It’s all connected
Housing is an economic development issue.
Can we hire the people we need to keep our schools, businesses, town governments, organizations, and institutions running? Can we staff the hospitals, clinics, doctors offices, and EMS crews? Can we house families that will want to build or maintain roots? Can entrepreneurs just starting out or looking to grow their business establish themselves in our communities?
Where do people live in relation to their jobs? How far are people willing to travel for work? What mode of transportation do they use to get to and from their place of employment? What does that commute feel like during peak tourism season for workers, residents, and visitors?
Housing is a transportation issue.
What are the climate impacts of people traveling increasingly longer distances between their jobs and homes? Or between their homes, errands, and social or medical services?
Housing is a climate issue.
Housing on MDI
Like many areas across the country, housing is increasingly scarce on Mount Desert Island due to a variety of factors, including market dynamics, regulatory forces, the high costs of construction, inflation, labor shortages, residual fallout from pandemic supply chain issues, and low interest rates during the pandemic spurring a surge in purchases of primary and second homes. Mount Desert Island faces additional pressures due it its desirable location, limited land availability, limited year-round rental options, limited public infrastructure, and a historically hot second-home market and, now, short-term rental market.
The result is that our housing stock is often unaffordable to year-round households and unavailable for seasonal workers. These issues are having ramifications on our communities and our island-wide economy. Major employers struggle to attract and retain workers, businesses are unable to stay open on a regular schedule, and service delivery of municipal and healthcare services are strained.
The graph above shows the relative increases in income (orange) and home prices (navy blue) in the four towns on Mount Desert Island (Tremont, Southwest Harbor, Bar Harbor, and Mount Desert), Maine since 2000.
Source: Maine Housing.
What do we hope to achieve?
The MDI Housing Solutions Initiative strives to create a framework for addressing the ongoing need for different types of housing on MDI, to bring potential partners together, and facilitate a dialogue about island-wide housing and economic issues. Housing will always be a challenge on MDI and this project seeks to foster collaborative, community-driven solutions through facilitated meetings, forums, workshops, public outreach, cultural sector projects, policy changes, and the identification of new funding sources and mechanisms.