Bangor will not move forward with adopting a program that has used “housing navigators” to move homeless people into apartments and support them in their transition to living inside.
Leaders in Bangor’s public health department believed that replicating the Project Hope program, which started two years ago in Portland, could have helped ease the city’s homelessness crisis, which the council has struggled to manage for years as the public becomes frustrated with the visible effects of street homelessness.
Bangor City Council voted unanimously Monday night not to fund the project after finding that while many councilors were on board with the program, they couldn’t agree on an appropriate funding source.
Bangor’s version of Project HOPE, which stands for Housing Opportunities for People in Encampments, would have been staffed by a program coordinator and three housing navigators hired through the local homeless shelters Hope House, Shaw House and the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter. MaineHousing offered to fund 70% of the program, but the city would have needed to contribute the remaining $126,000.
Navigators would have helped homeless people find a housing placement, go through the rental process and adjust to living indoors, public health director Jennifer Gunderman previously said. The program could have helped address some key issues in Bangor’s homeless services network, including insufficient coordination between groups and support for people who have recently been housed.
Beyond paying for staff, the program also had discretionary funds built in to help clients pay security deposits and get furniture or food for their apartment, or to offer as incentive to landlords who rent to people in the program.
Portland’s version of the program has placed 100 people into housing in two years.
During weekslong discussions, city councilors seemed mostly supportive of the program, but could not agree on how to fund it, with possible options including opioid settlement funds, money from the city’s unassigned fund balance, a community development block grant or some combination of the three.
The project drew significant attention at city council meetings and was postponed several times.
Outcry ranged from criticism of the project itself, such as questions about how it will stay afloat after temporary funding runs out or whether the program would have a sobriety requirement, to community members who supported the initiative but didn’t want to see more opioid settlement dollars go toward the city’s public health department.
“Let’s reserve our remaining opioid settlement funds for their intended purpose: direct community distribution to the organizations that need them most,” resident Scott Pardy said at a council meeting in August. Pardy operates a network of sober homes in the area and served on the city’s opioid settlement advisory committee.
Others were in favor of the program, such as resident Katie Coe, who said, “Project Hope
is the missing middle between our home ownership assistance programs and our high costs spent on people living on the street. We need something like this.”
Some councilors tried to postpone the decision again Monday night, but a motion to postpone failed with councilors Susan Deane, Susan Faloon and Joe Leonard in favor and councilors Michael Beck, Carolyn Fish, Wayne Mallar, Angela Walker and Daniel Carson against.
Beck said he wanted to support the program but couldn’t condone using opioid settlement funds for it without a fuller public process.
Faloon noted that “it’s really unfortunate because we are saying no to $300,000” in state funding.
The final vote to kill the proposal was met with applause in the council chambers.