The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced sweeping policy changes Thursday that will divert funding away from a permanent housing program that keeps more than a thousand Mainers off the streets.
These funds currently support about 1,800 Maine residents with housing assistance, Gov. Janet Mills said in a press conference Monday. That includes more than 300 people in Bangor, she said — more than any other community in the state.
The federal cuts, first reported by Politico in September, will allow no more than 30% of funding for statewide Continuums of Care, the planning bodies that coordinate homelessness funding, to be used for permanent supportive housing. Maine’s Continuum of Care got about $22 million from the federal government last year, and more than $16 million of that money was used to fund permanent supportive housing, the Bangor Daily News reported last month.
The loss of funding will put about 1,200 Mainers at risk of losing their housing, Mills said. That will likely mean more people living outside as unsheltered homelessness is already on the rise in Maine and shelters across the state are consistently at capacity.
Most of the people who get permanent supportive housing vouchers through the federal program are seniors or disabled, according to Dean Klein, executive director of Maine’s Continuum of Care.
That complicates the Trump administration’s plan to divert funding away from permanent supportive housing, which prioritizes getting people into housing first while also offering voluntary services, toward programs with work requirements or mandatory mental health and substance use treatment.
“It’s an entirely backwards approach,” Mills said. “Maine organizations have purposely chosen to focus on stable, long-term housing with services, because that’s what works.”
The policy change “restores accountability to homelessness programs and promotes self-sufficiency among vulnerable Americans,” HUD said in a statement Thursday.
Mills and anti-homelessness leaders from around the state on Monday urged the federal government to reverse the policy change, which Mills called “callous and unnecessary.”
The Maine Attorney General’s office is also weighing legal action against the federal agency over the changes, Mills said.
State homelessness service networks will have a quick turnaround now to apply for funding by Jan. 14.
“Our community will be putting our best foot forward based on a huge number of changes,” Klein said.
In addition to the risk of displacing many people from their housing, the changes are also linked to public health concerns, Bangor’s public health director, Jennifer Gunderman, said. The ongoing HIV outbreak in Penobscot County, which has seen 30 new cases in about two years, primarily affects people who are homeless.
“Housing supported by this federal funding has been a lifeline for people with stable housing and wrap-around services like HIV case management, mental health support and substance use treatment,” Gunderman said. “Many people are staying engaged in medical care, adhering to their HIV treatment and achieving viral suppression, but reductions in stable housing will fuel the risk factors that allow HIV to spread.”
Housing-first strategies are proven to reduce homelessness more than treatment-first programs, and to improve housing and health outcomes for people living with HIV.
The changes also give the federal government more discretion to divert funds away from particular states in favor of others, and to reject applications from local agencies that have previously adhered to diversity, equity and inclusion-related policies that were the norm under past HUD administrations, The New York Times reported.
