We recently asked Stephanie Primm, Executive Director of Knox County Homeless Coalition and Chair of the Statewide Homeless Council to share why the One Night Without A Home event and experience is so important. Here’s what she had to say.

In 2018, more than 30 individuals ‘slept out’ in gale force winds and torrential rain — some with tents, some without — to find out what it was like when you didn’t have the traditional comforts of home for the night in Maine in November.

Our deepest hope is that through this annual experiential event we deepen understanding for all. We want to enlighten our communities about the realities of homelessness.
We hope people leave the overnight experience with a bit more empathy and understanding.
We hope they leave in the morning having been unable to sleep because they were cold, a little hungry and a bit wet and uncomfortable — perhaps realizing what it might be like if they now had to pack up their wet cold sleeping bag and go to work — no shower, no power, no hot coffee, and heading to work in the wrinkled damp clothes they slept in.
We hope this event helps to dispel the imbedded judgment we see all too often around homelessness — ”They must be lazy or crazy or drunk” — we hope to turn that incorrect perception on its head and hope that people leave the overnight ‘sleep out’ experience realizing these are hard-working single mothers who have experienced domestic violence and are homeless as a result, these are your neighbors who have lost a job, or your heating and air conditioning technician who just had a rent increase that has rendered he and his family without a place to live. This is your favorite hostess at that adorable restaurant in Camden who runs to a second job and still cannot afford to live here. These are older retirees who have had a health crisis and have had to choose to lose their home. These are veterans who have PTSD and anxiety who return to us and cannot navigate complicated and often overwhelming ‘systems’ they are entitled to in order to get help. These are people who may have made a wrong choice and deserve a second chance. These are young children who are living in unsafe situations and have grown up in abuse, poverty and hungry — hungry for food, and hungry to experience the love and trust of another human being — as a result they are living with trauma, anxiety and low or no confidence — no coping skills for life.
These are all human beings. The majority are families with children, the majority represent a core and important part of our community, our economy, the future for us all — and they cannot afford to live here.
Knox County Homeless Coalition exists to give these families second chances or a hand-up, care and support, education, the chance to learn that all human beings are not unkind, that they can trust in human decency and learn that there is hope for a better life — that they have strengths and those strengths can lead to a bright, productive, warm, and safe future. We won’t stop until we eradicate homelessness and help people see — and truly understand — the invisible crisis we have right here in our beautiful backyard.

In 2018, 318 luminaries lit the Camden Village Green representing each of the active clients on the Knox County Homeless Coalition case load that night.

The challenge now it to see if you will allow yourself the opportunity to open your mind and experience a taste of life from someone else’s perspective. Will you join us, or support a team for One Night Without A Home?

Click here for more information on the 2019 One Night Without A Home event.

One Night to Change Your Perspective