Preble Street poised to take over Hope House shelter in Bangor

The Portland-based non-profit Preble Street is preparing to take over the operations of Maine’s second-largest low barrier homeless shelter.

Penobscot Community Health Care, which runs Hope House, had said the Bangor shelter would close this fall if couldn’t find a new partner to patch an $800,000 funding hole.

Executive Director Mark Swann said Preble Street was determined to keep it open. The stakes of seeing Hope House close, he said, were too high.

“When you don’t have enough shelters, you have what we have in Maine, which is lots of encampments, people sleeping outside, real tragedy happening on a daily, nightly basis,” Swann said in an interview. “All of this has contributed to us saying, OK, we’re being asked here to do something, and we have a responsibility to at least try.”

The move is made possible with three-year funds that state lawmakers approved for Maine’s low-barrier shelters, as well as money from the state’s opioid settlements.

“We were able to cut the deficit between the new legislative funding, as well as some funding from the attorney general’s office where the Preble Street board felt, OK, we’re close enough here. We still need to raise about $200,000 a year, probably from private philanthropy, so we’re knocking on doors. We’re looking for that kind of support. But we’re close enough.”

Penobscot Community Health Care will keep running the shelter this year.

Swann said the two non-profits must finalize the transition of a shelter contract with the state before the move is official. But the plan is for Preble Street to take over operations in February, he said.

Low-barrier shelters do not require background checks or sobriety. And because many residents bring untreated mental health challenges and complex medical conditions with them, low-barrier shelters are more expensive to operate and have been struggling to stay afloat.

Preble Street has an office in Bangor and provides services to unhoused veterans. Swann said he’s hopeful that existing Penobscot Community Health Care staff will stay on board at Hope House after Preble Street assumes operations at the shelter.