Social service workers sent homeless people from Augusta to Waterville last winter for a warm place to sleep at night.
Unhoused people were also placed in hotels, transported to the emergency room, were told to sleep in the police station lobby or handed a tent and sleeping bag.
“This coming winter cannot play out the same way,” Sarah Miller, administrative director of Bridging the Gap, a community resource center, wrote in a memo to Augusta City Council.
To address the problem, Miller and Pastor Nate Richards of the South Parish Congregational Church are asking the council to consider using federal funds on an overnight emergency warming center in the church basement.
Richards, who has been pastor of the church for about three years, said homelessness is “a big problem here in Augusta.”
The sprawling church on the corner of State and Bridge streets has plenty of room to accommodate those who need an emergency place to sleep when it’s cold outside, he said.
“We’ll probably serve at least 20 people each night,” Richards said. “That’s a conservative guess.”
Miller and Richards are asking the city for up to $123,930 from the city’s American Rescue Plan Act funds to cover the cost for the center between Oct. 15 and April 30, 2023.
The funds would be in addition to a $30,000 grant from the United Way of Kennebec Valley, according to a proposal distributed to city council members on Monday.
City Manager Susan Robertson said that the allocation is intended to be a one-time boost until Bridging the Gap and other social service agencies can find other funding sources.
Of the $1.8 million Augusta received in federal pandemic relief funds, the council has already allocated about $1.2 million to city expenses, bonuses for employees and ambulance upgrades, Robertson said.
The proposal for a center in Augusta comes at a time when Lewiston is considering its options to help those not served by existing shelters.
Last week, the Lewiston City Council debated whether to put a cap on the number of shelter beds as part of a discussion about a new shelter ordinance, according to the Sun Journal.
Statewide, the annual survey of homelessness from January found 4,411 individuals were homeless, according to MaineHousing. That number is a sharp increase from 2021, when the count included 2,204 people.
A major reason for the spike is that this year’s count included people living in hotels and motels funded by federal pandemic relief programs and asylum-seeking immigrants, according to MaineHousing.
There are at least two tent cities in Augusta that help people get through the summer and a significant number of people who sleep in their cars, Richards said.
He hopes the overnight center will help those who are homeless find services they need at a time when sky-high rents and a lack of housing in general are making it especially difficult to find stable housing.
“We’re just hoping to maybe take a little bit of the bite out of it,” he said.