January As of Dec. 27, 2022, the home of Dennis Corriveau at 391 Old Jay Hill Road in Jay was still without power after wind felled a large poplar tree in a storm the previous Friday. Neighbor Patrick Duffy said he has lived across the street since 2002. He had left at 5:30 p.m. Friday […]
In recent years, thousands of asylum seekers, mostly from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola, have made their way to Maine, hearing that it's a safe haven. From January to June, more than 1,600 arrived in Portland in need of help. The city found itself frequently overwhelmed, with little to no space available in its shelters as families, including many with small children, kept coming. Community groups, nonprofits and churches helped house and guide the newcomers. The city turned the gym in the Portland Expo into temporary housing from the spring into late summer. Our photographers spent months this year documenting the lives of new asylum seekers trying to make their way in an unfamiliar place and checking in on others who had been for years to see how their lives in Maine had turned out.
Our photographers uncover unexpected beauty every day. This year, they've documented the collective grief of a community in the wake of enormous loss, the resilience of asylum-seeking families working to make a new home and some of the state's most complex challenges. They show us the profound beauty of connection.