Maine’s low-barrier shelters that serve the state’s most vulnerable homeless people are suffering from a funding deficit that threatens to shutter at least one prominent shelter in Bangor.
Representatives from low-barrier homeless shelters across the state testified before the Maine Legislature’s Joint Select Committee on Housing on Tuesday. Together, they called on the Legislature to improve the funding stream for the state’s five low-barrier shelters that would help them recover from a multimillion-dollar funding gap.
Low-barrier shelters differ from typical shelters in that they don’t require background checks, credit checks, income verification, previous program participation, sobriety or proof of identification for people to access resources.
The state’s low-barrier shelters see an annual collective operating loss of about $4.1 million.
Penobscot Community Health Care, which owns and operates the Hope House Health and Living Center in Bangor, is already seeing the consequences of significant funding gaps. The health care agency announced last month it is seeking a new owner to assume operations of the low-barrier shelter as it can’t afford to keep it afloat.
The shelter portion of the Hope House is projected to lose more than $600,000 by the end of this year, according to Lori Dwyer, PCHC president and CEO. Next year, the shelter is projected to lose more than $800,000.
If PCHC can’t find a new owner to take over operations of the Hope House, the shelter will close in October 2024, Dwyer said. That closure would eliminate the shelter’s 44 dorm room beds and 12 overflow mats from Bangor’s shelter offerings.
“Though I am optimistic by nature and know our public and private partners care deeply and wish to support Hope House to keep it open, none will be able to help meaningfully unless the State addresses this funding crisis,” Dwyer wrote in a statement Tuesday.
Bangor’s two emergency shelters — Bangor Area Homeless Shelter and Hope House Health and Living Center — are considered low-barrier, but Bangor Area Homeless Shelter requires guests to be sober from drugs and alcohol.
The state’s other low-barrier shelters include Waterville’s Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter and Milestone Recovery, Elena’s Way Wellness Shelter and Florence House, all of which are in Portland.
Low-barrier shelters suffer from a combination of not having access to targeted funding streams and the high cost of providing intensive services, as it requires more staff. It’s also more difficult to fill funding gaps through private fundraising.
Because of lack of requirements to receive help from low-barrier shelters, the shelters’ guests are usually people who have been banned from or are unable to access other shelters and would otherwise be living outside, said Mark Swann, Executive Director of Preble Street in Portland.
“They are the individuals who you may have seen sleeping in doorways, laid out on the cold ground, or hidden in tents behind shopping centers, alongside rivers and highways,” Swann said. “They struggle with complex medical needs, histories of trauma, untreated substance use and mental health disorders. They are the people with the most dire need in our community.”
