Scott Smith, 44, Poses With His Almost Overflowing Carriage of Recyclable Bottles and Cans Earlier This Week.
This Portland Resident, a Graphics Designer, is Wearing a Lilac Cloth Face Mask she Made From On-line Directions.
This Woman is Wearing a Cotton Face Mask Made by a Neighbor Who is Giving Them Away. She Lives on the Outskirts of Portland. She Said it Will Help to Prevent Her from Touching Her Face.
Smith Shows an Empty Bottle of Expensive Rum he Found on Munjoy Hill.
Before Entering the new Homeless Shelter on the USM, Portland campus, Everyone Must First Wash Their Hands.
“My income has more than doubled since the shutdown,” said Scott Smith, 44, who has been in the bottle recycling business for twenty years, Mr. Smith said earlier this week. He was seen on a bright, sunny day pushing his heavily laden carriage toward the East End Redemption Center on Washington Avenue on Munjoy HIll. “This carriage weighs more than I do and I weigh 140 lbs.,” he said grinning.
“Yesterday was a really, really slow day for me. And I still earned $32.00 for two hours worth of work,” Mr. Smith said. “People are drinking much more wine at home than they used to because they don’t have any place to go and drink. The wealthy people of Munjoy HIll are doing a lot of the drinking of the hard liquor,” he added. One day last week he made $43. mostly from hard liquor bottles he found on the Hill.
“If some of the rich people would recycle, they’d have more money to spend,” he said. A convenience store on the east end reported an increase in beer sales over the past several weeks.
When asked if his recycling business on the HIll has seen an increase in volume, owner Tony answered: “I only answer questions from Republicans.” (How did he know?)
Meanwhile, Mr. Smith, a homeless man, said he is now living at the new shelter on the USM Campus, the Sullivan Gymnasium, that opened on Friday, April 3rd for healthy, homeless people. “The staff is more serious about what they are doing,” he said. “There are no fights and no arguments here like there were before. Peggy Lynch is the person who made this happen.”
Mr. Smith went on to say that clients of the new shelter received three great meals a day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are provided by the University. They are distributed in styrofoam containers. “We get whatever the students who aren’t here would get if they were here,” his watery eyes overflowing with the gratitude he feels for the University of Southern Maine’s caring.
Another grateful occupant of the shelter at the USM campus, Portland, is Walt Long, 62. He said that occupants of the shelter are carefully selected to minimize problems there. “No one who drinks or has a violent record,” is allowed he said. Every morning temperatures are taken to insure that everyone continues to be healthy. Long said that each occupant receives three good meals from the USM cafeteria. Beds are on the sides of the gym roughly ten feet at least away from each other. The facility is not yet fully occupied, but it will be he believes.
Occupants are allowed to stay inside the Sullivan Gym all day if they want, said Long. There are two television sets, but no antenna to watch DVDs. “We could sure use some books to read here. It’s hard with the public library closed,” he said. Just as Mr. Long was describing what kind of books he enjoys, a staffer emerged from the Sullivan Gym Shelter. “We don’t permit interviews on site in order to protect our residents,” she said glaring at me as though this blogger was a predator after her young. “I believe in Freedom of the Press,” I tell her. “You should try it.”
The interview ended there, in front of the Sullivan Gym. Mr. Long walked away. Who can blame him?
This shelter is a collaboration between Preble Street Resource and USM, Portland. Why is the city sticking it’s middle finger in it? Maybe city manager and failed former real estate developer of Thompson’s Point Jon Jennings wants to sell the property to the infamous Soley Dynasty. After all, Joe Soley, around 89, was once a business partner of the crooked VP Spiro Agnew in the Baltimore, MD. area. Agnew struggled to stay our of jail and barely managed to do so. That makes perfect sense, but smells rotten. Like the dead fish in the Fore River at Thompson’s Point.
Jennings’ two rubber stamps, figurehead Kate Snyder and side-kick Belinda Ray, support him on this as well it appears. Jennings was an original partner along with Chris Thompson to develop the long ignored and former industrial site Thompson’s Point. As Jennings once told this blogger before he became city manager, he sold his share to a friend when he realized the development was heading in the “wrong direction.” The property has evolved into an arts and culture center rather than an enclave for the wealthy from which Jennings probably planned to profit handsomely.