PORTLAND, Maine — In 2023, 162 people experiencing homelessness in Portland were placed into housing, according to a new report by Portland's Health & Human Services Department (HHS).
The report titled "2023 Year in Review Homeless Services" was released Friday.
"I thought it would really be worthwhile to pull information together so we can better understand the population, but at the same time, take stock of everything we've accomplished in 2023," Portland's Interim HHS Director Shaza Stevenson said.
The report outlines two primary guests the city's Homeless Services Center (HSC) provides shelter and resources to. Twenty-four percent of guests meet the definition of chronically homeless, while the remaining 76 percent of guests consist of those in a housing insecure life situation.
"I think the HSC has become a really great place for folks who are kind of in these transitional housing insecure situations and they're taking full advantage of allowing that to be a jumpstart to get back into a housing situation," Stevenson said. "It's amazing how long people will stay."
According to the report, 645 individuals housed from the Harbor View encampment, which was cleared in January, had an average length stay at the HSC of 29.2 nights as of mid-February 2024.
In the first month of 2024, the Portland Police Department reported no overdose deaths, the report said. It's the first time this has happened since two and a half years ago.
"While Overdose deaths saw a significant drop in 2023, Naloxone administrations at HSC experienced an increase, with 38 doses," the report said. "Naloxone administrations had been an infrequent incident at the HSC before January 2024, but with the increase in administrations, the HSC added a new section to their incident reports."
Stevenson said HHS is preparing to launch the Hope Program which has the goal of stably housing a minimum of 45 households over the course of the year.
"I think we need to do more in terms of following the data," Stevenson told NEWS CENTER Maine. "We've started a lot here and got a lot in our perspective, but I think there's room to grow there. I think it's really going to be on us to try again to get to know this population more in-depth."
You can view the entire report here.