Amanda Fraser, left, sits on her mattress on the floor of the lobby at the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter in Waterville on Wednesday, November 13, 2024. (Photo by Michael G. Seamans/Maine Morning Star)
Two permanent new homeless shelters, two new warming shelters and several housing stability initiatives will be possible because of $7.7 million in state funding allocated to 22 different organizations and nonprofits working to find solutions to homelessness.
The latest pot of money is part of Maine’s Emergency Housing Relief Fund that was provided to MaineHousing to finance homeless solutions, approved by Gov. Janet Mills and the state Legislature.
It will fund new shelters in Lewiston and Waterville, warming centers in Brunswick and Augusta, and contribute to housing stability initiatives statewide, including rental assistance, supporting students experiencing homelessness, and legal and workforce integration services for unhoused people.
“It was just a recognition that after the pandemic, there were so many more people experiencing homelessness,” said Dan Brennan, director of MaineHousing, of the Legislature’s allocation to the emergency housing relief fund. “And to their credit, they created a fund with a lot of flexibility in it.”
With the expiration of Covid-19 pandemic-era federal housing funds, housing advocates including Brennan and Katie Spencer White, president and chief executive officer of MidMaine Homeless Shelter in Waterville, said the need for long term solutions, including more affordable units, is higher than ever.
Over the past few years, the Legislature has approved funding for MaineHousing under the emergency housing relief fund, with amounts varying from $22 million to the $13 million approved this year. MaineHousing used $7.7 million of those funds for long term solutions.
According to the point in time homelessness count, typically recorded one day in January every year, there were more than 2,600 people experiencing homelessness in 2024. That’s fewer than in 2022 and 2023, when homelessness spiked to more than 3,400 and 3,600 people respectively. But that count can vary day-to-day, and is not an accurate measure of the scope of the issue, according to experts.
“Needless to say, we could use 10 times the amount, but we realize that that’s not realistic,” Brennan said “And we’re grateful for the money we do get, but we don’t know that we’re going to get this pot of money again.”
That need is illustrated by the almost $34 million in funding requested by 34 different organizations for long term housing solutions, Brennan said.
The organizations selected were chosen because they had urgent needs and a clear plan to execute their proposed solutions. Those include meeting the needs of some of Maine’s largest communities including Portland, Lewiston, Bangor, Waterville and Augusta.
Kaydenz Kitchen in Lewiston won the largest award, with $2.5 million for the city’s first low-barrier homeless shelter, which will allow people to use the shelter’s services without restrictions, such as income or sobriety. Lewiston has other shelters, but none without stipulations such as participation in religious services, and none are open during daytime hours, according to the Sun Journal.
MidMaine Homeless Shelter in Waterville will receive $840,000 to purchase a new building for a shelter that will serve senior citizens and people in recovery, specifically, since the need for housing within those communities is increasing, White said.
The low-barrier shelter’s current location in Waterville was meant to accommodate about 50 people, but with the addition of the rotating warming shelter beds, there are about 85 people in the building. The new building will free up more space at the existing location so the people that are served during the winter months will have a designated bed, funded with a separate grant.
White said the limited supply of affordable housing and landlords that accept housing vouchers, coupled with inflation reducing people’s ability to pay rent, has resulted in more people experiencing homelessness, and for longer. Before the pandemic, people would need to rely on shelters for a few weeks before securing housing, White said, which has now turned into months.
“All of these externalities are creating a lot of pressure on homeless services agencies like ours, and this is true across the state,” she said. “So being able to access long term solutions funding through main housing is a real benefit to organizations like ours, because it means that we can move from offering temporary, seasonal expansion to a more permanent expansion.”
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