Portland, ME - Mental Health Resources
If you or someone you love is struggling, you don’t have to sort out the system before you can ask for help. Call the Mental Health Hotline at 866-903-3787 to talk through what’s going on and get pointed toward mental health support in Portland, any hour of the day or night.
If this is an emergency
If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 911.
If you are in emotional distress or thinking about suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7.
In Maine, you can call or text the statewide number, 888-568-1112, at any hour, or reach Cumberland County directly at 207-774-4357.
The Mental Health Hotline is an information and referral service. It is not a substitute for emergency services.
Reaching out is hard, and whatever brought you here is reason enough. You may be living with depression that has dulled things you used to enjoy, a winter that went on longer than you could manage, or worry about someone close to you that you don’t know how to act on. You don’t need a diagnosis or a referral to start, and it doesn’t have to be an emergency.
Maine has made this simpler than most states. There is one number to remember, 888-568-1112, and it works by call, text or chat, at any hour of any day. The person who answers will talk with you first, and if it would help to have someone come to you, they send the mobile team that covers your part of the state. In Portland that team belongs to the Opportunity Alliance, which also runs a crisis center in the city. You can reach Cumberland County directly at 207-774-4357 if you would rather skip a step.
One thing worth knowing before you search on your own: crisis coverage in Maine is divided by county, and Portland sits in southern Cumberland. Sweetser is a fine organization, but its mobile team covers the northern end of the county around Brunswick and Freeport, not the city. If you want someone to talk to when things aren’t urgent, Sweetser does run a peer support line at 866-771-9276, staffed around the clock by people in their own recovery, and you can call it simply because the day has been long.
You don’t need to know which of these is right before you reach out. Whether you’re calling for yourself or for someone you love, the Mental Health Hotline can help you talk it through and find a place to start, at 866-903-3787. More Maine mental health resources are gathered on the state page.
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Where to Get Help in Portland
Some of these are for the worst night of your life. Others are for an ordinary Tuesday when you can’t face the week, and that counts too. If you’re not sure what happens when you dial, here’s what 988 does and who answers it.
Mental Health in Portland, by the Numbers
Three numbers for Portland, from the most recent round of CDC city-level modeling. If part of you has been wondering whether it’s just you, it isn’t.
Figures come from the CDC PLACES 2025 release, which models city-level estimates from 2023 BRFSS survey responses for adults 18 and over. Portland ranks 15th of the 100 cities in this series for diagnosed depression, where 1 is the highest rate, while also having some of the best health coverage in the series at 7.2 percent uninsured. A high diagnosis rate can reflect people being able to see someone, not only how common the condition is. Model-based estimates describe a population, not any one person in it.
Asking for help takes more than it should when you’re already worn down, and you shouldn’t have to do the sorting on your own. The Mental Health Hotline can talk through what’s going on and help you find the right next step in Portland, whatever time it is. Call 866-903-3787 when you’re ready.