Feb. 19—An emergency shelter for families in Portland will close its doors at the end of March after a freeze on Federal Emergency Management Agency spending has left the shelter operator without enough money to keep it running.
The shelter, run by the nonprofit Commonspace, is one of only a handful of family shelters in the city and is home to 81 people from 22 families, including many children attending Portland Public Schools, according to its executive director, Brian Townsend.
The shelter opened at the Salvation Army when Portland was struggling to manage a large influx of immigrants in 2022 and was originally run by the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition. It moved to the Portland YMCA on Forest Avenue last spring.
Commonspace took over operations of the shelter in July. Townsend said the group relied on a combination of funds from MaineHousing and the governor’s office until those funds ran out on Sept. 30.
By that point, he said, they were so sure that FEMA funds would come through that the shelter stayed open for the next three months, even though the operator had no money.
But since the Trump administration announced a freeze on FEMA spending, the future of the shelter has become murky. While the FEMA freeze is being challenged in court, Townsend said, the delay in accessing the funds has already proved to be a fatal blow.
“FEMA (funding) went from being pending and likely, to shaky at best,” said Townsend. “Even a prolonged delay is detrimental to the project because we were already well overextended on operating costs.”
Families and shelter staff are being informed this week of the closure. Townsend said he hopes to keep the doors open until the end of March so families can find other places to stay.
City of Portland officials have said they are worried about what a reduction in federal funds for support services will mean for asylum seekers and refugees in the city.
Townsend said MaineHousing provided a small grant last month, which covered about 40% of their funding needs, but didn’t award additional funding because it also believed FEMA funds were likely forthcoming.
“The other funding was going to come from FEMA. We just don’t have any more funding available for them,” said Scott Thistle, a spokesperson for MaineHousing.
Townsend had hoped to find a way to make the YMCA shelter permanent after nearly three years of operating at or near full capacity. But now the goal has changed; he said he simply wants to push back closure — which now seems inevitable — as long as possible.
“We want to do everything we can to keep the shelter open for as long as possible to prevent any family from becoming unsheltered in the middle of one of the most brutal winters any of us can remember,” said Townsend.
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