“By being present here today, as well as by paying attention every day, by thoughtfully connecting the dots between the tragedy of homelessness and the racial inequities, social determinants of health, gentrification pressures, and widening economic inequities that cause homelessness, you are the group of people I am most optimistic about creating the change that we need to end homelessness. And, I know that is why you are here too – to end homelessness.”
To kick off Preble Street’s second Conference on Homelessness: Solutions Start with ME on October 17, 2024, Jeff Olivet, Executive Director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH), told attendees, “We have a lot to learn from each other across the country.” This was the guiding principle behind the day, with nearly 300 political, social services, business, and faith leaders from across the state and the U.S., all coming together to discuss innovative and practical solutions to homelessness in Maine.
People with lived experience of homelessness helped to shape many of the conference’s discussions, asking questions and adding their voices to ground conversations in what can work for real people.
So, what can we as a community do for the average person that's homeless, providing some of the same resources that I received as a Veteran?
Preble Street awarded Greg Payne, Senior Advisor, Housing Policy, in the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future (GOPIF), with its Force for Good award. The award was presented by Michelle “Chelle” Ducas, a tenant of the Huston Commons Site-based Housing First program, and Mark Swann, Executive Director, Preble Street. Follow this link to watch the award ceremony and the first half of the days’ events on YouTube.
This short film was screened at the conference and documents the impacts of Housing First, with stories from people living in Site-based Housing First programs.
Throughout the day, presenters, panelists, and attendees acknowledged the importance of creating opportunities, like this, for communities to come together to work on solutions and create change. “Systems change is a highly collaborative effort,” said Hannah Sims, Crisis System Manager at Housing Forward, a homeless services agency in Dallas, Texas. “It’s pretty exciting to think about what we can do together,” added Kelly King Horne, Executive Director of Homeward, a nonprofit that coordinates and tracks homeless services in Richmond, Virgina.
During a panel discussion between service providers and specialists from around the country, Angie Walker, a Homelessness Program Coordinator with the Health and Human Services Department of Rockford, Illinois, outlined how Rockford has achieved and maintained functionally zero homelessness among Veterans and chronically homeless people: “We really started to ramp up our outreach because we knew that without us actively engaging with people, we were going to continue to get more and more unsheltered folks, and they weren’t going to get housed.”
In a session focused on how to create sustainable, ongoing funding for emergency shelters, Maine State Representative and member of the Joint Select Committee on Housing, Drew Gattine said, “We need to start looking at shelters as a critical community service and a critical community asset… We need to build more recognition of what shelters do in communities.”
Presenters also addressed why it’s critical to involve people with lived experience of homelessness in policy discussions and how to create and implement solutions. “It is really critical we involve more people with lived experience in meaningful ways. That is not a small task or issue, but a very important one,” said Dean Klein, incoming Executive Director on the Maine Continuum of Care. “We’re all in this together, and homelessness impacts all of us, but some people have had a more direct, traumatic experience. We want to honor and recognize that, enriching important discussions on solutions,” said King Horne.
Preble Street thanks the Atlantic Charitable Fund, the Maine State Housing Authority, Genesis Community Loan Fund, Avesta Housing, and Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare for sponsoring this year’s conference. Preble Street would also like to extend thanks to our dedicated advisory board, who helped organize and facilitate the programming for this year’s conference. This is a biennial conference and will be hosted every two years.
To read more about this year’s conference, review the day’s agenda, or watch a recording, please visit the conference webpage.
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