Portland City officials held a press briefing inside of the Portland Exposition Building after a protest Wednesday morning by migrants over the city’s lack of housing options and the shelter’s poor conditions blocked traffic briefly on Park Avenue.
Portland City Manager Danielle West, Mayor Kate Snyder and Portland Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Director Kristen Dow met with the Expo residents following the protest to hear their concerns and then took questions from the media.
According to WGME, the meeting was part of a deal brokered by Portland Police in which the protesters would leave the road in exchange for an audience with the top city officials.
Below is a video of the press briefing from WGME:
The migrants were protesting over concerns about finding housing options after they will be required to leave the Expo on Aug. 16, 2023.
Residents also said that they are unable to shower at the Expo, and that they have “no good food.”
“We were happy to hear from them, they expressed all of their concerns, we listened, we took it in,” City Manager Danielle West said.
“I do think there’s some things we need to address,” West said. “Some greater needs exist for housing, which I know everybody is aware of, it’s a need that’s around the State of Maine, we recognize that, we’re continuing to work with the state and [trying] to find solutions to that.”
“We don’t want to put any sort of false hope out there, but we are going to continue to work and try to strive to help them find the housing that they need over the coming months,” West added.
The City Manager said that the Expo is “very well managed” and that the “staff does a great job ensuring that all of the needs are met.”
When asked what specific issues city officials heard from the migrants, DHHS Director Dow said that one request was for “more culturally preferred food.”
“We have three meals a day that are brought in. Our food systems here in the Greater Portland area are stressed, they’re strained, and they would like some more culturally preferred food to be brought in,” Dow said.
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“We have been working and we’ll continue to work with the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and other organizations to try to get some more culturally preferred food,” she said.
Dow then addressed a question from one reporter asking about the “deplorable living conditions” at the Expo.
“Well, it’s an emergency shelter, but I also had little kids playing ball over on the side and they’re laughing and playing and running around, and that is always a heart-warming thing for me to see,” Dow said.
“When I think that this past winter when people were sleeping in chairs in the overflow space at the emergency shelter, this is a much better environment,” she said.
“I see a bunch of people who might not be fully happy with the situation and are afraid of what will happen on August 17th, but we are actively working every single day to try to help them,” she added.
One video shared on Twitter by WGME reporter Johnny Maffei shows migrant children participating in the protest by chanting and holding signs.
An adult protestor helped one of the children who was holding their sign upside-down.
“We are actively working on a variety of different solutions and we have housing navigators who are trying to work to find people housing,” Dow said. “Do I have a mass shelter that will be available on August 17th? No I do not.”
Dow and City Manager West said that DHHS and the Portland City Manager are working to restore the host homes program and to get people connected to transitional shelters.
West said she would “implore other communities to try to help [Portland] in any way possible” in response to a question about sending migrants to communities in northern Maine.
“We are continuing to work on a variety of solutions,” West said. “This building, as you know, is used in a lot of other ways, we have a lot of contractual obligations, there are a lot factors are at play that we think about.”
“Money is one piece, making sure that we have [enough] staff to help as well is another piece,” she said. “We’re thinking about all those different things and continuing to work on all of that with the state and other partners.”
City officials were unable to provide specifics figures on total cost the Expo has had on taxpayers.
“I don’t have the total [inaudible] with me,” DHHS Director Dow said.
“We spend a significant amount on our General Assistance line every budget year, but we can follow up with some numbers, with, like, specific numbers,” City Manager West said.
According to city officials, the recently approved $4.59 million shelter that will be built in the Riverton neighborhood will be for single asylum seekers, and will not help house the families staying at the Expo.
When asked if Portland stood by former Mayor Ethan Strimling’s request that the federal government send migrants to Portland, Mayor Kate Snyder said that “this is an entirely different situation than what we saw in 2019.”
“We are not unique when it comes to the struggles that we’re facing with the number of people that are coming over the border,” Snyder said. “What we’ve talked about with our Congressional delegation is, let’s make sure that we have capacity for people before they’re sent here and they’re outside.”
“So, we are trying to be very responsible in terms of our consistent communication with both state leadership and federal leadership,” she said. “The manager and I happened to be with a couple members of the Congressional delegation just yesterday, sharing the concerns about folks being sent to communities that may not have the sheltering or the other resources that are available to people.”
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Kristen Dow was the state DHHS Director, she is the Portland DHHS Director.
Do you know where they have “more culturally preferred food”? Back where you came from. This is our culture, our food. If you don’t like it, don’t let the door hit you in the ass.
Maybe they will be given tents like the Americans that can’t afford housing. Probably not a good idea to invite millions of people into the country without a long term plan, but that would take common sense.
Their protest disgusts me. The Mainers living in tents would likely appreciate a roof and food. When will our government worry about our own before ungrateful outsiders?
Heaven forbid the city officials who continue to import “Asylum Seekers” actually had housing and a set budget in place beforehand?!
