As we shared earlier this month, there will soon be more tents and encampments popping up throughout Maine. In a continuation of massive cuts to programs helping people living in poverty, the current Administration has announced a huge change to how it will fund housing and homeless services. This new approach will decimate permanent supportive housing programs and will lead to — at minimum — hundreds of people in Maine and over 170,000 people across the country returning to homelessness or experiencing unsheltered homelessness for the first time.
By abruptly slashing funding for existing permanent housing by two-thirds and redirecting critical resources to temporary programs with forced treatment, 812 Maine households, or 1,200 individuals, are now at risk of losing their homes. These households are in towns and cities across the state – in both urban and rural areas.
ACTION ALERT
Call and email Senators Collins and King, and Representatives Golden and Pingree as often as you can and implore them to demand that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) revise their disastrous changes on federal homelessness and housing policy.
If they do not, more than 1,200 Mainers – including people with disabilities, chronic illness, and families with children, all who have overcome homelessness – will no longer have a place to call home and will be forced back out on our streets.
Feel free to use the sample at the bottom of this article as your call script or email template.
Solutions that work
Permanent supportive housing – also known as the Housing First Model – became a standard for federal and state funding in the late 1990s because it works. At Preble Street we see this firsthand every day at our own housing programs: including Logan Place, Florence House, Huston Commons, Rapid Re-Housing, and Veterans Housing Services. Once people have a roof over their heads and stability, they can address substance use, take care of their health, find employment, go back to school, and reconnect to family.
Besides reducing the number of people staying in shelters or living in encampments, permanent supportive housing programs save the community millions of dollars each year. The cost to help a person stay housed pales in comparison to the cost of police calls, emergency room visits, medical transports, and jail stays they incur while homeless.
We know – through research and decades of first-hand experience – that the solutions to homelessness are more supportive housing and affordable housing, more funding for supportive services, and more upstream prevention. Yet, the current administration is now gutting permanent supportive housing programs and promoting Treatment First programming, despite proof that it is not as effective. A systematic review of 26 studies found that Housing First programs reduced homelessness by 88% and improved housing stability by 41% compared to treatment first programs. This change will harm thousands of people, many of whom are older adults, families with young children, people with disabilities, individuals who are working, and survivors of domestic violence.
Housing First and Rapid Re-Housing programs have almost ended Veteran homelessness in our country. According to the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, since 2010, Veteran homelessness has decreased by over 52%, and 83 communities and three states have effectively ended homelessness using the Housing First approach. The core principles of Housing First have been critical components of VA’s broader homelessness assistance programs, and helped them house 51,936 homeless Veterans and their families this year.
HUD’s decision to massively cut funding for proven solutions to homelessness comes mere months after Congress passed the Harmful Budget Megabill that slashed lifesaving programs like SNAP and Medicaid. Rather than investing in solutions that work, the current federal government is relentlessly attacking programs hundreds of thousands of Mainers and millions of Americans rely on. It is exceptionally cruel.
No one can be expected to address trauma, manage their health, find treatment, show up for work, or care for their families without a safe and reliable place to sleep, shower, and eat. When people have the stability of a permanent home and steady support wrapping around them, they can finally focus on getting well, reconnecting with community, and rebuilding their lives. We see this every single day at Preble Street.
Make no mistake: HUD’s proposed changes will increase homelessness in Maine. It will most certainly increase the number of people who are unsheltered and living outside on our streets, and it will increase the strains on our communities and emergency services like police and hospitals.
If our elected officials do not stop these changes by HUD from going forward, the impacts will take years to reverse. It’s hard to even imagine the potential damage to the lives of the people, including children, who will have been forced out of their homes.
Please contact your U.S. Senators and Representatives today!
Sample email/script:
Dear (NAME),
My name is _____ and I am a resident of TOWN, STATE. I am writing today to ask that you demand HUD reverse their disastrous changes to federal homelessness and housing policy. If they do not, more than 1,200 Mainers – including people with disabilities, chronic illness, and families with children, – will no longer have a place to call home and will be forced back into homelessness.
INSERT YOUR OWN THOUGHTS AND EXPERIENCES HERE.
Permanent supportive housing has a proven track record of getting people off the streets and into stable housing. And it saves the community money. Besides reducing the number of people staying in shelters, living in encampments, or on the street, permanent housing programs save the community millions of dollars each year. The cost to help a person stay housed pales in comparison to the cost of police calls, emergency room visits, medical transport, and jail stays they incur while homeless.
There is no question that HUD’s proposed changes will result in more tents and encampments popping up throughout Maine. This new approach will decimate permanent supportive housing programs and will lead to — at a minimum — hundreds of people in Maine and over 170,000 people across the country returning to homelessness or experiencing unsheltered homelessness for the first time.
Together with the recent executive orders to arrest or institutionalize unhoused people, this new approach will lead to a human rights crisis for thousands of Americans and impact all our communities.
The changes announced:
– Reduce access to permanent housing at the exact moment that rent, evictions, and unsheltered homelessness are increasing.
– Undermine harm reduction, despite overwhelming evidence that low-barrier engagement is essential for housing stabilization.
– Reward policing and punitive responses, including encampment sweeps — strategies that consistently increase trauma and prolong homelessness.
– Elevate Transitional Housing, which is more expensive than current funded programs and has poorer long-term outcomes, particularly for Black, Latino, LGBTQ+, and disabled residents.
– Force programs to ignore best practices and proven solutions in favor of implementing treatment-first policies to receive essential funding.
Please protect Mainers from losing their housing and insist that HUD revoke the proposed changes.
Thank you,
NAME