Investing in accessible housing across Maine

By Gov. Janet Mills, D-Maine

Every family, I believe, should be able to make memories in their own home, and yet, the news is filled every day with stories about the difficulties in renting or buying a house from California to Connecticut. Even if you can find a place that you want, it may well be beyond your means. Well, here in Maine, we’re trying to tackle these problems of access and affordability, doing everything we can at the state level, at least, to build up inventory and to preserve homes and apartments that are affordable for families.

In 2023, we released a study that says that Maine needs about 80,000 new homes by 2030 to support our population increase and our future economy. Using that data, my administration and MaineHousing set some goals to keep our state on track to meet that target. And last month, we received data showing that we’re on track to meet the goal.

Last year, Maine communities permitted 7,500 new housing units — that exceeds our goal by about 9%. Annual goals will ramp up in the years ahead, but this good news demonstrates that efforts to make it easier to build homes is working.

Since I took office, my administration has authorized more than $350 million to build more homes. That’s more than five times what the state of Maine spent on housing production, in total, from 2000-18. We’ve also worked with the legislature to enact zoning, land use, regulatory and permitting reforms to allow the private sector to build homes that Maine people can afford.

We’ve expanded tax relief programs like the Property Tax Fairness Credit and the Homestead Exemption and the State Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit. We created and extended the Affordable Housing Tax Credit, the largest state investment in housing in Maine’s history. We created Maine’s first-ever long-term funding source for affordable housing production with revenue from real estate sales of over $1 million, and that is expected to generate $17 million in the first year alone for new housing production fund at MaineHousing.

We created the Mobile Home Park Preservation Fund so mobile home residents can purchase their own parks before wealthy out-of-state corporations swoop in and buy them out from under them and then evict them. We’re also helping towns provide emergency shelters with wraparound services for those people who are chronically homeless. Stable housing is the most effective way to help people who are chronically homeless and to reduce costs for communities and for taxpayers.

It has been said that a life is measured not by what you build, but by who you lift. Well, here in Maine, we’re both building and we’re lifting lives up, doing everything we can in a creative, innovative way to make sure people have a place to call home, either to rent or to own.

A place they can afford here in Maine. A place to make their own memories in their own home. And while we have more work to do and affordability is still a goal and a challenge, the progress we’ve made means we’re coming closer to ensuring every person can find a safe, affordable place to call home here in Maine.