BANGOR, Maine — Last week the Maine Legislature voted to include $7.5 million in its supplemental budget to support low barrier homeless shelters in Maine, and one of those shelters is Penobscot Community Health Care's (PCHC) Hope House in Bangor.
Last year, PCHC announced that due to a lack of funding and its inability to cover the ongoing overhead cost to maintain the Hope House, the health care system would have to close the shelter in October if it couldn't get more funding and secure a new owner to run the shelter.
Representatives from PCHC said receiving the state funding makes them hopeful but there is still more ground to cover.
With only five months left for the PCHC to finalize plans for the Hope House's future, people who are people experiencing homelessness are beginning to worry.
"It's intimidating because a lot more people would be on the street, Alyssa Freerksen, who is experiencing homelessness, said.
Freerksen said she hops from couch to couch and sometimes sleeps under bridges, explaining that she sometimes feels unsafe when she seeks shelter at the Hope House or other shelters in the city.
Although she doesn't regularly use the Hope House shelter, she said her fear is that if it closes, more unhoused people who have nowhere to go will end up living outdoors.
Sen. Joe Baldacci said he worked tirelessly to secure funding in the state's supplemental budget to keep Hope House and low barrier shelters like it open.
"It's not permanent funding, but it's to get us through the next three years," Baldacci said. "Which is critically important because it gives the community and others time to figure out a longer-term plan and still serving people."
Baldacci said funding will be divided between five shelters in Maine, and Hope House would get at least $500,000, covering more than half of its $800,000 dollar deficit.
In a statement, representatives from PCHC said "While this funding gets us more than halfway to covering the deficit, it does not... remedy the entire deficit."
Since December, PCHC has been communicating with Preble Street about it possibly taking over the shelter, hoping the Portland-based agency can be its saving grace.
"I mean, it would be really disastrous if that shelter closes," Mark Swann, the executive director of Preble Street, said.
But with Preble Street already running three other shelters in southern Maine, Swann said it has to analyze its prior obligations and responsibilities.
"We have to have a very honest, kind of, internal conversation and say, 'Can we do this and can we do it well?'" Swann said.
Uncertain about which way Preble Street will swing, Boyd Kronholm, the director of the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter, said he's working with PCHC's board to determine how he can assist if Preble Street cannot step in.
"But really, just even opening up our winter warming center that only accommodates about two-thirds of the people that will be displaced from the hope house."
Kronholm said his board has also discussed staffing the Hope House if Preble Street decides that it cannot take over the shelter as a possible option.
Swann from Preble Street said he hopes to be able to give PCHC a final answer by the end of June.