Andrew Lardie is executive director at Tedford Housing, an anti-homelessness agency serving the southern Midcoast region.
More than 5,000 people across Maine have turned to anti-homelessness agencies like Tedford Housing in the past year seeking help with homelessness. While these agencies successfully move about 150 people into stable housing each month, another 300 step into the system looking for support.
Even more heartbreaking, roughly 125 people each month simply disappear from contact — individuals who have tried to find help but grow exhausted by long waits, limited options or the daily grind of trying to survive outdoors. Throughout 2025 Maine’s known homeless population grew by about 40 people a month.
Emergency shelters — Maine’s front line against homelessness — are straining under this rising need. Yet the network is shrinking, with only about 1,200 beds left across our rural state.
For years, shelters have operated with a per‑bednight state subsidy of just $7.16 — far below the more than $100 it costs to staff, heat and maintain those beds. Last spring’s one‑year funding patch prevented immediate collapse, but it didn’t address the long‑term fragility of the system. In the past year alone, two additional shelters have closed — one in York County and one in Aroostook — forcing people to travel longer distances for help and straining the remaining shelters.
Recent reporting has shown how precarious the situation has become. Four shelter agencies collectively housing 180 adults and 22 families with children are projecting such large deficits that those beds could disappear within a year. The math is simple, and unforgiving: without stable state support, even the most committed providers cannot remain open.
Tedford Housing’s story is somewhat different. Our campaign to expand two inadequate shelters coincided with a rare influx of federal infrastructure funding through the American Rescue Plan Act. We also serve a region where poverty, while significant, coexists with strong philanthropy.
As a result, our shelters now safely house 64 people nightly, including 27 children— 60% more than a year ago. But since government funds account for only about 30% of our operating budget, every new bed increases the amount we must raise privately. Philanthropic support alone cannot sustain a system the entire state relies on.
Across Maine, the shelter network is showing signs of systemic stress worsened by the shortage of affordable housing, rising cost of living and an epidemic of untreated mental illness. The average shelter stay is now four months — an 80% increase since 2019 — reflecting the difficulty of moving people into permanent housing. One shelter that doesn’t even serve individuals reports a 200% increase in calls from adults and unaccompanied teenagers desperate for safety.
To blunt the impact, the state has funded temporary warming centers. While these facilities save lives, they are short‑term and inefficient. Organizations like ours step up to operate them, but repeatedly assembling and dismantling seasonal programs drains staff capacity, and diverts investment in long‑term solutions.
The positive impacts of a stable, well-regulated shelter system extend far beyond the people who use them. Shelters reduce crime by providing safe alternatives to survival behavior. They reduce hospital use and prevent deaths from exposure — an especially urgent concern in Maine. They protect older adults, survivors of violence, families with children, people with disabilities and workers struggling to keep their jobs while enduring unstable housing. And they provide stability for entire communities: for employers, for schools, for law enforcement, for neighborhoods, for local economies.
Lawmakers have heard warnings from shelters, coalitions, faith groups and health experts across the state for years. The benefits of investment are clear — a modest $5 million increase will preserve existing beds by bringing the shelter operating subsidy closer to real cost. We are grateful for the one-time funding last year, and for the proposal by Gov. Mills for an additional $1.5 million in her supplemental budget, but without additional ongoing support this year, Maine risks losing a critical piece of its public safety and public health infrastructure, one that cannot be easily rebuilt once gone.
Maine’s shelters form a small but essential statewide safety net that is in desperate need of investment to remain open for the thousands of people experiencing homelessness in our state. And each member of the Housing & Economic Development Committee, regardless of party, agreed that this issue must be solved.
The governor put forth additional funding in her supplemental budget. We ask the AFA Committee to build off her proposal and permanently allocate the $5 million each year needed to sustain the 1,200 shelter beds that keep Mainers safe, warm and supported night after night. It is the right thing to do for public health, safety, economics and basic human decency.