Asylum seekers living in South Portland hotel on track to move out by June

Christopher Valentim Fonseca Andre, 3, plays outside of the Howard Johnson Hotel in South Portland, where his family was staying in 2022. Nearly 200 asylum seekers who had been living in South Portland hotels last spring have moved into permanent housing. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Nearly 200 asylum seekers who had been living in South Portland hotels last spring have moved into permanent housing, and many of the 53 remaining households are well on their way.

State officials say all of the people living at the Howard Johnson hotel will be out by the time a one-year agreement with the city ends in June. In more than half the remaining households at the hotel at least one person is now working, having waited the required six months since filing their asylum applications.

“To have them in a place where they can now enter our workforce and be leaders in the community has been a remarkable experience,” Greg Payne, the state’s senior adviser on housing policy, told South Portland city councilors last week. “We’re headed toward a very successful outcome here.”

The city signed an agreement with MaineHousing last June allowing the hotel to temporarily house asylum seekers – with support services from Catholic Charities and ProsperityME – for one year.

At the peak of the pandemic, about 1,000 homeless people and asylum seekers were placed in South Portland hotels by the city of Portland, MaineHousing and social service agencies. By the time the agreement was signed, that number was down to 367, mostly asylum seekers, spread out across six hotels.

Since then, the group has focused on finding permanent housing while helping people navigate the asylum process, secure permission to work and access education and English language classes. The state is paying for the cost of the shelter, about $4.5 million to $5 million.

As part of the deal, the state put $200,000 in an escrow account to address concerns from city officials about General Assistance and ambulance costs. But they’ve only spent around $6,000 – $1,200 in General Assistance costs and two ambulance rides – and MaineHousing now says the money would be better spent on security deposits and other expenses to help speed up housing placements.

South Portland City Manager Scott Morelli said he supports releasing $150,000 because that would still leave enough money to cover any new GA or ambulance costs. The City Council is expected to consider releasing the funds during its Feb. 6 meeting.

A COORDINATED APPROACH

The program at Howard Johnson is modeled after a similar setup in Saco, where Catholic Charities and the city of Portland have partnered with the state to use a hotel as transitional housing for asylum seekers since July 2022.

The number of people living at the Howard Johnson has slowly tapered off.

Payne said the number of people in South Portland hotels dropped to 241 by Aug. 1, when everyone was moved into the Howard Johnson. Some had already found housing, while others had moved out of Maine. Catholic Charities began offering onsite services Oct. 1 when they were able to hire enough staff. By then, there were still 228 people remaining from 75 households.

As of Jan. 9, there were 53 families – 81 adults and 95 children – at the hotel, 11 of which are scheduled to move into permanent housing soon. Payne said he expects to be down to 42 households with 121 people by Feb. 15. Everyone will be moved out of the hotel by June, he said.

Payne and Julie Allaire, who oversees refugee and asylum seeker programs for Catholic Charities, say much of the success has been in the coordinated approach of helping families find housing and applying for asylum and permission to work.

So far, all of the families at the hotel have applied for asylum and 83% have received work authorization for at least one household member. Of those approved, 57% of households are now working.

Now that so many of the families and individuals are working, they have more money and more options for housing, Payne said. Most people are moving to Brunswick, Portland, Biddeford, Sanford or Lewiston – places with more subsidized housing and lower rents.

“The market remains very, very difficult,” he said.

HOUSING CHALLENGES

ProsperityME, which focuses on finding housing for the asylum seekers, has gotten creative, Allaire said. Individuals and people without children are encouraged to group together and share housing. Others have gotten jobs that provide housing, including at a resort in Ogunquit.

Allaire said Catholic Charities has done a lot of education with the families about what housing looks like in Maine so they understand what is available and that they will be on their own if they don’t accept what is offered.

“They are highly incentivized to accept the housing that is offered to them,” she said. “We are seeing that people are either choosing to accept what is offered to them or they are moving on.”

Dieudonne Nzeyimana, director of housing for Prosperity Maine, said finding housing is already tough because of the market, but is extra challenging for asylum seekers because they don’t have the usual qualifications that landlords require.

“They don’t have any credit history. They don’t have any rental history,” he said. “That makes it very challenging.”

To overcome that, ProsperityME has tried to be creative as it forms partnerships with landlords in communities outside of Portland. Sometimes that means working with people who are developing rental units to get them to commit to housing asylum seekers. They also try to partner with landlords of smaller buildings that may have more flexibility on qualifications for renters.