Nearly half of all renters in both Bangor and the Portland-South Portland area are spending at least 30 percent of their income on housing, new data from Harvard University found.
It shows the different ways the housing affordability crisis is showing itself in disparate areas of Maine. In southern Maine, a severe lack of inventory has sent rental prices soaring. In the Bangor area, lower incomes mean that renters are just as stretched despite lower prices.
“The housing crisis in Bangor is no different than in parts of southern Maine,” Mike Myatt, executive director of BangorHousing, said. “The rents are much higher there, but the relative need in Bangor is just as high.”
In both the Bangor and Portland areas, roughly 45 percent of renting households pay over 30 percent of their income on housing, and 24 percent pay more than 50 percent. Households that go past the 30 percent threshold are generally considered to be cost burdened.
While the issue is chiefly a lack of affordable rental housing supply in both regions, lower incomes and a higher cost of construction for new units are compounding the issue around Bangor, Jason Bird, director of housing development at Penquis, a regional social services agency, said.
“While the rents are lower, the costs are just as high to produce a unit in Bangor as it is in Portland,” Bird said. “As a result, developers are shy or leery of producing new units in the northern part of the state.”
That’s partly why MaineHousing, the state housing authority, has invested recently in a rural affordable rental housing program, Bird said. The program incentivizes private housing development in rural areas by subsidizing per-unit costs.
“Projects don’t pencil out but for this subsidy,” Bird said.
Bird is hopeful that this program, alongside the work the city of Bangor has been doing to allow more density and in-law apartments in the city, will add to the stock and provide some relief for low-income renters. But it’s going to take time for families to feel that difference.
“There is this large pool of folks, more than ever before, who have been affected by a lack of good quality [housing] supply that is affordable,” Myatt said.
