An expansion of Bangor’s only low-barrier homeless shelter is moving forward after the project was granted initial approval two years ago.
The city’s planning board approved a land development permit Tuesday for an expansion and renovation project that will add nearly 6,500 square feet to the Hope House Health and Living Center, which will increase capacity for its emergency shelter and its transitional housing program.
Construction is expected to wrap up in May 2026, according to a spokesperson for Penobscot Community Health Center, which owns the building and operates the transitional housing units.
The added capacity will help meet an urgent need for shelter beds as Bangor continues to struggle with homelessness and the ongoing opioid crisis. The permit approval comes about five months after the city closed a homeless encampment, often called “Camp Hope,” that existed behind the Hope House for years.
“The current capacity isn’t meeting the need,” said Daniella Cameron, deputy director at Preble Street, a Portland-based nonprofit that took over the emergency shelter operations in February.
Penobscot Community Health Center handed off management of the shelter following a $700,000 budget shortfall in 2023 that left the shelter at risk of closure. The health organization still owns the building and operates 48 transitional housing units and a health care clinic there.
Hope House currently has 56 beds in its low-barrier emergency shelter, which is the only one north of Waterville, according to Preble Street.
“We have been consistently full since taking over operations,” Cameron said, noting that demand for shelter beds has surged in the past couple months.
Hope House receives at least five calls per day from people seeking shelter and is “at capacity every single night,” according to Preble Street spokesperson Danielle Smaha.
“The need for more shelter is heartbreaking,” she said.
The planned expansion will add 12 more beds, bringing the shelter back to its pre-pandemic capacity of 66 beds. Of the 56 beds the shelter has now, only 46 are permanent, while the rest are mats that staff lay out in the kitchen and dining room each night, Cameron said. After the expansion is complete, “we won’t have to be putting people on mats anymore,” she said.
The renovations will also add dining room and day space and improve kitchen equipment, food storage capacity and safety features, Cameron added.
City councilors initially approved $2.77 million to fund the emergency shelter expansion in August 2023. That money includes a Community Development Block Grant and pandemic relief funds.
Separately, Penobscot County Commissioners awarded Penobscot Community Health Center $2.55 million in pandemic relief money for the transitional housing part of the project in June 2023. Those additions were initially supposed to wrap up by late spring or early summer 2024.
When that county funding was approved, the health organization’s CEO, Lori Dwyer, said it would be used to add 10 transitional housing units. However, the recent permit application states that the expansion will only add four of these units.
Penobscot Community Health Center did not respond to questions about what caused the expansion delay or decrease in the number of units.
