“Used to be a time, you could stand in the pulpit talking about Jesus being a good shepherd and look out the window to see sheep grazing right there,” said Ernest James, a town selectman for 40 years – and from time to time the assessor, road commissioner and cemetery caretaker.

But changing lifestyles are driving the demand for self–storage facilities, with more than 50,000 scattered across the country, according to Forbes. At last count, and climbing, Maine had 211 facilities, reports SelfStorage.com, an online self-storage comparison and reservation site. Garages, attics and basements are overflowing, and the self-storage industry is reaping the benefits.

On a recent afternoon in Portland’s Bayside neighborhood, the after-work crowd began to trickle into one of the area’s many craft breweries and locally owned restaurants. Teams arrived at Bayside Bowl, the upscale bowling alley with a popular rooftop bar, for the Wednesday night league. Shoppers packed the parking lots at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s.

But a few hundred feet away on Somerset Street, sandwiched between the two grocery stories, was evidence of the mounting homeless crisis in Portland and the surrounding region. As many as 84 tents lined the Bayside Trail, a city official said Tuesday, with more than 30 new ones in just a week.

A bill prompted by the discovery of a world-class lithium deposit in Newry would dramatically change Maine law to allow mining of metals in open pits of any size, with up to 100 acres actively mined at any time.