PORTLAND, Maine — There are many families and individuals around Maine that are struggling to make ends meet.
However, the Portland nonprofit Quality Housing Coalition is trying to make life a little better for those folks through a program called Project HOME.
In 2023, QHC launched a sub-division of Project HOME called Project HOME Trust.
Between June 2023 and May 2024, 20 single moms were given $1,000 a month to see how it impacted their daily lives.
The nonprofit's executive director, Victoria Morales, said there's a reason the word trust is in the program's name.
"We didn't tell them they couldn't spend it on certain things, but we trusted them that they would spend the money in the way that served them and their families best," Morales said.
The participants were selected through a lottery system. Morales said when looking at which group of people experienced the most challenges to financial stability, single moms stood out.
"We do have a lot of single moms who become evicted due to various reasons—systemic poverty, being an asylum seeker, experiencing interpersonal violence in their home—which resulted in eviction, which then impacts them for the rest of their housing needs," Morales explained.
Compared to a control group of single moms who did not receive the thousand-dollar monthly payments, Morales said participants reported improvements in every category.
"The 2023 cohort, on every metric, improved, whether they're talking about their health of themselves and their children, their behavioral health, their financial stability, their ability to handle an emergency should one come up," Morales said.
Looking at what the thousand dollars was used on most, housing was the big spender by a landslide with over 50 percent reporting.
Morales said this survey is to help people avoid a "benefits cliff," which she describes as a systemic problem treated by government assistance programs.
"Those assistance programs pay for housing needs, health care needs, food needs, very basic needs, and once somebody starts to earn money, those supports go away pretty dramatically, and then that person is left unable to pay for their housing and their food," Morales said.
There is more than just money to Project HOME Trust. Participants gave their input about resources they believed would be useful to them.
"Things like parenting experts and financial planning experts and home buying experts," Morales said. "They had one really fabulous meeting around boundary setting and self-defense."
Morales added she wants this program and the Quality Housing Coalition to help fill the gaps in the systems meant to help those in need.
"We really want to flip that switch on who's deserving and who isn't," Morales said.
Money for the program is provided by donations and support from the city of Portland's community development block funding.
The 2024 cohort of Project HOME Trust will begin their survey at the end of September.
To be eligible, you must be a part of QHC's Project HOME program.
To learn more about Quality Housing Coalition and the Project HOME Trust program, you can visit their website here.