A former Bangor inn slated to be permanent housing for people who are homeless and grappling with mental health disorders still isn’t open months after holding a ribbon-cutting for the property.
Penquis CAP, a Bangor-based nonprofit social services agency, has worked for years to convert the former Pine Tree Inn at 22 Cleveland St. in Bangor into 41 units of housing. The site will also offer tenants on-site services, such as addiction recovery, through Community Health and Counseling Services.
The building, renamed Theresa’s Place, was supposed to open more than five months ago, but lengthy construction requirements have caused continual delays, leaving the dozens of people who have applied to live there uncertain about when they can move in.
Once complete and open, the building will bring an influx of much needed one-bedroom and efficiency apartments designed for the local residents who may have struggled to remain housed due to mental health or substance use. The development is intended to keep those residents housed by addressing the challenges that may have previously caused them to lose their homes.
“We recognize the critical need for housing in our community and are committed to opening this property as soon as possible and to doing it right,” said Renae Muscatell, Penquis’ community relations manager. “While the building is close to completion, we are still addressing a few final items needed to obtain the certificate of occupancy.”
The project required “complex renovation work,” Muscatell said, to bring the building up to current city codes and meet federal housing subsidy standards, including the National Standards for the Physical Inspection of Real Estate. These lengthy requirements, set by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, ensure a building is safe and accessible for people with physical or mental disabilities.
The agency is working with a “third-party contractor who specializes in federal housing inspections” to complete the renovations, Muscatell said. One of the most significant items left on the checklist is replacing a part in the building’s commercial kitchen hood.
“We expect to receive a comprehensive assessment from them very soon, which will provide a clearer timeline for welcoming residents,” she said.
Penquis secured more than $4 million in federal, state and local funding to purchase and renovate the building.
The building has been under construction since last May and was initially supposed to be completed by the end of 2024, Jason Bird, Penquis’ former housing development director told the Bangor Daily News in May 2024.
Bangor city officials aligned the closure of the city’s largest homeless encampment, which once sat across the street from the former inn, with the opening of Theresa’s Place.
Then, when Penquis officials announced Theresa’s Place would be opening in late January, a month later than expected, the city also delayed closing the sprawling encampment by two months.
While city officials didn’t believe the former inn would house all of the people living in tents in the wooded area across the street, Debbie Laurie, Bangor’s city manager, previously said that moving some people into the building would create space in shelters and other housing units.
Penquis officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Theresa’s Place in late February, but Bird said the building wouldn’t be welcoming tenants until March.
Most recently, Bird said in late March that the “much delayed” project would be able to welcome residents “within a few weeks at most, maybe two.”
In the meantime, more than 80 people have applied to live in Theresa’s Place, at least 10 of whom previously lived in the homeless encampment across the street from the building.
