On Maine’s taxpayer-funded Maine Calling radio program Thursday, Maine Gov. Janet Mills told host Jennifer Rooks that she has not visited any of Portland’s homeless encampments, some of which are on state property.
[RELATED: ‘Millsvilles’: The Maine Wire Visits Portland’s Drug-Infested Tent Cities]
“I’m wondering if you have visited any of those encampments and talked with the people there,” Rooks asked.
“No I have not,” Mills responded.
Rooks followed up by asking Mills “if there are more ideas if there are more proposals coming forward, given the scale of the problem” in the upcoming legislative session.
Mills didn’t supply any concrete ideas.
“Well, it’ll be interesting to see what proposals might come forward, and I’m anxious to hear from any and all legislators,” Mills said. “We’re going over departmental bills right now. This is a second regular session –what used to be called a special session, emergency session — and I’m expecting that the bills would be a lot less numerous than they were this year.”
Mills added that “any creative proposals are more most welcome in my administration.”
For most of the summer, Portland has been inundated with sprawling tent cities located on public land.
The encampments have become a nexus for crime and drug use, and the subject of frequent complaints by residents and business owners.
But both the City of Portland and the State have struggled to come up with a solution, and local cops have mostly declined to arrest hard drug users, even when the drug use is happening in the open light of day.
According to Portland’s Unhoused Community Dashboard, as of Thursday morning there are 76 tents on State of Maine property in the Greater Portland area, and a total of 234 tents citywide.
That means that over 30 percent of the tents in Portland’s encampments are the responsibility of the state, not the city.
A homeless encampment on state land next to I-295 near Portland’s Deering Oaks Park was cleared out by the Maine Department of Transportation last week due to safety concerns.
One of the city’s largest encampments at the Marginal Way Park and Ride, which began growing in May and operates as an open air drug market, also sits on property controlled by the Maine Department of Transportation next to I-295.
Portland’s Director of Health and Human Services said at this Wednesday’s City Council meeting that the city will be working with the state beginning on Sept. 18 to resolve the Park and Ride encampment.
Referencing a recent University of Maine poll that found the top issues among Mainers are housing, the cost of living, and homelessness, Rooks asked Mills to speak to the steps her administration has taken to address the state’s housing shortage and homelessness.
Mills said that her administration recently allocated surplus funding from Maine’s Rainy Day Fund to affordable housing efforts, and is working to lower energy and heating costs for Maine homeowners.
“As I travel across the state I see a lot of good things happening,” Mills said.
6 Comments
Mills is an out-of-touch complete idiot incapable of forming original thought. The simple solution is to send the illegals back to where they came from since they came here uninvited and crossed an international border without a passport or vaccination record, let alone tested for tuberculosis. Democrats are destroying the once great state and potentially the entire country. The Maine residents that are in the homeless camps should be the ones sponsored in the hotels where all the illegals are being kept at taxpayer expense.
Here’s an idea — don’t allow them. Provide temporary shelter with a work requirement and if they don’t comply, bus them out of Maine.
Dems always pretend they don’t know what to do as a cover for the fact that they intend to do nothing.
Another workshop another brainstorming session— meanwhile, Maine gets trashed and loses its tourist industry.
Gov. Mills, If homelessness is such a MAJOR problem, why haven’t you. You are responsible for lookin after the welfare of ALL residents of Maine, aren’t you?
Hay! I have a solution. Why don’t we throw all those illegal immigrates on a plane and fly them back where they came from. These ungrateful criminals broke into this country against immigration laws, Laws that are being ignored by the illegitimate Biden regime. Believe me there’s a criminal moving to a vacant lot near you.
Mills does not care about the people of Maine. She wants to bring in 75000 more illegals to Maine. Where will they be housed? Send them all to her house since she wants them here. We are not a sanctuary state! Portland asked to be a sanctuary city. Rachel Talbot-Ross must have room at her house as she tried to pass a bill to house illegals in private homes. They want to be a New York or Los Angeles, let them and let them pay for it. Our tax dollars should not be going to illegals and druggies.
Lets establish a baseline for Mills , She was FIRED as Androscoggin County Asst. District Attorney… For “Suspected” Cocaine use and Trafficking by B.I.D.E , She was also suspected of ordering the Murder of Charles Russell in August of 1989 , Who while working for B.I.D.E uncover was building a Case against Mills and the then Norway Police Chief James Denormandie for drug use and Racketeering, While Bid was waiting for the Auburn and Lewiston P.D. to turn over footage of Mills in Surveillance Videos U.S. District Atty. Richard Cohen came in and shut down the case sealing ALL records. Now you know what kind of SCUM over 50% of the State of Maine voted for . We are getting what we deserve for allowing her to be elected