This Portland group works to get people from tents to secure housing

since the last encampment clearing off Commercial Street in Portland the number of tents in the city has significantly decreased right now the city is reporting there are 35 total tents set up across the city 23 of those are on private property two are on city property and five are on state property now before the Harborview Memorial Park encampment was cleared in January there were more than 130 tents there alone and after that clearing the city said it would be the end of encampments now this

is far from a solution to the problem many of the people who were living in the tents are now living in shelters and there is a growing struggle to fund those shelters around Maine despite the setbacks groups are slowly starting to bring onh housee people from living in tents to living in apartments News Center Ms Jack mulma joins us with the details Jack well Chris and Zach we interviewed several homeless people in Portland who recently found housing over this past month now both received help

from casew workers through prebble Street the nonprofit tells us it seen success through its recuperative CARE program this is a program where unhoused people can go to the emergency room and then afterward instead of being discharged to the streets is sent to a transitional housing option and in that transitional housing Preble Street says it tries to work with housing providers find a permanent housing solution now the goal here is to make sure homeless people can get the medical care they nee

d in order to make the transition from a tent to an apartment easier now one man who was housed this way says more resources are needed to get people off the streets these These Streets Che people up we need to get you know the help you know the education the stuff the stuff going and create a better environment that otherwise you know we're not going to want to improve you know it's it's so important for our environment and that man says before this he was staying at the for River encampment as

well as the Commercial Street encampment that was cleared back in January now through this program he was able to have his hepatitis B andc cured before being placed into permanent housing he's only the third person to have been housed this way but Preble Street says it hopes to do more Chris and Zach all right jack mullman in the studio tonight thanks very much