Before Maine aid workers can help struggling veterans, they need to find them

By Christopher Cousins

Among the many barriers to providing services to needy military veterans — funding, transportation, reaching out to rural communities — the hardest to overcome might seem like the easiest: finding veterans in the first place.

Troubling for a panel of experts who convened Tuesday in Augusta to discuss the problem is the fact that providing services to homeless veterans in Maine continues to become more difficult. With the closure of Loring Air Force Base in 1994 and Brunswick Naval Air Station in 2011, central locations for veterans to congregate — and seek help when they need it — are dwindling.

“Maine doesn’t have that safe place, that base anymore. Naval Air Station Brunswick, that’s where we went to see other military and function in that military community,” said Amy Line, veterans success coordinator for the University of Maine at Augusta and a Navy veteran.

“We don’t have that anymore, so we need to create spaces for our veterans to congregate.”

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