The Jan. 23 BDN article on the annual count of homeless people in Bangor notes that the method of counting is “inherently flawed.” But it isn’t nearly as flawed as society’s response to the crisis of homelessness, which seems to grow worse in Maine each year.
Many factors contribute to homelessness — among them the lack of affordable housing, housing discrimination, unaffordable health care and the medical debt it causes, insufficient wages, inadequate funding for mental health and substance abuse services, racial and socio-economic inequities in the criminal justice system, and policies that criminalize homelessness. Good public policies addressing these underlying issues would go a long way to resolving homelessness in America.
That is why the Maine Poor People’s Campaign is holding a State House assembly. On March 2, we will gather at noon at the Capitol Park in Augusta with other organizations and communities that share our goal of social and economic justice for all. We will present to the Legislature and the governor public policies they can and should enact to ameliorate the many problems that contribute to poverty, hunger, and homelessness in Maine. Join us in this call to fight poverty, not the poor.
David Jolly
Penobscot
