Winter, Spring & Summer 2024
Hello from the MDI Housing Solutions Initiative team!
Summer is a busy season here on MDI and it’s not just the influx of visitor! We’ve been working away on a number of things over the winter, spring, and summer that we’re excited to share with you all:
The MDI HSI was awarded a grant from the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development’s Housing Opportunities Program (HOP) for continued work this collaborative, regional housing initiative.
The 2024 MDI Housing Solutions Summit this past spring was a great success and a summary report should be available in the coming weeks.
An updated Housing Needs Assessment is coming out this fall to build on the analysis of Bar Harbor's needs by examining the needs in the Acadia Region as a whole (Tremont, Southwest Harbor, Mount Desert, Bar Harbor, Trenton, Lamoine, and Ellsworth).
A Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping analysis project is in the works and will provide information on resource constraints and areas for potential housing opportunities on MDI and across Hancock County.
The MDI HSI team is supporting ongoing housing work at MD 365, Island Housing Trust, Camp Beech Cliff, the YWCA Hamilton Station Project, and several other potential housing opportunities projects in pre-development stages.
MDI Historical Society and MDI HSI are teamed up for presentations at the MDI Libraries entitled “Housing, Historic Struggles, Thoughts for the Future.” A recording of the Southwest Harbor Library presentation on June 25th, 2024 can be found on the Southwest Harbor Library YouTube page.
MDI HSI team is going on the road in October to the annual Northern New England American Planning Association conference in Stowe, VT to lead a presentation about the unique challenges of housing in the MDI region and opportunities of continued collaborative housing work.
The MDI HSI team pulled together a working group of area business, government, and non-profit leaders for a conversation focused on Local Option Taxes and is producing additional data analysis to inform legislative work on this topic.
Stay tuned for more updates! As always, please reach out with questions or ideas, and if you would like to become an MDI Housing Solutions partner!
The MDI Housing Solutions Initiative is not a non-profit organization, but instead envisioned as a community-driven coalition-building effort to find points of collaboration and locally appropriate solutions to the housing crisis in the Acadia Region. This effort is partially funded by a grant from the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development’s Housing Opportunity Program (HOP).