Homelessness is a Public Health Issue: How We're Responding

On any given night, hundreds of Maine people and hundreds of thousands of people across the U.S. are temporarily unhoused or experiencing chronic homelessness. We at Healthy Acadia believe that homelessness is a critical public health issue that must be simultaneously and urgently addressed at the local, regional, and national levels.

Homelessness is closely connected to declines in physical, mental, and emotional health. People experiencing homelessness also are at higher risk for serious health challenges, such as those resulting from a lack of timely diagnosis and/or treatment of illness and disease.

People experiencing homelessness face numerous significant barriers to health, including lack of access to adequate and timely resources and services that are essential for health, such as:

• Nutritious food;

• Safe shelter from the elements;

• Routine and emergent preventative and diagnostic health care resources and services;

• Resources and treatment for mental health and substance disorders;

• Social services and other community resources;

• and much more.

We at Healthy Acadia believe that every person must have a fair and equally accessible opportunity to attain their highest level of health.

How We’re Responding: Temporary Warming Center

The many challenges created by the ongoing pandemic, combined with the severe shortage of affordable housing, and rapidly rising costs of food, rent, and other essentials, have resulted in a growing number of people who are living unhoused in Downeast Maine. We have a clear and urgent need for an overnight warming center to protect our unhoused community members facing the freezing Maine winter.

In response to this rapidly expanding crisis, Healthy Acadia is working in partnership with multiple community organizations and local leadership, along with key collaborative partners at the state and regional levels to facilitate the provision of a temporary, warming center at our INSPIRE Recovery Center in Ellsworth, from December 15, 2022, to April 30, 2023. We are urgently seeking to fill several positions to provide support and oversight for the program. Click here to learn more and how to apply.

How We’re Responding: Safety and Shelter Fund

Downeast Maine has a significant and increasing number of individuals experiencing homelessness. Multiple organizations are attempting to address this social crisis. There is urgency due to the hostile weather conditions we experience in Maine this time of year. Healthy Acadia is raising Safety and Shelter Funds in order to support individuals and provide essential resources to keep as many community members as safe as possible. Some of the ways in which the funds will be utilized include purchases of sleeping bags, tents, and other life saving necessities; emergency shelter, placement in local vacant rentals, transportation to safe spaces, and much needed access to communication devices. Please consider making a donation to keep our neighbors alive and safe during these frigid winter months.

Take Action. Click here to make a gift today.

Additional Resources (external)

These resources provide background information about homelessness as a public health issue.

• Homelessness Is a Public Health Issue
  American Journal of Public Health (2013).
  Article from the US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and the US Secretary of Veterans Affairs discussing homelessness as a public health crisis.

• Homelessness and Health: What’s the Connection
  National Health Care for the Homeless Council (2019).
  Fact sheet describing how poor health can lead to homelessness and how homelessness can cause health problems, and recommending the solution of permanent supportive housing.

• Health and Homelessness
  American Psychological Association.
  Overview of the connection between physical and mental health and homelessness, with a focus on mental illness and homelessness.