NORWAY— The number of homeless is growing and more visible and there is a scarcity of resources in Oxford County, according to a consensus of community leaders and others at the recent meeting of Healthy Oxford Hills homelessness coalition.

“Here in Norway, we have had a larger visible homeless population, especially this spring into summer,” Norway Police Chief and interim Town Manager Jeff Campbell told the 20 or so people attending the Oct. 8 meeting at the Harper Conference Center in the Ripley Medical Building in Norway. The group consisted of community leaders who deal with the unhoused population in their day-to-day work, as well as church members offering services.

Campbell noted that the average unhoused person in Norway is an approximately 35-year-old man who grew up in the area and is often dealing with substance use and mental health issues. Many of the people the Police Department encounters have been through the criminal justice system and are known to officers, he said. The unhoused population fluctuates, but there are about 15-20 people in Norway at any given time who do not have a place to stay.

“It’s part of that downward cycle,” he said.

“What might it look like to provide resources here in this area?” Kari Taylor, executive director of The HILLS Recovery Center at 15 Tannery St., said. “What do we need? What do we see as models around the other areas of the state, or outside the state?”

There is a scarcity of resources, such as shelters or access to public transportation. An email with a list of resources in the area was sent to anyone who signed up on the email list.

One bright spot highlighted by Taylor is that currently anyone who wants to get sober (from drugs or alcohol) by being placed in a detoxification facility is usually admitted within 24 hours.

“That has all changed in the last six months,” Taylor said. “The state has invested. There are more detox beds than there ever has been and everyone who walks into our center who wants to go to detox is getting into detox.”

Mental health services are in short supply however, and there is a lack of support services like sober living housing, or affordable housing in general, in Norway and the rest of Oxford County.

“We cannot get people the mental health help they need,” Taylor said. “It’s extremely difficult.”

Campbell said that resources are limited in Norway to help the homeless and the state passed a law last year encouraging police departments to provide resources rather than arresting them.

“The state of Maine has made the determination that the first priority with those unhoused individuals is providing them with resources rather than plugging them into the criminal justice system,” Campbell said.

“Some people are just looking for transportation to other areas where there are more resources,” he said. “We just don’t have the means or the funding to provide that.”

Campbell said a number of Norway officers and others in the county have attended a weeklong crisis intervention training sponsored by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Officers direct individuals to food pantries or refer them for mental health treatment.

“That gives them a lot more tools to deal with crises or dealing with mental health issues,” Campbell said.

Officers can also refer people to Courtnie Lovely-Young, PATH outreach case manager for Rumford Group Homes Inc., who works with the homeless across Oxford County.

“You can always contact me and I can come out and meet with people,” Lovely-Young said. “I work with people who are unsheltered, people who are unable or unwilling to go into a shelter for whatever reason.”

Lovely-Young said there are no shelters available for single men in Oxford County, although Rumford Group Homes maintains one shelter in Leeds, one in Norway, and two in Rumford for women and families.

“There’s a huge population of homeless,” Lovely-Young said.

In Maine Housing’s 2023 “point in time count,” it was estimated that there are 125 homeless people in Oxford County. However, that number is likely severely underreported because it only counts people who can physically be seen on the street, Lovely-Young said.

MaineHousing is not offering housing vouchers and will not start doing so until at least the middle of next year, due to budgetary constraints, Lovely-Young said.

She helps unhoused people with applications for housing subsidies, finding shelter, or getting other assistance.

“We need to bring these people back to life,” Marcia Nigro, project facilitator for St. Teresa of Calcutta Parish in Norway and St. Joseph Parish in Bridgton, said. “Churches are a resource out there.”