Homelessness Is a Humanitarian Crisis, in Bangor and Across America
When we made InhuMAINE, we set out to show that homelessness is not a personal failing or a local nuisance. It is a humanitarian crisis: people living outside through northern New England winters, cut off from health care, shelter, and the help they need to recover. The numbers bear that out.
The national picture. On a single night in January 2025, 745,652 people were experiencing homelessness in the United States, according to HUD’s 2025 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report. That was down 3.4% from the year before, the first drop since 2016. But chronic homelessness reached 155,750 people, the highest on record, and 36% of everyone counted was unsheltered, sleeping outside, in cars, or in other places never meant for people to live.
Here in Maine. Maine’s 2025 point-in-time count found 2,413 people experiencing homelessness, including 281 who were unsheltered and 562 who were chronically homeless. That is 14.6% more than in 2019.
What happens when people have nowhere to go. In February 2025, Bangor closed its “Tent City” encampment, displacing nearly 100 people. Our crew was filming when it happened. A draft U.S. CDC report on the HIV outbreak in Penobscot County, obtained by the Bangor Daily News in June 2026, found that the closure, along with interruptions to syringe services and HIV case management, disrupted the public health response. The outbreak began in 2023 and had reached 44 known cases by May 2026. Nearly everyone diagnosed had injected drugs or been homeless in the year before their diagnosis.
Homelessness, addiction, and mental illness meet in the same places. More than 48 million Americans have a substance use disorder. The Bangor outbreak shows how closely these crises are tied together. That is where Common Ground Friends works, and it is why we made InhuMAINE.
What you can do. Host a screening of InhuMAINE and a community conversation. Support the shelters and outreach programs in your area. Donate to Common Ground Friends to help fund screenings and community work. And if you or someone you know needs housing or shelter help in Maine, dial 211.
Sources: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2025 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report, via National Low Income Housing Coalition (June 1, 2026); National Alliance to End Homelessness, Maine 2025 PIT Data Fact Sheet; Bangor Daily News, “CDC report on Bangor HIV outbreak” (June 8, 2026); SAMHSA, 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
