Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) directed $2 million in federal taxpayer funding to a non-profit that seeks to address homelessness in Bangor by building tiny homes for homeless people.
[RELATED: A Warning for Maine: NYC Spent $81,700 Per Homeless Person Last Year…]
Sen. King’s office told the Bangor Daily News about the funding on Wednesday; it will go to the non-profit Dignity First.
“People are discovering that if you can get homeless people into housing, then you can start to solve other problems associated with homelessness,” King told the Bangor paper.
“I think the concept has been proven nationwide, and I felt it was important to get started in Bangor,” he added.
Dignity First President Anna Phillips told the Bangor paper that the organization applied for a larger, $4.6 million grant for 2023-2024 but did not receive the funding.
The smaller $2 million grant will require the nonprofit to modify their original plans, and Philips admitted to the paper that the organization does not know when construction might begin, how many units they will be able to construct, where they will be constructed, or how much each unit will cost to build.
The original plan would have included 20 homes initially and an eventual expansion to 60 tiny houses.
It is not clear from Dignity First’s website what if any vetting will be done on potential residents before they are allowed to live in one of the homes, or if there will be any residency requirements other than that a resident was homeless.
They identify a loss of “hope, family, and love” as the “most devastating causes of houselessness,” while failing to include details on factors such as mental health issues or drug use.
Their website supports their seemingly naive understanding of homelessness with a quote from the children’s book The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.
While Dignity First does not appear to have plans in place to address significant issues like drug use and criminal behaviour from homeless people, taxpayers can rest assured that the nonprofit will prioritize amplifying marganilized voices, equity, diversity, and allowing residents to “authentically be themselves.”
Their values are encapsulated in a helpful graphic on their website.
King justified the grant funding to the Bangor paper, claiming that putting homeless people in tiny houses is cheaper than keeping them in jail, apparently implying that the housing project would prevent criminality among its residents.
“Putting someone in a tiny home or apartment turns out to be seven times cheaper than keeping them in jail,” said King.
“This makes sense for taxpayers, addresses a problem that’s significant in the community, and makes lives better for people in pretty tough circumstances,” he added.
Dignity First’s project is modeled after a similar tiny homes for the homeless project in Austin, Texas, which both King and the non-profit identified as a success.
However, a report on the project admits that many residents have drug problems, the average age of death for its residents is just 59, and police have to respond to the community multiple times per day. The project offers mental health and addiction treatment, but participation is optional.
“Philips admitted to the paper that the organization does not know when construction might begin, how many units they will be able to construct, where they will be constructed, or how much each unit will cost to build.”
And we gave them money without any plan whatsoever, I would like to see their payroll.
“Whatever you subsidize you get more of.” —Milton Friedman
Sounds like just another Scam to me,….
Free taxpayer money, with No plan,….
Windmills anyone?
“It is not clear from Dignity First’s website what if any vetting will be done on potential residents”. I’m sure there will be. No doubt is someone is LGBTQ+WTFE, illegal alien woman of color that individual would move to the top of the list. Extra points if they are a meth dealer. Wonder how much Anna Phillips make a year?
As a new resident of Maine… Your (our!?) politicians need a psyche evaluation! I’m retired and actually know things learned from life. I want a free home! Vets need a new home! Keep exposing the ‘idiot politicians of Maine !’ Thank you The Maine Wire!
WHATTAGUY !
That Anus King takes the cake.
Two steps to ending the homelessness “crisis”:
1) Deport all illegal aliens/bogus asylum seekers.
2) Institutionalize all junkies and crazies.
This is going to be a complete 100% criminal, drug-infused, and safety *disaster* to make ABSOLUTELY CLUELESS NAIVE AND STUPID DEMOCRAT lesbian white virtue-signaling women feel “good” about themselves, while lining the pockets of tiny home sales people and every other vendor who will have their hand out to “help the homeless.”
We all know what comes through the Anus.
