Project Home

Summer in Maine can mean more time outside, lighter routines, and a little more room in the calendar.

But that kind of summer is not available to every family.

For many of the households Project Home serves — 83% of which include children — taking a day off is not realistic. Missing a shift can mean missing rent. Summer camp is a luxury. And when the school year ends, families often have to piece together childcare, meals, transportation, and work schedules with very little margin.

That’s why Project Home’s work continues year-round.

We help families unlock housing, stabilize households, and build the income and support they need to move forward — because housing stability doesn’t take the summer off.

When crisis hit, our supporters helped their neighbors stay housed.

Through the Emergency Housing Fund, Project Home raised $661,736 and helped 313 households impacted by ICE activity remain in their homes.

Behind that number were real people: a woman searching for her detained husband while rent was still due. A college student suddenly responsible for rent and younger siblings. Parents trying to keep children safe while their family’s income disappeared overnight.

This support could not solve every crisis these families faced.

But it did help prevent one devastating harm: the loss of home.

We are deeply grateful to everyone who responded with urgency, compassion, and care.

Nearly half of Mainers cannot afford basic needs.

A new report from the Brookings Institute found that only 54% of Mainers are meeting their basic needs — including food, housing, healthcare, transportation, and other essentials.

This is not about poor choices. It is about a cost-of-living crisis that is pushing working people to the edge.

And housing is often where that pressure becomes a crisis.

When a household is already stretching every dollar, one car repair, medical bill, cut in hours, or rent increase can mean falling behind. And once someone misses rent, the consequences can escalate quickly: eviction, job loss, disrupted education for children, worsening health, and significant barriers to finding housing going forward.

At Project Home, we work with Mainers who are doing everything they can and still cannot keep up with rising costs. Most of our clients are working families who earn too much to qualify for government assistance, but not enough to afford rising rents.

That is why housing stability matters.

Project Home helps households secure affordable housing, stay housed, connect them to healthcare, and help them build financial security — because preventing eviction is not just about rent. It is about stopping a temporary setback from becoming a long-term crisis.

Maine’s affordability crisis is real. The solution has to include keeping people housed before crisis becomes homelessness.

Read the article here:

Report finds nearly half of Mainers cannot afford basic needs Nearly one in every two Mainers can't afford to make ends meet, according to a new national study by a nonprofit think tank called Brookings Institute.