A Bangor nonprofit will launch a new resource center next week for people grappling with homelessness, mental health disorders and active substance use.
The Bangor Health Equity Alliance’s new center is designed to be a warm, safe and inviting space where people who are homeless or have substance use disorders can relax and socialize, said Josh D’Alessio, executive director of the nonprofit.
The Health Equity Alliance Resource and Testing Center opens Monday at 304 Hancock St. in Bangor, but the entrance is on Newbury Street, the same building as the organization’s clinic, syringe exchange program and offices. The center will be open seven days a week from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The facility is the latest resource for a city struggling with a growing number of people who are homeless and grappling with substance use and untreated mental illness. The center is also designed to indirectly support local businesses that have been impacted by Bangor’s ongoing homeless crisis.
The nearly 2,000-square-foot center will have a kitchen with food, computers, televisions and games, among other resources to meet people’s basic needs and help them stay connected to their community.
People will have access to music, art and other enrichment groups, which are “centered around changing unhealthy behaviors, but you’d never know it,” D’Alessio said.
The center is staffed by licensed alcohol and drug counselors, peer recovery coaches and peer support specialists who are trained in ethics and boundaries, D’Alessio said. Their goal is to build relationships and trust with Bangor’s most vulnerable residents so someone has a trusted professional they can ask for help when they’re ready.
Giving people a safe place to spend time surrounded by trained professionals who are ready to help will hopefully result in people who are homeless spending fewer jail nights, less time in emergency rooms and accessing housing and other services sooner, D’Alessio.
D’Alessio said even if someone comes into the center every day to have a cup of coffee, take a nap or socialize with friends, that still builds a sense of community for that person and gives them a safe place to rest and get off the streets.
“Fostering a sense of community results in a sense of purpose somewhere,” D’Alessio said.
The new center is across the hall from the Health Equity Alliance’s numerous other resources, including its syringe service program that offers clean syringes to people who inject drugs.
Maine Family Planning, an organization that offers affordable sexual and reproductive health care and education, also has an office in the building that provides wound care on a walk-in or appointment basis.
The center will offer testing and treatment for HIV and Hepatitis C, among other sexually transmitted infections, D’Alessio said, at a time when cases of both have risen in Bangor, especially within the city’s homeless community.
The new center is funded by $694,700 in federal pandemic relief funding, which the Bangor City Council approved in October 2023. The funding is a piece of the more than $20 million Bangor received from the American Rescue Plan Act, which Congress passed in 2021.
Alongside the new physical space, the Health Equity Alliance will also launch an outreach team designed to carry out the organization’s Good Neighbor Program, which aims to connect people in need with existing resources while helping local businesses that have been “shouldering the opioid crisis,” D’Alessio said.
Though somewhat similar to the Bangor Police Department’s Bangor Community Action Team, D’Alessio said the outreach team, made up of people who are trained in managing behaviors of someone who is actively using substances, won’t replicate the service. Bangor Community Action Team responds to non-emergency calls that don’t require police.
“The BCAT team gets a solid A,” D’Alessio said. “We’re here for the four percent of people who may fall through the cracks of BCAT and other services for some reason.”
The organization’s outreach team can respond to someone who isn’t doing anything illegal and isn’t in crisis, but their behavior could be interfering with businesses.
For example, a local business can call the Health Equity Alliance team if someone has been coming in every day asking to use the bathroom or spending time outside the business. The team can bring someone somewhere or connect them with services designed to better meet their needs.
