LEWISTON – It was two weeks before his high school graduation, and Chris Soucy was not getting along with his parents.

The 18-year-old Livermore Falls teen was booted out and, with no place to go, dropped out of school. After “couch-hopping” for two months, he landed at New Beginnings, a Lewiston-based network that offers homeless teens housing and support for continued education and employment. Through the agency, he started taking adult education classes to get his diploma, and he’s hunting for a job.

The federal government denied the network a grant in September, and with three days’ notice the organization lost 20 percent of its funding – $1 million over five years. Leaders applied in June and found out Sept. 28 that funding would cease on Oct. 1. The same thing happened to youth shelters in Rumford, Portland, Bangor and Houlton.

Suddenly, Soucy didn’t have a case manager anymore – someone to help him gain direction in his life. He also may lose access to transportation and youth development services.

Bob Howe, executive director of the program, is struggling to make cuts and stretch remaining resources. The last thing they’d cut, he said, is any of the housing.

Program officials have turned to both state and national lawmakers. And a delegation of state legislators, including Lewiston Reps. Margaret Craven and Elaine Makas, addressed the issue during a recent visit to Maine’s lawmakers in Washington, D.C.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud said the congressman had put some calls out to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on the matter, but had not heard back. Michaud said in a statement that he supports additional funding for Maine’s programs.

Craven has submitted a bill on the state level to improve services for teens. Most of the details of the bill are still being decided.

The New Beginnings network offers supervised facilities for those 16 to 21 in Lewiston, Augusta and Farmington, and also has unsupervised facilities for teens 18 to 21 in other “scattered” locations.

Most of the youth New Beginnings serves are from the area. Many come because they’ve been abandoned, kicked out or “home is no longer a safe place,” Howe said.

The facility started in 1990, funded by a combination of sources. The Runaway Homeless Youth Act, instated in 1992, provided the chunk of funding that recently ended.

Howe acknowledged there are more applicants this time around for the limited funds, but remains puzzled by the cuts to New Beginnings. All its reviews have been sterling, he said.

At age 16, Ashley Staples, originally from Augusta, said she couldn’t stand the foster homes anymore.

For the next two years she crashed on people’s couches and lived under a bridge. She did a couple of short stints at emergency shelters.

Finally she stumbled upon New Beginnings. Now she’s 18, and the program set her up with an apartment in Augusta, with a few necessities. She got a job flagging for construction work, and hopes to someday work the machines.

She’s bought a few things for her apartment with the money she’s earned. She doesn’t have curtains yet – hospital blankets hang in their place.

Since she found out about the cuts, she worries her housing will disappear – and drag down everything else she’s worked toward in her two months with New Beginnings. She’s already lost her case worker.

But Howe remains committed to New Beginning’s goals as he tries to compensate for the funding shortfall. “We will do anything we can to keep housing for her,” he said.