On Wednesday, Portland officials held a second closed-door meeting to discuss their frustrations after spending three months in the Portland Expo emergency shelter, according to WGME.
The temporary shelter at the Portland Expo is set to close on August 16 in order to give cleaning crews enough time to prepare the space for events that are scheduled to be held there beginning in early September.
From WGME:
City leaders say there are options which they are hoping will come together in the next few weeks, although nothing is definite just yet.
Asylum-seekers say they’re anxious over the looming deadline, but they’re also holding out hope.
The city now has just five weeks to find 80 families new places to live.
“Nothing’s changed in terms of that deadline,ā Portland City Manager Danielle West told WGME. āBut obviously, we’re all working very hard to make sure that we can find the resources and the housing that the people need here.”
Also discussed during the meeting were asylum seekers’ complaints regarding their living conditions at the Expo, as well as the food provided to them.
“The meeting went well today,ā Portland HHS Director Kristen Dow said in an interview with WGME. āThey said they had definitely seen some improvements in things that they had requested improvements on. We’re still working to get culturally preferred food.”
According to WGME, West is awaiting a response from Gov. Janet Mills (D) regarding the relocation of asylum seekers to a college campus in Unity.
“We’re waiting to hear back what she thinks about the proposal, and maybe what next steps could be,” West told WGME. “I think that we need a variety of resources from around the region and the state to address this.”
According to WGME, MaineHousing does not have the funds to move the asylum seekers currently residing at the Portland Expo to the Unity campus.
Wednesday’s meeting comes after city officials agreed to meet with asylum seekers in response to their protest outside of the Portland Expo in late June.
On the day of the protest, the mayor, the city manager and the director of Health and Human Services met with asylum seekers inside the Expo for about an hour and a half to discuss their living conditions, according to WMTW.
After this initial meeting, Dow spoke publicly on the asylum seekers’ complaints regarding the conditions inside the Expo, as well as the food being provided to them.
āWe have three meals a day that are brought in. Our food systems here in the Greater Portland area are stressed, theyāre strained, and they would like some more culturally preferred food to be brought in,ā Dow said.
āWe have been working and weāll continue to work with the Maine Immigrantsā Rights Coalition and other organizations to try to get some more culturally preferred food,ā she said.
āWhen 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,ā Dow said.
Additionally, West spoke to asylum seekers’ concerns regarding housing provisions after the Expo shelter closes in August.
āWe were happy to hear from them, they expressed all of their concerns, we listened, we took it in,ā West said.
āI do think thereās some things we need to address,ā West said. āSome greater needs exist for housing, which I know everybody is aware of, itās a need thatās around the State of Maine, we recognize that, weāre continuing to work with the state and [trying] to find solutions to that.ā
For More of the Maine Wire’s Coverage of This Story, Check Out These Articles:
Portland Officials Address Protest Over āDeplorable Conditionsā at the Portland Expo
They’re not asylum seekers’ they’re all criminals. And ungrateful ones at that. Put on a boat and send them back where they come from.
Everyone is missing a few points.
1. They are illegal aliens, ie criminals.
2. We did not ask for them to come here. If they donāt like it, then LEAVE.
3. What about all the homeless, yes HOMELESS in Maine that are AMERICANS?
We need to taken care of our own first, not last. The illegal aliens can leave at any time.
People need to stop calling them asylum seekers. They are ILLEGALS. They have stepped on and pushed out our own homeless Mainers at shelters. Send them the HELL back to where they all came from. We do not want them here!!
Next time donāt vote with EMOTIONS folks. Use common sense instead.
Why is the Maine Wire allowing this women, Libby Palanza, to repetetively erroneously describe these illegal aliens as the Politically Correct “asylum seekers”? If the Maine Wire continues this Leftward drift, I will drift right away from this news site.
Gardiner Schneider
Leftists do what Leftists do best; they create a crisis and then expect the taxpayers to pay to fix it. They always blame others and are seldom held accountable for their idiotic public policies.
Mills wants these illegals here so that she and the Democrats can be re-elected en mass! Where are the Conservatives who want to put America and Americans first. These illegals are here for one reason and one reason only – ECONOMICS. True asylum seekers go to the FIRST ‘safe’ country, not the last. How do you travel across the Atlantic, move from South America and through Central America if you are impoverished? Someone has to be paying for these illegals to be here and the government needs to find and imprison these people.
Every public servant swears an oath to protect America against all enemies, these illegals have committed crimes by entering the Unites States of America without documentation. Remove ALL of them now!
They did not walk all the way from africa, south america. Get the .orgs and their leftist global cabal that funded them to support them not the working citizen