Bangor’s warming center providers are scrambling to determine how they’ll shelter homeless residents this winter after learning that two of the centers were denied state funding.
“It’s going to be a tough year for the unhoused community if we don’t have some additional beds,” Joe Hartel, executive director of the Together Place recovery center, said.
He and other service providers worry that there won’t be enough warming center space available this year and people will be left out in the cold as the city struggles to address its homelessness crisis.
“My fear is that we see more people with cases of hypothermia, it leads to more isolation, which creates overdose deaths, and then we see people dying because of freezing to death,” Hartel said. His organization ran a warming center for the first time last year, and its application to MaineHousing this year was denied.
The Mansion Church has run a warming center for years but was also denied state funding this year. Terry Dinkins, the church’s pastor, said he was shocked to hear the news.
“I think we need the three warming centers,” he said, estimating that the level of need this year will be similar to last year, if not more. Last year, the city’s warming centers served about 80 to 90 people per night, Bruce Hews, the city’s homeless response coordinator, told the homelessness advisory committee last week.
MaineHousing awarded funding this week for 65 warming center beds at the Brick Church and five at the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter.
The Mansion Church’s application was denied because it didn’t meet the funding requirements, since the church said it planned to stay open until March and the funding is for programs operating through the end of April, according to MaineHousing spokesperson Scott Thistle.
The Together Place was denied funding because of its limited experience operating a warming shelter and because its application was more expensive per bed than others, according to Thistle.
“We understand the need for overnight shelter will be high this winter in Bangor and across Maine. Our role is to award scarce public resources fairly and equitably to organizations that can make the greatest impact,” Thistle said.
Although two shelters were denied funding, Bangor overall is getting far more money than in years past — and more than any other city — because the Brick Church was awarded $427,650 in addition to the homeless shelter’s $10,000. Bangor warming centers only got $67,000 total from MaineHousing last year.
The city stepped in to provide emergency funding during a similar scramble last year when the Brick Church’s funding request was denied by MaineHousing. That money allowed the Brick Church to continue operating, and it also allowed the Together Place to open an overnight warming center for the first time.
Leon Licata, pastor of the Brick Church, said he asked for more funding than usual this year, and that the shelter has always had to rely on donations to supplement the funding it was able to get.
“We’re really excited about it, and on the other hand, we’re really stressed out about it, because none of the other shelters got funded,” Licata said.
He plans to use the funds to pay off costs associated with the building, pay for electricity, heating oil and other essentials, and give small stipends to some of his warming center staff, which wasn’t possible before.
The Brick Church serves multiple meals for its warming center visitors and will open Nov. 15 this year with a maximum capacity of 70 people. It’s in need of more volunteers to staff nighttime shifts, Licata said.
“My biggest fear right now is that there’s not going to be enough room to house everybody that wants to come in out of the cold,” Licata said. “That’s your son, your daughter, your mother, your father, or one of your grandparents that are going to be left out in the cold because I don’t have enough room.”
He expects this could be the first year he has to turn someone away.
Beyond the need for more capacity, the concentration of state funding mostly to one shelter disrupts the collaboration that warming center leaders say made the network operate effectively last year.
For example, if a visitor at the Mansion Church became agitated or broke the rules last winter, Dinkins said he’d call Licata or Hartel and send the person their way. That flexibility is no longer available.
“Last year was pretty beautiful, the way these organizations worked together” to make sure there was space for everyone who needed it, Hartel said.
Hartel said his organization requested about $300,000 for 40 warming center beds. The Together Place will be unable to open a warming center again without funding, he added.
Dinkins still plans to open the Mansion Church and has pulled it off in past years just with help from church members and other supporters — but it’s unclear when it’ll be able to open or what limitations it’ll have.
Even with the state funding his church received last year, it still wasn’t enough on its own, Dinkins said. This year, he requested $80,000 knowing the total costs would likely be closer to $120,000.
The Mansion Church has space for 30 people, or 50 with enough staff to open up the basement.
“Whatever it takes. We need to open up because I don’t think that the Brick [Church] can handle it by themselves,” Dinkins said.
The group of warming center leaders plans to meet all together with city staff on Friday, according to Licata.
“The city’s going to have to step up and somehow dish out some money,” he said.