What qualifies for Asylum these days? ‘Bad Wi-Fi’?! The powers that be ignore the existing housing crisis for American citizens then create a new housing crisis both for which they say they are “Working” to remedy. Word salads from useless political stooges who then place the burden on the city and town’s taxpayers who are already barely getting by with terrible inflation and no increase in their working wages.
Shame on All these useless political hacks who hold any sort of power over our communities! They should be exported and their homes given to the Asylum Seekers and American’s who desperately need help, homes and substance abuse rehabilitation! Then again, everyone who voted them in is to blame and should be clamoring to take people into their homes as they were the one’s who held up the signs “No Human Is Illegal”! All Frauds!
and they would like some more culturally preferred food to be brought in,” Dow said.
Ungrateful blood sucking useless deadbeats. I’ll bet the food is much better than that given to our elderly in Nursing Homes. “IF YOU DON’T LOVE IT LEAVE IT”! Actually you shouldn’t have been allowed in in the first place.
I feel for these people. We need to move them north not in to Portland. Portland has enough of a homeless problem right now. My friends and I who were born and raised here and paying taxes for 15 years can barely find affordable housing. It isn’t fair that people come here and get shoved in to a gym. People that come here should already have papers to work so they can immediately get jobs and not have kids living in the same quarters as weirdos and violent people. As for the culturally appropriate food it is appropriate in America. Maybe they can let the asylum seekers do some cooking so they have food that they like.
– D fallys
What type of jobs are available to thousands of Seekers who speak broken, or no English? Which jobs require no marketable skills? Where do you apply with no work history, and the employer cant confirm if you are a known rapist or murderer in your home country? Will all these jobs be within walking distance of their free house? So much feeling, so little logic.
These so called asylum seekers should never have been allowed to enter the United States! Those seeking asylum should request it at the FIRST country they encounter, NOT the last! Illegal entry into the United States does not mean that you are entitled to anything. Those who cross our borders must be returned asap and not allowed to remain. Seeking financial gain, free housing, free education, free medical, free food is NOT cause to be classified as an asylum. American citizens, especially here in Maine, are being displaced and forgotten. Where are Mills and the Democrats, raising taxes is NOT going to solve the problem.
If these people do not like what they have been given, the answer is simple – Leave! A one way ticket back to where they came from. Stop draining the little resources that we have
If you can’t speak English, how do you make signs?
Let that sink in.
I am compassionate and care about my neighbors, regardless of color. But this is abuse of everyone- to divide us
Who organized these illegal immigrants and why?
The organizers of these immigrants have dark intentions to wreck this state, replace Maine people with illegal immigrants they can control.
This is all about control and power over those who work for a living.
And those who brought immigrants here have zero intention to help immigrants, just wrecking the country;
D. Fallys: So stop the heart bleed, toughen up & help your community that you grew up in –
This is Human Trafficking. and none of it is fair to anybody. It isnt pretty.
D Fallys, you can have them come live in your spare bedroom. Or wake up and help save Maine.
Did you know the basements of the hotels are filled with our donations that immigrants discard & do not know how to use.
Did you know a huge portion of our EMS and Fire budgets are spent on the illegal immigrant medical & housing problems?
You pay.
Did you know we have native Maine families (14 in one area) in poverty with school age children living on a beach in tents where the school bus picks them up; while the illegal immigrants have college dormitories, hotels and the Expo – all a heated roof over their heads?
You Pay.
Did you know the Governor wants a huge tax increase to pay for the free stuff for illegal immigrants?
You Pay.
Did you know the State Representatives just voted for free MaineCare for illegal immigrants?
Did you know illegal immigrants bring 5 kids in for a 1-child medical visit because they do not speak English – wrecking other’s care.
You Pay all of this free medical cost in Maine. if passed by Senate, because Federal Law prohibits free non-citizen healthcare.
Did you know your school budget increases are going to educate illegal immigrants for free –
You Pay that from your property taxes?
Did you see that national economic statistic this week that durable goods went up, normally a positive economic sign?
You know, washers, dryers, stoves and refrigerators?
The government is buying them for the required low income brand new housing across the country (read: free illegal immigrant apartments). These are local governments, towns and cities required to build low income housing,
You Pay again. Your property taxes.
If I added this up, it would appear to be deliberate destruction of the legal citizens of this State and the nation as a whole.
By Whose order?
Apparently people voted for this leadership?
Did you know what you voted for?
Were you lied to?
I would like some culturally preferred food – delivered, please and thank you;
but it is tough to buy Clams & Lobster when paying for everyone else.
Beyond Outrageous.
Wakey, Wakey people – before you lose your homes to property taxes, your jobs to ruined businesses- if you haven’t already.
Why do our Maine politicians do more FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS with taxpayers money, than for American citizens? Shame! Both Republicans and Democrats alike!!!