The City of Portland has released a 2023 Year in Review Homeless Services report detailing the city’s response to the homelessness crisis, which at points last year reached a point of more than 200 tents in large encampments spread throughout the city.
The 41-page report, released Friday, presents data on the city’s outreach efforts at the encampments to bring the homeless into shelters, demographic data on the populations using the city’s shelters, and statistics on other city initiatives such as the distribution of naloxone and sterile syringes.
Portland operates three primary emergency shelters for its homeless population: the Homeless Services Center (HSC), serving the more “traditional homeless” population; the 166 Riverside Shelter, a 179-bed shelter exclusively for single asylum-seeking migrants; and the Family Shelter, which provides shelter for families, “many of them people seeking asylum.”
“In 2023, the City of Portland also continued to see people seeking asylum arriving from the southern U.S. border, as well as California and New York,” the report states. “These individuals and families were primarily served by 166 Riverside and the Family Shelter.”
[RELATED: City of Portland Looks to Hire Two Full-Time Migrant Resettlement Case Managers…]
According to the city report, 24 percent of intakes — 203 people — at the HSC in 2023 were “chronically homeless,” meaning a person who had gone without proper shelter for a continuous period of at least 12 months or on at least four separate occasions within the last three years, while 76 percent of intakes were “those in a current housing insecure life situation.”
Of the chronically homeless intakes at the HSC in 2023, 14 percent reported having temporary or permanent employment, while 65 percent of those who reported having income reported the source as Social Security, disability benefits, or Supplemental Security Income.
The 258-bed HSC, which opened in March 2023, is a low barrier shelter, meaning that it does not require sobriety or background checks for its residents.
According to the report, the HSC provides phone and computer charging stations, showers, meals served on site, free laundry facilities, secure storage, a library, and Narcan availability.
The city distributed more than 800,000 sterile syringes in 2023, while collecting just 537,000, as well as distributed just over 5,000 naloxone (Narcan) kits.
In 2023, the HSC received a total of 1,252 guests — 887 male, 357 female, 5 transgender, three “Gender Nonconforming guests,” and 30 veterans, the report states.
The average length of a stay at the HSC during 2023 was 63.3 nights.
At 166 Riverside, the shelter for single migrants, the city reported a total of 134 sheltered in 2023, and 17 migrants that were successfully placed in permanent housing.
[RELATED: Migrants Arrive at US Border With Address of Portland, Maine Shelter: Mayor Mark Dion on WGAN…]
Across all city shelters, a total of 162 individuals were placed into housing in 2023– 27 of whom were chronically homeless, 75 were first-time homeless, and three were veterans.
Of those 162 placements, 77 were landlord placements, either self-paid or with General Assistance vouchers, 37 were subsidized unit placements, and 19 were bus tickets or reconnection with family or friends.
The city said that its housing placements were “overwhelmingly successful,” with only one person that was moved into housing in 2023 returning to homelessness.
From November to December 2023, the city conducted a survey of homeless individuals staying at the large Harbor View Park encampment underneath the Casco Bay Bridge.
According to the city, 90 percent of the 142 individuals surveyed had never been to the HSC, and the top three reasons reported for not going into the shelter were loss of autonomy, transportation, and belongings and storage.
In response, the city extended the curfew at the HSC to 11 p.m., used vans with regular pick-up times to help individuals relocate to the shelter, and made an effort to educate the individuals regarding the shelter’s storage resources and capacity.
Per the report, a total of 645 unique individuals from Harbor View have been served at the HSC as of Feb. 12, 2024, staying for an average length of 29.2 nights.
[RELATED: ‘Unhoused Lives Matter’: Sweep at Harbor View Park Encampment Blocked by Protestors, Line of Cars…]
The city attributed their success at bringing people from Harbor View into the HSC to increasing cold and inclement weather events, dispelling “perceived barriers” and staff outreach, and enforcing city ordinances against public camping.
“Conducting this review highlights the extent of the services that the City provides to those who are at risk of or experiencing homelessness, and what a significant year it was,” City Manager Danielle West said Friday.
“Our HHS staff opened Maine’s two largest low- barrier shelters, increased the capacity by 50 beds at one of those shelters, and considerably minimized the number of people living in tents through a community based effort to get people inside,” West said. “I am extremely proud of what our staff is able to do with the resources we have.”
Interim Portland Health and Human Services (HHS) Director Shaza Stevenson said “through the following review of accomplishments and lessons in 2023, the HHS Department hopes to continue expanding its services and explore ways to better meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness in our community.”
They aren’t migrants. They are illegals. Is that so hard or do you toe the line?
ILLEGALS!!
And all that housing is being paid for by us.
Close the border!
Boy the folks running Portland are dumb and I am dumber for paying the taxes which support it all..
beachmom do not close the boarder They are Democratic voters here to take your money. Give them all you got and then your kids.
More brown, illegal aliens to replace the whites who are not reproducing due to contraception, abortion and careers. Who the hell wants to be a mom when you can have a second income and live the good life. Welcome to the new America-U$$A.