Housing advocates and service providers say they're making progress in responding to homelessness in Maine, but that the state and local communities need to build much more housing in the years ahead.
At a conference in Portland on Thursday, MaineHousing Director Dan Brennan said that the state is spearheading a redesigned, statewide 'hub' approach to address homelessness, in which contracted coordinators and organizations work to find and address service gaps across nine regions of Maine.
But Brennan said the state needs to expand its housing supply.
"The community needs to turn to the people who build housing in your community, and the people who have money in your community, and build housing for your community. So that every community is part of what we're trying to do at the state level," Brennan said.
Greg Payne, the senior advisor on housing policy to Gov. Janet Mills, also pushed for more investment in "permanent supported housing" across the state, that would prioritize quickly connecting individuals experiencing homelessness to housing, without conditions.
The conference, organized by Preble Street, was intended to bring together service providers to address homelessness at a time when the state is reporting a significant rise in the number of unhoused residents. Many are housed in hotels or motels, using funding from federal pandemic relief programs.
Andrew Bove, vice president of social work at Preble Street, said that many organizations have formed strong connections to respond to the needs of the pandemic, and those connections will be vital to address the current challenge.
"There's opportunity in front of us to really start to further some of the goals, but there's also really good work happening. But there's big challenges ahead," Bove said.
One of those challenges, Bove said, is inflation, which he says is straining people's paychecks and stretching the capacity of service providers.
