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Gimme Shelter: Homeless Services Providers' Assessments Of The Effectiveness Of Housing First Programs In Portland, Maine, Eric Kneeland

Honors Theses

This thesis focuses on the Housing First model of addressing chronic homelessness in the state of Maine, primarily in the city of Portland. Preble Street, an organization based in Portland, operates a Housing First program called Logan Place, which houses 30 chronically homeless adults. I interviewed eight members of the staff at Preble Street using a semi-structured interview style: three caseworkers, three administrators, and two administrators with casework responsibilities. The major themes that were revealed from the interviews are the successes of the program, the ongoing challenges of securing funding to continue the program's successes, the role of public perception …