and-ride lot on Marginal Way in Portland for several months now. But the Maine Department of Transportation has warned for weeks that the tents can't stay there.
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Advocates and unhoused residents urging the city to pause all encampment sweeps and instead focus resources elsewhere, such as providing more mental health, substance use disorder treatment and other services.
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Other ideas discussed Thursday night at a discussion about Portland's encampments ranged from finding additional housing vouchers and adding more police presence at encampments, to authorizing a city-sanctioned campsite.
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The Fore River Parkway Trail in Portland had been the focus of an encampment crisis response team for about two months this summer. Nearly 50 people were still living along the trail in the days leading up to Sept. 6, a deadline that the city had set to remove the encampment.
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The city of Portland will clear another encampment of nearly 70 tents Wednesday morning. The action is being taken despite requests from local non-profits to extend a planned deadline.
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State workers removed an encampment of unhoused people in Portland Thursday morning. Social services groups estimated there were about 30 tents at the site. Many homeless residents said they had no where to go, and planned to move to another site to sleep outside. It comes less than a week before a city-imposed deadline to remove another Portland encampment.
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The city of Portland has counted at least 228 tents. More than 50 are located along the Fore River Parkway Trail, which is the main target of a recently formed task force of public health officials and social services providers.
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Unhoused individuals have set up several dozen tents along the perimeter of the park-and-ride lot on Marginal Way in Portland. The Maine Department of Transportation said it will divide the lot and add a temporary barrier to address the site's "competing interests."
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Residents who lived along the Bayside Trail in Portland said they're not sure where they'll go next, and city officials have said they're still searching for more temporary and permanent housing options.