Another China King exclusive. There’s money in it for him somewhere. Just like when he was governor and on the board of the Bank that lent state works money to purchase personal computers.(big conflict of interest) Or when he went over to China and then became the advocate for wind mills scattered around Maine’s hilltops. Hence the name “China King”. Those are only two of the many “ line my pockets” schemes he’s been involved in. Remember King sent a list of conservative people he wanted band from social media, because they were calling him out.
What can go wrong with “Tiny Homes For the Homeless”? One need only to reflect back about 6 years ago during the pandemic, homeless people were given given free “housing” in local motels. They literally destroyed those properties. To add to the destruction were drug use and dealing, illicit crimes, assault, threats of loss of life to some. This is not to imply that all homeless individuals are derilick – times are hard. How about helping those hard working, tax paying, folks who are in the brink of homelessness?
Not a word by those advocating for tiny homes for the homeless-regarding the causes and conditions of their homelessness. The vast majority of the homeless suffer from either drug addiction or a combination of addiction and mental illness. Yet King and the groups which lobby for funding make no mention of it.
Either they do not understand that addiction is a condition which ends in death or they accept that very fact and are willing to spend millions on a sort of residential palliative care in the form of tiny homes.
King’s sudden realization that tiny houses are cheaper than “jail” demonstrates his lack of qualification to contribute to the discussion. He apparently consulted no addiction specialists or spoke to any recovering street addicts for their opinions on what constitutes”Dignity.”.
As one with thirty-seven years of sobriety and with experience working in the field of recovery, I feel safe in saying that an addict’s loss of dignity begins with his/her addiction.The remedy for that despair is treatment – not free needles or tiny houses. Recovery is the foundation on which all the things being offerred up as solutions can actually work. “Recovery First” ought to be the chosen program whereby Dignity is its inevitable consequence.
The ideology that government “meet people where they’re at” is essentially an admission that the addicted street population is a write off, a group too far gone to.get treatment. At this point, the thinking seems to be that the population needs government management only. While doing that, government might as well make homeless addicts comfortable – first, with a guaranteed needle supply and now, with tiny houses. Their kindness demonstrates how much they care and -there’s funding attached.
While it is true that street addicts are often far along on the disease continuum, improved modes of treatment are producing better results, even for them. There are also techniques which encourage the typically reluctant homeless addict to opt for treatment.
If treatment for the homeless were a serious government priority, intervention would come earlier in the street addict’s life, therefore providing a much better prognosis..
If only Angus King, and others who believe they can impose dignity on active drug users, had compared the cost of treatment to the cost of “jail” or of institutionalization to the cost of treatment, we could measure costs against desired outcomes.
The.Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous indicates that the user will end up in jail, in an institution or dead. The course we’re on does not address this grim prediction. We’re setting it up for homeless users to be somewhere between jail and death, unless treatment intervenes. Even the addition of a clean well lighted place to live won’t change that trajectory.
Being treated with dignity in the absence of hope for the future is not preferable to providing treatment designed to restore one’s own personal dignity in sobriety.
Meanwhile non-profits are amassing funds with the help of rubber stamping elected officials in efforts which will, in the end, avail us nothing.
King is a disgrace. My bet is not one small home will be built. Maybe he should head back to China for the rest of the funding. Pathetic
Angus laundering money and buying votes that is all this is. Angus is a corrupt, fake, phony, fraud I would never trust him with a wooden nickel. It amazes me the people of Maine keep re-electing these Marxist scum time and time again.
So, will the people given “free” tiny homes be required to do anything to maintain a minimal level of maintenance? Maybe attend counseling if they are on drugs? We’ve all seen what happens when you just give people things without them having any skin in the game. I hope there would be some requirement on the part of the non-profit to audit how this program is working. I know. I know. Silly me! AUDIT … hahahaha.
If any developer went to a bank with no plan like these folks that just got 2 million dollars, that developer may leave the bank with a pen if they’re lucky.
fleecing of America continues
hmmmmm
So 4.6 mil was going to build 20 “tiny houses”, but they don’t know what 2 mil will build and they have the money, but no plans? Yeah, sounds about right for King.
Didn’t a state on the west coast do this and it was still like 200k a home.