PORTLAND, Maine — Homelessness is on the minds of many people these days.
An average of 444 people seek housing each night in Portland’s shelters, which have been filled to overflowing for more than a year, according to the most recent data from the Department of Health and Human Services.
City councilors are scheduled to consider a sweeping plan to address the problem during their meeting on Nov. 5.
State and local political candidates touted their own ideas at public forums held over the past month at the Preble Street Soup Kitchen.
And the University of Southern Maine will host a panel discussion on issues of the homeless at a Friday evening gala for the university’s school of social work.
But despite all the talk, potential solutions to the problem remain elusive.
One of the roadblocks, most experts agree, is the lack of housing in Portland. The recommendations of the city’s Homeless Prevention Task Force, which the council discusses next week, include building three, 35-unit housing facilities.
That’s in keeping with the “housing-first” approach, which emphasizes finding a place for homeless individuals to live even before addressing other problems, such as mental illness or substance abuse.
“The paradigm of a housing-first system is simply that providing stable and permanent housing is the first priority for people in crisis,” the task force said in its report.
One expert wonders whether the city’s new plan may be a case of doing too little, too late.
“[Portland] should have been on this decades ago,” said David Wagner, a USM professor and national expert on homelessness who is keynoting the Friday panel discussion.
Creating such large facilities dedicated to housing homeless individuals “is going back to the poor-house concept … that is based on economies of scale,” Wagner said. “Even New York City moved away from that years ago.”
Wagner said that communities such as Portland should instead look to integrate homeless housing within smaller, existing buildings. Larger, dedicated facilities “segregate the poor,” who are often not welcomed by neighborhood residents, he said.
According to Wagner, communities in York County have had more success addressing homelessness because they gradually adopted the housing-first model in the 1990s, while Portland was focused on providing services.
Even so, housing-first is only part of the solution.
“Getting someone housed, that’s the easy part. After you find housing, then the real work begins,” said Tom Ptacek, who was homeless for a year and now is an advocate for Preble Street’s Homeless Voices for Justice. “If someone has addiction issues or other problems, just putting him inside a room isn’t going to work.”
Still, Ptacek supports the task force’s plan, especially its recommendation of increasing the use of case managers to work one-on-one with homeless individuals.
“If you’re on the precipice (of being homeless), having someone there and figuring out specifically what you need can keep you from falling off that cliff,” he said.
5000 carpenters out of work, Maine has the best lumber in the world, and we have homeless people??
Affordable housing.
$ 250,000 per unit.
It should not be that much, we need really single room places, very basic, kitchen, bath, and a bed. In the 1930’s, they were called camps, and there was no housing shortage, because there were no regulations, there should be more smaller housing, some two or three room places for a couple, small and comfortable, with the very basics. There are no homeless in Canada, they build enough units for all, some are small, a lot of people just want a place of their own, Maine legislature has got so every house has to be so large, and built by very expensive standards, you can build a strong and nice place a lot cheaper, using board and batten tech, and so on, some of these towns got enough land, place a fair rent or rent to buy on them, and if the rent is not met, out they go.
Many contractors don’t want to build smaller houses as they are not as profitable as mini-mansions. With many folks remaining single, the need for less spacious housing is on the rise. Some in California have begun to develop micro apartments of about 300 square feet. That would give folks what they need to be independent, and hopefully be less expensive to own or rent because of the lower footprint.
Thanks, the micro apartments is something like I was trying to say, thanks, yes, very much needed. In my day we called them camps, but, micro apartment is fine.
Violette and McCormick, two prominent Democrat ex legislators given hack jobs far beyond their talents and abilities and the state of Maine is much poorer for it. Think before you vote Tuesday and do go back to the failed policies of the past.
I know four individuals who use Portland’s homeless services regularly. All four were in the care of the State when they were children (11, 12, and 14 years old.)
That is not unusual. Foster Children have a great propensity to wind up in homeless shelters, mental health facilities, and jail.
There was an old Africian proverb about two fishermen rowing up a river. They found a child floating in the water, and stopped to pick it up. Up the river they found two more children, and stopped for them. Then a third stop to pick up more children. Soon there were too many children for the boat, but the one rower kept rowing up the river… “Where are you going?” asked the second man. “We have no more room and we should go home drop off these children, and come back and pick up the rest.” “NO.” said the first man. “I’m going up this river to find out who is throwing children into the water.”
Word to the wise for Portland’s mayor and city counselors.
Feed them, and they will come, and come, and come….
let’s re title the article “how the west was won…the story of jdtex”
Four more years !!
Had a family member homeless for 10 years, couldn’t help him, he said it was his choice to be homeless and didn’t want to be responsibile for a apartment.. He had the money, he just didn’t want to be responsible.. The last seven years he has kept a place for himself with the the bare minimum in it. I tried giving him family photos and he refused them for he didn’t want to be responsibile for them.. the amount of stuff he owns can be put in a backpack.. That is the reality of it. You can’t fix everyone.
This is what I mean, a lot of people just want a room, nothing more, we need to build places like this, one room rentals, one room camps, not every body has a need of 4 or 5 rooms, something simple, something cheap, something clean.
The State got a lot of federal dollars back when Angus King was Governor for what I call stealing kids and putting them into foster care.. The feds paid the State by the head.
Another thing is the drugs they give kids in schools. to tranquilize them until they graduate. then cut them off. Homeless by drugs or foster care. follow the money and the taxpayer ends up with the bill.
Some truth to what you have said.
They should change the sign at the border to read:
“Welcome to Maine, The Welfare State”. Better yet, “Welcome to Maine, The Enabling State”
When I grw up and first left home (at age 17) there were hotel rooms in just about every decent size town. I don’t mean “motels” I mean the old hotels with the front porch and rocking chairs. You could rent a room for $4 or $5 a night, or take the room for a week for $20. The bathroom was down the hall, and there were no extras. Mostly a black and white TV and occasionally a phone from which you could make local calls.
There were also “Youth hostels” where people under the age of 25 could rent a bed for the night, or a week. Bring your own sleeping bag, and you got a roof and a place to shower, and a pay phone. Average cost about $2
The Y.M.C.A. used to rent doubles or singles. Rooms with one, two, or sometimes as many as four beds. The ones I stayed in were clean and the guys who ran the place didn’t put up with ANY garbage. Y.M.C.A’s charged differently depending on where they were, BUT back in the Seventies, the Sloane Y on 34th Street in New York City was getting $10 when neighboring low-end hotels were going for $50.
There were rooming houses where one could find varying degrees of accomidation for very very cheap.
Then there were the jobs which supported this hind-end lifestyle; I washed // dishes $1.35 an hour, parkinglots, $1.50 an hour, cars $10 a day under the table (no tax). windows (lower floors $1.60, upper floors $3.00.) I worked peak-load (day labor) where if you were sober you could always get gardening jobs in summer, and snow removal in winter. I pumped gas ($150.00 a week gross) Loaded trucks $2.50 hours loading, only $1.30 while riding to and from the job.
It was hard work, but it was fun in a way. I was independent, met interesting people, traveled all over the USA and Canada. Gosh, sometimes I even wish I was back there.
Today a lot of the jobs I did are gone. Low-end restaurants don’t need as many dishwashers as they once did, the newer highrises use self-washing windows, and when was the last time you saw a gas pump jockey ?
The “cheap” rooms nw go or $50 a night, the old hotels have been demolished or converted to other uses, and most of the rooming houses are gone or to scummy to use.
As we march on to that new society where everyone has a college degree and works white collar service jobs, we might do well to check the caboose to see that it is still attached. there are still a few folks riding back there.