{"id":513,"date":"2026-04-02T20:07:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T20:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/?p=513"},"modified":"2026-04-02T20:07:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T20:07:00","slug":"city-of-portland-will-help-hundreds-of-people-find-housing-in-2025-city-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/?p=513","title":{"rendered":"City of Portland will help hundreds of people find housing in 2025, city says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The city of Portland helped about 700 homeless people find housing last year, and part of the increase in staff can be attributed to collaboration with other agencies.<\/p>\n<p>Maggie McLaughlin, director of the city&#8217;s Department of Health and Human Services, said a focus on communication between city departments, mobile outreach and wraparound services has helped homeless people connect with resources and move into stable housing.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, 1,641 people used the city&#8217;s shelters, according to the ministry&#8217;s 2025 annual report released this week. The city has seen a sharp decline in the number of people using shelters set up for asylum seekers, which were closed this month.<\/p>\n<p>As of this week, more than 380 people were using the winter warming shelter, which the city of Portland stepped in to run after no other organization offered to operate it, according to city reports.<\/p>\n<p>All guests staying at city shelters have the opportunity to work with a member of our housing team to find permanent housing and see if they qualify for programs that provide support and resources.<\/p>\n<p>McLoughlin said housing navigators can assess barriers a person faces in finding and maintaining housing, such as access to physical or behavioral health care or important documents. Addressing these issues early makes a person&#8217;s housing placement more likely to be successful in the long run, she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Wraparound services are often the difference between stability and a repeated experience of homelessness,&#8221; McLaughlin says.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"mtm-related-link\" aria-labelledby=\"mtm-related-link-title-3\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>According to the report, in 2025, 682 people will be housed with staff support. Among them, 160 people, including 31 families, were housed without entering the evacuation center. According to the city, more than 500 people will be housed in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Through Project HOPE (Housing Opportunities for Encampments), 46 people who were living outdoors were moved directly into housing by working with navigators, McLoughlin said.<\/p>\n<p>Andrew Bove, vice president of social work for Preble Street, which is working with the city on Project HOPE, said the project targets the most vulnerable of the unsheltered population. He said this is a group that people sometimes discount when they are resistant to shelters and services.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s completely untrue. I don&#8217;t know anyone who wants to live outside,&#8221; Bove said. \u201cThey want to get well and get off the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The program was the idea of \u200b\u200bthe Camp Response Team, a group of city leaders, community partners and advocates who were looking for solutions to the city&#8217;s homelessness crisis. They wanted to create a way to bring people directly from the streets into permanent housing, rather than moving them into shelters first.<\/p>\n<p>The Project HOPE pilot program began in May 2024 using $226,000 from the city&#8217;s housing fund and $452,000 from MaineHousing. The funds were used to hire a program coordinator and three housing navigators from the nonprofit organizations Preble Street, Milestone Recovery and Commonspace. <\/p>\n<p>The funds also provide program participants with financial assistance for security deposits, transportation costs, and items needed for their new homes, such as bedding and cleaning supplies.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"mtm-related-link\" aria-labelledby=\"mtm-related-link-title-4\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Bove said the program allows Navigators to respond to the immediate needs of people without shelter and &#8220;trying to survive in crisis every day.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Once basic needs such as food and medicine are met, they can begin the process of finding housing and stability,&#8221; he says. <\/p>\n<p>The program was renewed this year, and McLoughlin said the city plans to continue it next year. The City Council is prioritizing funding programs through the city&#8217;s Opioid Solutions Fund. He said the scale of the program is in question while officials wait to see if funding for Main Housing is available.<\/p>\n<p>Funding for MaineHousing came from the Emergency Housing Relief Fund, a state fund to combat homelessness that was part of the past two years&#8217; budgets. A spokeswoman for the parastatal agency said Congressional funding is likely again this year, but the decision is not yet final.<\/p>\n<p>Bove is hopeful that funding will be secured to continue the program into its third year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHomelessness is a solvable problem,\u201d he says. &#8220;When you invest resources and money into programs that help people, you get results, and that&#8217;s what we saw with this program.&#8221; <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>#City #Portland #hundreds #people #find #housing #city<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The city of Portland helped about 700 homeless people find housing last year, and part of the increase in staff can be attributed to collaboration with other agencies. Maggie McLaughlin, director of the city&#8217;s Department of Health and Human Services, said a focus on communication between city departments, mobile outreach and wraparound services has helped &#8230; <a title=\"City of Portland will help hundreds of people find housing in 2025, city says\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/golliza.com\/?p=513\" aria-label=\"Read more about City of Portland will help hundreds of people find housing in 2025, city says\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[954,2052,2053,2051,128,2050],"class_list":["post-513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","category-general","tag-city","tag-find","tag-housing","tag-hundreds","tag-people","tag-portland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golliza.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}