Panelists shared their experiences at a discussion at Bates College Monday.

LEWISTON – Larry Rancourt had health insurance for the 40 employees in his real estate and insulation businesses but never any for himself.

He didn’t need it.

“I thought I was infallible,” said Rancourt.

At 49 he had a massive heart attack. Then another. Then another. The bill from the first heart attack was $80,000. To pay, the Lewiston man sold his business, his home, everything.

Rancourt’s doctor told him to move close to a good heart hospital. He picked Portland and lived in an abandoned, broken tractor-trailer by the harbor.

He says he didn’t know how to be homeless. He’d never heard of a soup kitchen. “Believe me I had to learn and I learned quick,” said Rancourt, 60 this month.

Four panelists shared stories Monday night at Bates College: how they became homeless, how they sought help, or didn’t, and how they felt looking back. More than 40 people turned out for the event, hosted by the Bates College Hunger and Homelessness Committee and the Many and One Coalition.

Steve Huston was homeless as a teen when he tired of living with relatives and in group homes. “I decided I could do it better by myself,” he said.

Eventually he married, settled in Greene, had children.

But when his marriage fell apart he was homeless again. “I didn’t care if I was homeless at the time. I spent the next eight years mostly sleeping outside,” Huston said.

He doesn’t like shelters. You don’t know who you’re sleeping next to.

“I would not put homelessness on my worst enemy. Everything you want you have to ask for,” he said.

Mail. Bathroom. Socks.

“Simple things like that are really degrading to a person.”

Huston found housing seven months ago. He and Rancourt both work at the Prebble Street Resource Center.

On March 26, volunteers fanned across the state to conduct a homeless survey, asking questions about race, age, years in school and what lead to their situation.

Reine Mynahan, community development administrator in Auburn and a member of the Lewiston-Auburn Alliance for Services for the Homeless, said local numbers could be compiled in about a month.

LAASH is working to create a day shelter in Lewiston, said Dot Treadwell, another panelist. It would be a place for people to crash during the day when overnight shelters are closed.

She was homeless as a young person then again two years ago when she lost a housing certificate.

She’s slept in Kennedy Park, on other people’s porches and in other people’s cars. It’s scary, Treadwell said.

“I picked out guys who were drug addicts,” she said. “A couple of years ago I picked out a really bad one and almost lost my life.” He beat her with a crowbar and she lost a finger.

She’s been in a new apartment for eight months.

Huston said he’s been alarmed at the assaults committed against homeless people in Portland. Advocates are working to get the homeless protected under Maine’s hate crime laws.

The Attorney General’s Office is set to study the issue of violence against the homeless, he added.

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