Second Annual Homeless Summit Convenes in Sanford

Homeless Summit at SPAC

Photo: Brett Williams

By Lawrence Furbish

Last Thursday evening, the Sanford High School Performing Arts Center was filled with state legislators, municipal and town officials, and representatives of York County agencies and nonprofits working to improve the lives of those struggling to find or maintain a place to live. The summit, the second in two years, was held to outline for policy makers what they are trying to do and their requested priorities for the coming year.

The message to decision-makers: We need more housing of all kinds, more outreach to people on the streets, and more attention to groups experiencing high levels of homelessness, including children, older adults, and victims of domestic violence.

The evening opened with remarks from Carter Friend, chief executive officer for York County Community Action Corp. (YCCAC), and Jeremy Ray, superintendent of schools for Biddeford and Dayton. Emily Flinkstrom of Fair Tide, a support service for those experiencing homelessness, followed with a statewide perspective emphasizing that the issue is a continuum with the homeless on one end and people living in their own homes on the other. The middle is filled with those in shelters, subsidized housing, rentals, and other situations, but the key is there are shortages in all these categories.

Next came Megan Gean-Gendron, executive director of York County Shelter Programs. She spoke of the need for better funding for homeless shelters. All are underfunded, she said, and there are not enough of them. Her organization’s shelter in Alfred is always full and there is always a waiting list. Despite the significant rise in the cost of living, the shelter has not received any increase in its support, Gean-Gendron said, and is in real danger of having to close. She also spoke of the importance of street outreach, case management, and support for those struggling with mental health issues and substance use disorder.

Susan Giambalvo, executive director of Caring Unlimited, York County’s domestic violence resource center, described the shortage of beds and the difficulty being unable to serve all of those in need. In the last fiscal year, there were 260 requests for emergency domestic violence shelter, and only 37 households could be sheltered. She said that domestic violence is the number one cause of homelessness for women and their children.

The chief executive officer of the Southern Maine Agency on Aging (SMAA), Megan Walton, discussed the problem for senior citizens, pointing out that those over 50 are the most rapidly growing group dealing with homelessness. There was a 275% increase in calls to SMAA phone lines related to eviction, rental and tax assistance and homelessness between 2022 and 2023, she said.

Sanford Schools Superintendent Matt Nelson provided statistics for school districts in York County with 725 documented homeless students. Sanford schools topped the list with more than 200. Nelson said that two of the biggest problems are that the Essential Programs and Services (EPS) formula which allocates educational funding between the state and local government does not adequately take homeless statistics into account and that there are increased costs of transportation to keep students in their school of origin.

Friend, of YCCAC, presented a list of requests and recommendations for meeting these needs going forward into next year’s legislative session. At this point, Rep. Traci Gere of Kennebunkport, chair of the Joint Select Committee on Housing, brought up the issue of statistics and said that legislators are looking for empirical information to guide their decision making to meet the most pressing needs. She mentioned the statistics presented at last year’s summit. Apparently, they were based on a street assessment conducted by the Sanford Police Department’s Mental Health Unit, and nothing similar has been done this year. The panelists promised to look into this concern.