PORTLAND, Maine — It's been one month since Portland cleared its last large homeless encampment. After that sweep, many unhoused residents said they were considering using the Homeless Services Center (HSC) off Riverside Street.
The HSC was once criticized for being too high a barrier. After collaboration between the city and the nonprofit members of the encampment crisis response team, many of those barriers were workshopped. And while some of the barriers still exist, unhoused residents started to use the facility as the winter weather set in.
The addition of Portland's newly-elected Mayor Mark Dion enforcing the existing ordinance, that if shelter space is open camping is illegal, made more people consider shelter.
"I think the focus right now is going to be: how do we get people out of the shelter into transitional housing?" Mayor Dion said.
Dion said it was good that more people use the shelter, but he wants to make sure people are moving from the shelter into housing options.
"We didn't want encampments to be sticky, and the shelter should meet that same expectation," Dion said.
But the shelter isn't moving as many people into housing as staff would want to, according to Joshua Ruitto, who works at the HSC.
"Housing availability is extremely tight right now... folks are finding it more and more difficult to obtain it within the long run—that's only going to keep folks homeless for longer," Ruitto said.
Ruitto said in 2023, 159 people were permanently housed, compared to 97 in 2022 and 126 in 2021.
"Everyone is unique, everyone has a unique set of challenges, and it's all about how we are addressing those needs and deciding which opportunities are the most appropriate for the individual," Ruitto said.
Meanwhile, organizations like Preble Street say the barriers to housing also keep people from moving on from the shelter.
"We see a lot of people discouraged," Andrew Bove, vice president of social work at Preble Street, said. "They are discouraged from even trying."
Bove said more people are becoming homeless than the number of people moving out of homelessness and into housing.
"Housing is possible, it just takes hard work and people dedicated to doing it," Bove said.
Bove said this year to house people, it will take convincing landlords in Portland to open their applications to a wider audience, in addition to waiting for more funding from the Legislature.