Courtesy of Andrew Lardie

With daylight saving time behind us, the sun has started to set earlier and the coldest months of the year are rapidly approaching. As we enter the middle of fall, shielding ourselves from the cold is becoming a bigger priority. Some are breaking out their heavy coats and turning up the thermostats while others are pouring themselves some hot chocolate and sitting by the fire. The most vulnerable of our community, however, are just trying to find some place warm and safe for the night.

On November 15, the Brunswick Warming Center is opening back up for its 2026-2027 season. The center is run by Tedford Housing, a Midcoast Maine-based organization focused on providing emergency shelters, housing and prevention services to those experiencing homelessness.

The center will be open every night from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. at 1 Tenney Way through April 30, with room for up to 30 guests. This is the third winter Tedford has run it at this location.

“The addition of the Warming Center on top of our two shelters and other programs reflects the overwhelming incidence of people in our community experiencing homelessness,” Tedford Executive Director Andrew Lardie wrote in an email to the Orient.

Saoirse Burlingame ‘28, who interns at the center through the McKeen Center’s SCAN program, wrote that organizers expect a wider range of guests.

“As heating gets so expensive … we are anticipating not only unhoused guests but also those unable to afford heating and people from other towns,” Burlingame wrote in an email to the Orient.

Statewide, Maine’s Point-in-Time Count fell from 2,413 people experiencing homelessness in January 2025 to 2,126 in 2026. But the number sleeping outside rose from 281 to 361, the highest in the data collection’s history.

Since then, Tedford has expanded its adult and family shelters by 60%.

“Today we house 24 adults and 10 families with children at all times, plus up to 30 adults nightly at the Warming Center,” Lardie wrote. “But we’re still swamped.”

Town zoning bars the building from offering beds or daily meals, so guests rest in reclining chairs with blankets. When the center is full, staff offer bus or train passes to other warming centers.

Linda Saila, a Brunswick resident, works the information desk at the Amtrak station where some individuals experiencing homelessness take shelter before they can access other resources like the Warming Center.

“I haven’t seen many people come yet. But, [when the Warming Center is operating] we see people coming in here before [it] opens up at 6:00 a.m. We close at 4:00 a.m., so there’s those two hours that people are left out in the cold, unfortunately,” Salia said.

“Some, I see first thing in the morning, because they’ve been outdoors all night. So we’re here to help as much as we can,” Salia said. If they need, we have bathrooms that are open to the public. And, if they need to make phone calls, because a lot of people don’t have phones, we’ll let them use our phones.”

Those gaps are the focus of Burlingame’s internship. The Gathering Place and the Warming Center are both closed from 3 to 6 p.m. on weekdays and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends. Burlingame has been compiling places to stay warm in Brunswick and nearby towns, along with clearer transportation guides, working with nonprofits including Sweetser, the CareerCenter, the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program and Oasis Free Clinic.

Last year, about 15 percent of guests went on to a shelter, a residential healthcare setting or a lease. A MaineHousing grant covers about 70 percent of this year’s cost, leaving Tedford roughly $94,000 to raise.

“Workforce is an issue in most Maine industries, especially care professions, and even more so for overnight and seasonal positions,” Lardie wrote. “The Warming Center is all of those things.”

For Burlingame, the main challenge is space.

“I would say the main challenge is just capacity and finding the space and resources to ensure everyone who needs it has a place to be warm as it gets very cold out,” Burlingame wrote.

However, Lardie feels that the deeper problem is affordable housing.

“People in the bottom third of the wealth distribution can’t even find a dumpy place to rent,” Lardie wrote. “Homelessness impacts all of us, and it does not have to be this way. When we choose to invest adequately in combating homelessness, we will solve it.”