WASHINGTON D.C. — U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King announced today that the Lewiston non-profit New Beginnings, Inc. will receive $185,400 through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to help expand New Beginnings’ outreach services and support their work to improve the lives of homeless as well as runaway youth and families in crisis. New Beginnings’ outreach program connects with youth who live outside the traditional service system in high-poverty urban and rural areas in central and western Maine. The funding was awarded through the DHHS Administration for Children and Families.

“The work done by New Beginnings has a direct impact on young people and their families across Maine,” Senators Collins and King said in a joint statement. “This organization has a long and successful history of working with homeless and at-risk youth. Last year alone, New Beginnings made nearly 2,000 contacts via street outreach and served more than 500 young people in their drop-in center. Moreover, using their case management services, the organization was able to place 86 percent of homeless youth into permanent housing. We are pleased that they are receiving this support to provide necessary services to some of Maine’s most vulnerable young people.”

“For nearly 4 decades, New Beginnings has met homeless youths’ most basic needs, connected at-risk teens to resources, and kept kids safe and off the streets,” said Chris Bicknell, the Executive Director of New Beginnings. “Being awarded this competitive grant means that hundreds of youth in Androscoggin, Kennebec, and Franklin counties can continue to get the critical emergency supplies, counseling, and housing resources they need to become thriving and stable adults.”

Since opening its doors more than 35 years ago, New Beginnings has helped homeless youth gain the sense of safety and security of having a place to call home and provided them with other resources to succeed, from assistance with college applications to developing such life skills as living on a budget and learning to cook.

In June 2015, Senator Collins, a long-time supporter of homeless youth programs, was joined by U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Julián Castro, in touring the New Beginnings’ Ann Geiger Center in Lewiston to see firsthand how organizations in Maine are working to end runaway and youth homelessness. In addition, in April 2015, Senator Collins chaired an Appropriations Subcommittee hearing to examine HUD’s efforts to prevent and end youth homelessness. At the invitation of Senator Collins, Brittany Dixon, an alumni of New Beginnings and a current Educational Technician for Washburn Elementary School in Auburn, shared powerful testimony about her experience as part of the New Beginnings program.

###