AUGUSTA – A homeless teenager who turned her life around, won a scholarship to Harvard University and was later featured in a television movie, will address a Maine housing conference Tuesday.

Liz Murray was the subject of a TV movie “Homeless to Harvard,” which appeared on Lifetime Television last year. ABC’s “20/20” also aired a special about Murray’s rise from New York’s streets to the Ivy League.

She is scheduled to address Gov. John Baldacci’s Conference of Affordable Housing at the Augusta Civic Center.

Murray became homeless as a teenager after watching her drug-addicted parents’ money disappear. Her mother became sick with AIDS and her father was living in a shelter.

After spending some time in a group home, Murray and a friend set out on their own. They spent nights in a variety of places, including friends’ apartments, riding the subways until dawn, snoozing at tables in diners and on a rooftop landing.

After her mother died in 1996, Murray returned to high school, often staying late to study and never telling her teachers that she was homeless for fear she would be turned over to child welfare authorities. She won a New York Times scholarship and was accepted by Harvard.

Murray left Harvard last year, saying she “didn’t feel grounded there,” and was living in her own apartment with a friend in the Bronx. She was helping to take care of her father, who is HIV positive and lived nearby.

Murray was studying at Columbia University this summer and was documenting her life in a book.

Tuesday’s conference, which was expected to draw 500 participants, was organized by the Maine State Housing Authority.