GORHAM, Maine — The First Parish Church of Gorham used roughly $450,000 in Maine's Emergency Housing Relief funds in 2023 to change unused office space into full living quarters for four families, a total of 16 people, including their children.
Reverend Christine Dyke said she wanted to transform the unused office space from a liability into an asset while living out her faith.
"In both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, we are constantly told and asked to care for the strangers in our midst, care for the hungry and care for the homeless, care for all this. And we take that very, very seriously," Rev. Dyke said. "Now we really get to make a difference."
At the church, each family has their own private bedroom. They take turns sharing a full-size bathroom with three showers, and congregate in a living room as well as a separate kitchen-laundry-and-dining room where families can cook culturally appropriate meals, Dyke said.
"The first question they asked is, 'Do we get keys?' And I said, 'Well, yes, you get a key to your room and to the front door,'" Dyke said.
Families have their own entrance to the housing side of the church. Church staff cannot access the rooms without prior 48-hour written notice. They are truly private, Dyke said.
Cities and towns in Maine have struggled to find housing for the asylum seekers fleeing genocide in their home countries. The city of Portland saw hundreds arrive starting in 2021. The city housed families at the Portland Expo on cots for months but had to move them out when the city needed the space for high school and professional sports.
The city created a singles shelter for asylum seekers on Riverside Street, but families were bussed to hotels in Freeport and Lewiston.
"Privacy is so important, especially when you have completely left everything you know and you've come to a place where the language, at best it might be your second or third language if you're lucky," Dyke said. "For some of them, their English language skills aren't very good. And this is the space where you can go and you can feel safe and you can relax and you don't have to give it up for any reason."
Some families described living in shelters on cots or couch-surfing with their children. One woman, named Amelia, said she and her daughters lived on the streets before moving into a shelter.
"When I came [to this church], I cried," Amelia said. "I never thought it was possible to move into a place like this."
Since NEWS CENTER Maine visited the church housing, some of the families have already moved into new apartments.
Solange, Inacio, and their son, Melvin, lived at the church too, and are expecting to move into an apartment in Sanford. Solange is pregnant.
"It feels like home," Solange said. "The only difference is that we are one big family."
"When I wrote the grant, I said, What we hope to be is a model project. This is proof of concept. We don't just push this off on to Portland or South Portland or Lewiston. We can be part of the solution here too," Dyke said.
Maine housing policy leaders are urging state lawmakers to approve $16 million for the state's Emergency Housing Relief Fund to address Maine's ability to shelter citizens and immigrants alike.
At the end of February, Senior Housing Policy Advisor Greg Payne testified to the Appropriations and Housing committees, asking for the additional money. Payne said the funds had helped reduce the number of hotels that municipalities contract with to house people who are chronically homeless, as well as asylum seekers, down to one. That one was Motel 6 in Portland, which city health inspectors recently found in violation of health conditions, including cockroaches infesting the rooms. City staff said they plan to decommission that hotel by the end of 2024.
The Emergency Housing Relief Fund, Payne said, reduces the burden on General Assistance (GA), which pays for those temporary housing options such as hotels used as shelters for asylum seekers, including Motel 6. Portland city staff said the Motel 6 was "taking advantage" of the situation, of the lack of housing, by charging rates of up to $225 per night, a cost of nearly $10 million in 2023 to taxpayers both in Portland and statewide. Municipalities are forced to pay through GA, no matter the cost, for the first 30 days when someone is in an emergency, meaning they cannot meet basic needs including housing, food, or medical care.
He said that the extra $16 million he is requesting would create additional emergency shelter space as needed.
"While hotels could still be used for short-term emergency housing, if their utilization goes beyond 30 days and the cost exceeds the GA payment standard, the state’s monthly reimbursement to that municipality will not exceed 70% of the program’s maximum payment standard," he wrote. "If this proposed change to the GA program creates an unmet need for emergency housing, we will meet that need with Emergency Housing Relief funds to expand the emergency shelter network. Doing so would save a great deal of taxpayer dollars, engage local organizations and volunteers, and better serve those in need."
Payne said expanding the EHRF would address several other major issues. He said it would help to quickly decommission the Motel 6 in Portland, the last remaining emergency shelter hotel in the state for asylum seekers funded by General Assistance.
"We would use the fund as we have in South Portland, to guide people out of the hotel and into the workforce and independent housing. No new entrances, only exits, as we use better and more cost-efficient approaches to the way people are assisted," Payne wrote in his testimony.
"The cost per night of assisting people is significantly less. And we also find that people tend to be less isolated," Payne later said in an interview with NEWS CENTER Maine. "The emergency housing relief fund is really to assist people who are experiencing homelessness regardless of citizenship status. And so it's certainly not a matter of providing assistance to one group over another. It's not an either-or, it's both."
He also said it would help operate Maine’s privately-operated low-barrier shelters, which face potentially closing down due to lack of funding.
He said it would also extend the Asylum Seeker Transitional Housing Program in Saco for nine more months. He said Catholic Charities Maine and numerous other organizations have helped 143 families, a total of more than 550 people, over the past 19 months. He wrote, "Already, about 100 participants in that program have secured employment and more than 250 have moved out of the program and into independent housing."
Payne also said the funds would support warming shelters next winter.