Sen. Susan Collins said a federal team transformed how Bangor addressed its homeless population, but the city and state still have “a long way to go” due to a lack of affordable housing.
Collins was the catalyst who asked the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge in 2022 to send homelessness experts to Bangor to help devise a solution to the city’s homelessness crisis. The technical assistance team, which has worked to rapidly rehouse unsheltered people in metropolitan areas, including Seattle, Los Angeles and San Diego, taught people from more than 10 local and state agencies how to work together to address the needs of individuals and get them housed.
“Obviously not every problem has been solved, but city officials have told me that without the assistance they got from HUD, they would not have been successful in dismantling some of the encampments and finding safe housing for the homeless individuals who were there,” Collins said following a tour of the Bangor Region YMCA on Wednesday.
Federal officials arrived in Bangor on Sept. 20, 2022, one day after the Bangor Daily News published a story detailing how the city lacks a clear and effective strategy to reduce homelessness, which ballooned during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The group of outreach workers were able to house nearly 20 people who were living along Valley Avenue in Bangor and then clean up the encampment, using methods it learned from the HUD team.
That same group is now working on repeating the feat at Tent City, the city’s other major homeless encampment behind the Hope House.
While the city and state are far from eliminating homelessness and associated problems, such as used needles littering public spaces, Collins said the city has made “considerable progress” in shrinking its homeless population.
This is due to the fact that the city, public health department and police department coordinated to house those in need and provide wraparound services, such as substance use treatment, that help keep people housed, Collins said.
That work, however, must continue, especially as winter approaches, which can be a particularly dangerous time for unsheltered individuals in Maine, Collins said.
