FAQ

The people we serve face many problems including homelessness, hunger, human trafficking, trauma and abuse, health issues, substance use disorders, and mental illness.

In short, the solution to homelessness is housing.

The majority of people who experience homelessness are situationally homeless for a short period of time due to circumstances in their life. These situations include lack of affordable housing, job layoffs, foreclosure or eviction, natural disaster, medical crises, and abuse or neglect. Over 40% of youth are homeless because their families rejected them because of their sexual identity and/or orientation. 

The solution to situational homelessness is community support and affordable housing, but community services cannot meet the growing need. In Maine, thousands of households are on the wait list for a voucher to help pay their rent. In the meantime, people are forced to live in severely overcrowded shelters or dangerous or inadequate situations. 

People become homeless for all sorts of reasons, most of them having little to do with their personal choices and more to do with the systems of poverty and oppression in our society.  People who are chronically homeless, or homeless for many years, are likely struggling with untreated health and mental health issues, sometimes complicated by substance use disorders.

A solution to chronic homelessness is Housing First, which provides a safe place to live while working on these issues. It’s important to know that the smallest percentage of people who experience homelessness are chronically homeless, but they use the highest percentage of costly services such as emergency medical treatment because their instability is compounded by the length of time they are living in crisis. Housing first not only saves lives, it saves money. Preble Street has three housing first programs. 

In addition to housing, we also need systemic solutions that will prevent homelessness in the first place — commonsense economic policies that recognize everyone’s fundamental right to the basic survival necessities — food, shelter, clothing, health care, etc.

People experiencing homelessness struggle to find shelter, warmth, and safety. People without a permanent residence also have reduced access to vital necessities such as food and proper nutrition, personal hygiene supplies, sanitary facilities, washers and dryers, phones, mail, transportation, and health, mental health, and dental care, while being at a higher risk of experiencing violence and human trafficking.

Additionally, people without housing experience discrimination that limits access to education, results in loss of relationships, and limits employment opportunities.

Housing instability and unemployment very frequently coexist and exacerbate each other. In the State of Maine, it is difficult not to notice the increase in the number of visibly unhoused individuals, with many cities and towns now facing what seems to be an unprecedented crisis of housing and shelter availability. Simultaneously, an increasing number of businesses are advertising higher starting salaries in an attempt to fill staffing vacancies following the many resignations that have happened since the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. When faced with this seemingly illogical disconnect, it can be easy to wonder why folks in unhoused communities may struggle to find employment when it appears commonly available. 

There is no one reason for these issues. Individuals in unhoused communities often face a variety of interconnected barriers, many of which prevent them from securing and maintaining stable employment. The following is a non-exhaustive list of barriers that many unhoused community members face when trying to find a job.

• Lack of stability
  A lack of stable housing and shelter makes it incredibly difficult to maintain a schedule that allows employment. While those with access to housing have the luxury of coming and going from their homes as they please, folks who are accessing shelter do not. Most emergency shelters cannot guarantee individuals a bed each night. To access shelter for the night, folks must be sure that they are present at the shelter at the time of check-in. Lack of space means that wait times and lines for shelter access are long, forcing those accessing shelter to line up hours in advance to ensure that they will have a bed for the evening.

• Inconsistent access to technology
  Without ongoing access to shelter, electricity, and funding, maintaining connection through mobile phones or email is incredibly difficult. Tasks like applying for jobs and maintaining ongoing employment are very challenging without stable access to technology.

• Unmet basic needs
  Living without stable housing makes it difficult to ensure that basic needs are met consistently. Access to food is often unreliable or requires that an individual adheres to a specific schedule in order to receive meals. Lack of access to housing and shelter can also make it challenging to meet basic hygiene and healthcare necessities. Unhoused individuals must rely on social services, friends, and other resources for things like showers and laundry access.

• Issues with substance use
  Substance use disorder can make it very difficult to secure and maintain stable employment. Communities across Maine have been widely impacted by the ongoing opioid epidemic, a crisis that was greatly heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Mental health
  For some individuals, mental health challenges lead to both housing instability and a lack of stable employment. Oftentimes, preexisting mental health challenges are greatly exacerbated by housing instability, as a lack of consistent access to shelter and rest causes increased strain on the body both physically and psychologically.

• Physical disabilities
  Physical disabilities, some of which are caused by injuries at previous jobs or years of intensive physical labor, can make it difficult to remain employed. Some physical disabilities and/or medical needs can also make it difficult to access shelter, as many emergency shelters do not have the ability to accommodate folks who require higher levels of physical assistance. 

• History of incarceration
• Citizenship and immigration status

The issues of hunger, homelessness, and poverty persist in our country because of:   

• Intergenerational poverty & wealth disparities  
• Structural racism & the continued impact of White Supremacy   
• Concentration of wealth into the hands of a few  
• Gentrification   
• Social policies that direct wealth upward  
• Disinvestment from social services  
• “Bootstraps” mentality   
• Impact of COVID-19 

The experience of poverty is intergenerational, and poverty is expensive. When a person’s resources are being stretched to make ends meet, any unexpected expense could mean total financial ruin.  

We also know that the social systems that shape our society — like white supremacy culture — have tangible effects on homelessness and poverty. In Maine, Black and African American individuals are ten times more likely to experience homelessness than their White peers.  

Meanwhile, gentrification is turning Portland and many other Maine towns into places where only the wealthy can afford to live and work, while the health and economic impacts of COVID-19 continue to increase the need for housing and food assistance in our communities. Despite all this, there is a prevailing idea that everyone can just “pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” a philosophy that places the blame of homelessness and poverty on the individuals experiencing it rather than the larger systems that perpetrate racial, social, and economic injustices.