My goal as governor is to reduce the number of homeless people in Maine to zero. On January 23, 2024, 2,695 people were counted as homeless in Maine. https://mainehousing.org/docs/default-source/policy-research/research-reports/homeless-reports/2024-point-in-time-report.pdf?sfvrsn=85d69e15_3 This was a one-day snapshot required by the federal government and likely undercounted the number of homeless.
The photo above is of a homeless encampment in Portland, Maine. The encampment was subsequently cleared out, forcing the occupants to go elsewhere. Forcing people to live in tents and pushing them from place to place is evidence of a system that has failed.
Generally speaking, Maine needs to spend more public monies helping people who need help. This money will largely come from shifting existing tax revenues to housing and homeless programs, increasing tax contributions from the wealthy, operating government more efficiently and effectively, eliminating special interest tax exemptions, and carefully identifying and decreasing waste, fraud and abuse of public funds and programs.
Short-term solutions to the homeless problem include providing more state monies to subsidize homeless shelters, constructing so-called pallet shelter villages https://palletshelter.com/build-a-village/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT0_HQrtklA and expanding Maine’s Housing First program https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/22/title22sec20-A.html . I recently was a patient in a Maine hospital emergency room on a cold winter evening. A young man about in his thirties was brought in complaining of chest pain. Based on what he was wearing and his personal hygiene, it was apparent to me that he was homeless and needed a warm place to spend the night. If for no other reason than to be clean, homeless people need adequate, publicly funded facilities. I had personally not given the need for personal hygiene facilities for the homeless any thought until that night.
My goal as governor is also to increase housing units and affordability. One way of doing this is by increasing the funding of the Maine State Housing Authority (MSHA) to develop and expand new and existing programs. https://www.mainehousing.org/
The costs of buying and renting housing in Maine have skyrocketed. This is largely driven by supply and demand and was inevitable. Maine’s government can and must devote more resources to helping those who need help to have safe, secure, affordable housing.
