A team of workers in bright blue T-shirts has been roaming through downtown Portland over the past few weeks, power-washing walls, picking up discarded needles and speaking with homeless people.

They work for Portland Downtown’s new ambassador program, which started up in July. Residents and visitors can expect to see more of them in the future as they roam the area between Cumberland Avenue and Commercial Street.

Portland Downtown is a nonprofit that aims to create a thriving downtown neighborhood. Executive Director Cary Tyson said the idea for an ambassador program, in which the nonprofit dispatches its own dedicated staff to clean up the city center, was inspired by a similar program in Providence, Rhode Island.

“Our job is to — in part at least — remove the barriers of government,” said Tyson.

Rather than waiting for the city to hire more staff to address business owners’ concerns, Tyson’s group stepped in and offered to pay the salaries of six public works employees for the city, and then hired eight employees itself. Portland Downtown has allotted $750,000 for the program’s first year of operations.

Some business owners in and around Monument Square have said in recent months that the area is becoming a hot spot for drug use, littering and public disturbances, hurting foot traffic.

Six cleaning and maintenance ambassadors focus on cleaning up needles, human waste and graffiti. Unlike city employees, they are authorized to provide cleanup on private property, so long as the business owner has signed a waiver with Portland Downtown, which Tyson says dozens of businesses have already done.

The other two ambassador employees handle safety and social services.

Winter Peach serves as the program’s social services ambassador, meaning she speaks directly with homeless people and provides them resources and information about other places they can go besides lingering throughout downtown Portland.

“What I’m really leaning into the position is just constantly being visible to (homeless people) and building relationships, so that when resources do come up, I will be there to jump in and connect them to that,” Peach said.

While several other nonprofits and the city itself have outreach staff in Portland, downtown businesses have been encouraged to contact the ambassador program for assistance if they are concerned about homeless people or waste on their property. Peach often finds herself responding to calls.

“In those cases, I would come in and extend some communication, let them know there has been a complaint in the area, whether it’s specific activity or people hanging out where they aren’t supposed to,” she said. “Then I’d tell them they need to go somewhere else and offer to help them get there or connect them with services.”

Tyson said he views the services the new program provides as good support for other social service providers in the area who are overwhelmed.

“I think it’s fair to say that all of our excellent social service providers are understaffed, so any additional feet on the ground we can provide is a good thing,” he said.

RECEPTION SO FAR

While the city is not directly involved in the program, spokesperson Jessica Grondin said it’s been an asset to Portland.

“We’re glad to see Portland Downtown trying new things to activate and strengthen the downtown area. … From the staff side of things, we’ve also been working for the last several months on things we can do to support further activation, safety and cleanliness,” Grondin said.

Terence Miller, advocacy director at Preble Street, a homeless advocacy group, said the most meaningful place to invest resources is in long-term solutions to homelessness.

“For decades, at the federal, state, and local levels, we have not invested enough in long-term solutions to homelessness, like creating affordable housing in all of our communities, ensuring that there is available support and resources for people with untreated addictions and mental health challenges, and sustainably funding emergency shelters,” Miller said. “Those are the solutions that will address the issues that we see in communities across Maine.”

Other Maine cities have used, or are considering, similar programs. Bangor recently introduced Safety Hospitality Ambassadors — about a half-dozen employees of a private firm are on the city’s streets overnight, at a cost of more than $400,000 a year. Augusta, which has been charging and arresting homeless people for trespassing, is weighing a similar, scaled-down idea.

Some business owners have been happy to see the Portland program get off the ground.

Nate Eldridge, executive director of Portland Media Center, a public-access TV station based on Congress Street, said the ambassador program has taken a refreshingly direct approach to addressing homelessness.

“I knew Congress Street was complicated with mental health and substance abuse issues, but I didn’t realize how complicated it was until I was running a storefront business,” he said “This program is dealing with the issue here by looking it straight in the eye.”

Eldridge said he has called the ambassador program for help with people loitering and human waste near his building. Each time, ambassadors have quickly and quietly handled the problem. He says he prefer to call the nonprofit than the police “if something comes up.”

“Calling police on someone who is overdosing didn’t seem the appropriate response to me, all the sirens and cop cars and fire trucks,” Eldridge said. “With this program, where people are walking around on foot and on bikes, they aren’t just addressing a crisis, but they are cleaning up the remnants of the wound that the city is feeling.”

Peach also hopes the work she does is providing a safer alternative to handling crises — and hopefully helps prevent them from happening at all.

“We want to be able to step in before anything would escalate,” Peach said. “We definitely want to be an alternative to that level of influence.”