The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has unveiled a new policy around homelessness.

The changes may force hundreds of vulnerable Mainers into homelessness — or into a shelter system that's already stretched to capacity.

Under the new policy, federal funding will be shifted away from programs that have provided long-term, supportive housing for chronically unhoused people.

Federal assistance for permanent supportive housing would be gutted and capped at 30%, with funds shifted instead favoring transitional housing programs with work requirements. Maine currently has more than 1,600 permanent supportive housing units.

"This really matters," Dean Klein, executive director of Maine's Continuum of Care, said in an interview Friday. "This funding has been the backbone of ho

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