Knox County Homeless Coalition

Comprehensive Client Care - Our professional client care team assists homeless individuals and families as they transition from crisis and uncertainty to stability and hope. Every person who enters our program is unique, and so each plan for care and support is tailored to evaluate and address their most urgent needs on an economic, physical, emotional/ psychological and vocational level. Our thorough intake process begins with a psychosocial assessment that cuts to the heart of the causes of homelessness. Building on a relationship of trust and compassion, we help our clients set goals and connect to the support they need to meet them. This could mean simply some help with finding another job after loss of one, or as complex navigating paperwork to qualify for social security/services; connections to health services; support with addiction recovery; or legal issues related to domestic violence. Our dedicated case managers use a combination of compassion and creativity to find ways to empower clients to meet their goals, including finding housing, but also maintaining stability in the long term. Identifying strengths and building confidence is an essential part of the process of helping clients move forward, step by step, towards greater independence.While securing housing is a huge step forward, it also introduces new challenges. Support continues during this tender transition to ensure that clients have the resilience to maintain their independence and continue to make progress on their goals. Post-housing support is a critical phase, since many people are only emotionally ready to benefit from access to life-skills education, financial literacy, career training and mental health once they are stably housed. Home visits, transportation and child supervision are provided so clients can take care of building their skills and their physical and mental health. It is a slow process that cant be rushed, but is critical to the lasting change that prevents the cycle of poverty and homelessness from repeating itself.

Family Shelter - The Hospitality House family shelter is designed to provide families a place to call home until they can secure permanent housing. Located in a renovated Rockport farmhouse, Hospitality House can accommodate up to 22 individuals at a time, half of whom are often children. The average stay in 2022 was just over 3 months. We offer a caring, safe environment, balanced with structured programming that keeps clients accountable while supporting the family in moving to independent living. A Case Manager and Housing Navigator support the process of finding housing and moving forward on goals while encouraging peer support.

Youth Services - The Landing Place is our comprehensive youth program, which provides resources for highly resilient but often marginalized youth who are at high risk for becoming homeless. In cooperation with local schools, we are working to mitigate the impact of multi-generational patterns of adversity caused by poverty, lack of education, ill health, and sometimes even violence and neglect. Our low-barrier drop-in center has continued to provide easy access for youth to free food, supplies, and a warm welcome. Youth can connect with trauma-informed adults who provide non-judgmental support with relationships, sexual health, school issues, and other needs. The drop-in center offers enrichment activities, low-barrier mental health services, community service projects, and generally serves as a bridge to school, home, and community. Case management is available to youth through the center and now directly at the local high school. Our Transitional Living Program offers a pathway to housing stability for emancipated minors and young adults. Overnight Respite Shelter for unaccompanied minors is in the works. Through our extensive outreach efforts we work with 60 partners to provide a robust community network of support for our youth. As with all of our programsthe basis of trust, respect, dignity and genuine caring and a focus on building confidence based on an individuals strengths is in place at every turn.

Other Programs - Emergency Services: We provide emergency support and supplies to our families on the waiting listwith a team of two dedicated staff. Supplies can be life savinggas cards to keep cars running in winter, food, blankets, camping gear, clothing, toiletries and hygiene supplies. Move in support: Through in-kind donations of furniture and other household items, we provide household furnishings to clients when they find housing. Transportation: We also provide COVID-safe transportation to clients who have no access to a vehicle. Affordable Housing:Transitional Living Program for youth. With the critical shortage of available housing units in our area, and the additional services required by many of our clients to sustain stability, we have introduced a number of initiatives to provide housing options to our clients. The Transitional Living Program, which opened in late 2020 offers the only transitional living apartments with supportive services to young adults in the Mid Coast. While enrolled, youth work on skills to help them establish and maintain their own, sustainable living situations. Youth are expected to be either employed or enrolled in school. Youth are expected to pay into the program on a scalable level which includes a savings component that they receive upon graduation from the program.Warren Street: We acquired a duplex in Rockland last year that provides two-three bedroom units of affordable housing to families.- Our Talbot Avenue affordable housing project will yield 13 units of affordable housing. It continues to move forward in partnership with Midcoast Habitat for Humanity and Maine State Housing. The project will be a balanced small footprint housing community in Rockland, with opportunities for both rental and home ownership. - Collaboration with MaineHousing, Midcoast Habitat for Humanity and the state prison building-trades program brings our housing construction costs in at a third to half of commercial costs. The equity-builder component of our transitional apartments helps youth practice saving and budgeting for rent, paying 30% of their income into the program, 50% of which is returned upon completion allowing them to buy cars, enroll in college and secure independent apartments when moving on.