#Homelessness

As vacationers flock to the scenic beauty of coastal Maine, a rising tide of invisible hardship persists, just beyond the sightlines of Mount Desert Island’s bustling tourist hubs. The latest reports reveal a significant escalation in rural homelessness across Hancock County, where forested lanes and tranquil coves mask a swelling crisis among residents living in tents, vehicles, abandoned homes, or on borrowed plots of land—an issue mirrored in many global tourism hotspots, including Thailand’s own rural and resort-adjacent provinces.

A recent NPR investigation shines a stark light on how psychiatric patients in the United States, particularly in Montana, become trapped in a relentless cycle of homelessness, fragmented care, and social exclusion. The story, centered on a woman known as K and told through her daughter L’s harrowing experience, reveals how insufficient mental health services, lack of stable housing, and bureaucratic gaps intertwine to keep vulnerable individuals on the margins of society. As Thailand grapples with its own rising numbers of unhoused people living with mental illness, the lessons from Montana’s crisis offer urgent warnings and valuable insights for Thai policymakers, health workers, and society at large (NPR, 2025).