Portland Eyes Deal To Shelter Homeless People In Jail Complex

PORTLAND, Maine — Officials are nearing an agreement to shelter homeless people in the Cumberland County Corrections complex this winter. The community corrections center site is an offshoot of the jail that houses low-security inmates. County manager Jim Gailey described the facility as a “college dorm-style building.” The two-story building contains 44 single-person bedrooms, a kitchen and day-room areas, as well as a fenced-in backyard with basketball hoop. While it bears the same address, the building is separate from the jail and will not be staffed by corrections officers.  It “will be returned to low-security inmates next summer after the agreement with Portland ends,” Gailey said. City officials have eyed temporary shelter options to replace the Portland Exposition Building, which has been used alongside the city’s Oxford Street Shelter during the pandemic after opening as an emergency quarantine shelter in late March. But the Expo hall must be vacated by Sunday so the Maine Red Claws, a G-league basketball team, can play its season there.