Carolyn Silvius speaks about what it is like to be homeless during the Longest Day of Homelessness Sit-out at Tommy’s Park in Portland on Friday. Silvius is a member of the advocacy group Homeless Voices for Justice, which organized the event. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
What’s it like to be homeless?
For Carolyn Silvius, it means keeping your belongings in storage or a U-Haul except for what you can carry with you. It means arriving at a shelter, wondering what will be expected, how you will be perceived by other residents and how to spend time during the day.
It means waiting in line, day after day, for dinner – which may or may not be something you like – and to get bedding at night. And it means having to ask for everything and feeling like you can’t make decisions on your own, resulting in depression and a sense of helplessness.
“Homelessness begets homelessness and it becomes a cycle that’s nearly impossible to break,” said Silvius, an advocate with the organization Homeless Voices for Justice, who lived this kind of life for 10 months in 2014 and 2015.
On Friday, Silvius was among a small group of advocates, members of the public and elected officials who gathered in Tommy’s Park for the 15th annual Longest Day of Homelessness Sit-out. The all-day event, organized each year by Homeless Voices for Justice, is meant to draw attention to the challenges of homelessness, which are enormous no matter the season.
Homeless Voices for Justice describes itself as a grassroots organization that works for social change with and on behalf of those living through homelessness and poverty. The sit-out usually coincides with the summer solstice, which will occur on Tuesday, but organizers said they held the event Friday because the park was available then.
“Many people believe winter is the most dangerous time to be homeless, but this is not necessarily true,” Silvius said. “Winter temperatures do kill people, but summer conditions can do the same. The sun beats down causing heat stroke, dehydration is a serious problem, and there are as many people or more at risk for serious health issues and death in the summer as there are in the winter.”
HOMELESSNESS ON THE RISE
Both Portland and Maine are seeing large numbers of homeless people right now. As of last week, the city was housing about 1,700 people on a nightly basis – about 500 homeless individuals, the rest families, primarily of asylum seekers.
The state’s Point in Time Survey, released last month, provides an annual one-day snapshot of Maine’s homeless population. It found 3,455 homeless people in the state, either unsheltered or living in emergency housing and shelters on Jan. 25, the night of the count. By comparison, that number was 1,097 in 2021, though this year’s numbers also include people being served by federally funded pandemic rent relief programs who are living in hotels and motels.
Preble Street, a nonprofit social services provider that works with the homeless in Portland, is helping meet the needs of some of those people. Terence Miller, advocacy director for Preble Street, which sponsors Homeless Voices for Justice, said the homeless population has increased during COVID-19, as has food insecurity. He said Friday’s event aimed to bring attention to the struggles of unsheltered people as the city heads into warmer weather.
“There’s always a lot of concern during the winter months, and rightfully so – but then in the summer everyone says, ‘It’s beautiful weather,’ and they don’t realize the need for hydration, the need for shelter at night, all day in the sun and what that does to you, and traveling with your belongings looking for toilet facilities and shower facilities,” Miller said. “It takes its toll.”
‘WE ARE IN TROUBLE’
Around noon Friday, a small crowd gathered around a podium in the center of the park to hear from advocates and city councilors about the challenges of homelessness, in general and in the city.
“We are in trouble, and we are in trouble not just here in Portland but all the way to Augusta and across this country,” said City Councilor Pious Ali. “The price of housing is going up and we are not paying people enough salaries for them to buy or rent.”
Looking ahead, Ali said, the city will open a new homeless services center in Riverton next spring or summer to replace the existing Oxford Street Shelter, and it will have room for 208 people. In the meantime, he said, the city must continue to work with nonprofits and neighboring communities to find ways to meet the need.
“This is a regional issue,” Ali said. “I don’t think Portland alone can solve the challenge that we’re facing, so I hope our neighbors and the state will continue to work with us.”
Councilor April Fournier said she came to Friday’s event to learn more about what programs and services are working. She said the council in the next month or so will be looking at how to allocate American Rescue Plan Act funding and deciding how much of that money might go to addressing homelessness.
Fournier, who chairs the council’s legislative and nominating committee, said she will continue to speak with state lawmakers ahead of their next legislative session. “We have to look at the long game,” she said. “We have to get a little better about being less reactive and looking at longer-term solutions.”
‘IT CAN HAPPEN TO ANYONE’
Jim Devine, an advocate with Homeless Voices for Justice, said Friday that for most of his life, he was a working electrician who was married and raising a family. But he said his ex-wife was his “partner in crime,” and they both struggled with alcoholism.
“It was during the late ’90s I ended up on the street because of my drinking,” Devine said. “I don’t know exactly how it all happened. I might have been thrown out of some rehab or something. That’s usually what happened.”
Jim Devine plays a song on his guitar during the Longest Day of Homelessness Sit-out at Tommy’s Park in Portland on Friday. Devine is a member of the advocacy group Homeless Voices for Justice, which organized the event. He said that he has been homeless in Portland at various times over the years because of alcoholism but he is currently living in an apartment and busks with his guitar to earn money. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
Devine, 68, said he’s been sober since 2008, when a hospital stay was followed by two stays at long-term recovery centers. “If I have to advocate for anything, I would advocate for support services for people in recovery,” he said.
Silvius, his fellow advocate, said she became homeless when she was evicted, for false complaints that she was smoking in her apartment. She went to live with her daughters in Auburn, but said it was hard to find new housing because when she would contact social service agencies for help, they would say, “You’re not homeless. You’re living with your daughters.”
So Silvius checked herself into Florence House, a women’s shelter in Portland. She spent almost 10 months there while she searched for new housing, which wasn’t easy. “I was registered with every place that was subsidized,” she said. “I was on every waiting list available.”
Silvius, who is now 75, said she finally wrote a letter to an official at the Portland Housing Authority about its wait list and her struggle to secure housing, which helped her ultimately find a permanent place to live.
She said there are many reasons people find themselves homeless – the lack of affordable housing, wages that have not kept pace with the rapid rise in the cost of housing, circumstances that can quickly “boil over” for people who don’t have financial savings or health care. She also spoke of other issues that can unbalance lives – domestic violence, addiction, mental health issues and a lack of funding for mental health care.
Before she was homeless, Silvius said, she thought that homeless people she saw on the street were homeless through some fault or lack of effort on their part.
“I thought it would never happen to me – but trust me, it can happen to anyone,” she said.
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