Every month, 78-year-old Barbara receives a $1,200 Social Security check. By the time she pays rent and monthly bills, she’s left with $75 to cover groceries and other expenses.
She’s waited nearly three years for a Housing Choice Voucher that would cut her $781 monthly rent by more than a third. Bangor Housing Authority can’t tell Barbara where she’s at on the list, but she knows her age makes her a priority.
“What do I need to do? Die before I get one?” Barbara said. “I just feel that there’s no reason why I haven’t gotten one by now.”
She is one of 1,400 people in the Bangor Housing Authority’s coverage area, which includes Bangor, Hermon, Hampden, Glenburn and Veazie, waiting years for a housing voucher, while 21,000 people are waiting across the state. Those waiting for assistance are likely spending more on rent than they can afford, staying with family or friends, or stuck in a cycle of homelessness.
The average wait times for those BangorHousing prioritizes for a voucher can stretch two to four years, according to Jennifer Holt, the organization’s voucher director. For other demographics, wait times are uncertain, but Holt said other housing agencies in the southern part of the state report applications are waiting five to seven years for a voucher, if not longer.
Barbara gets by with help from a generous family member who pays a portion of her rent and sends her “fun money” occasionally, but she never asks for it and doesn’t want to rely on family for support. The Bangor Daily News agreed to refer to Barbara by only her first name due to her concerns about a former partner.
Barbara isn’t certain of her position in line, but knows she’s likely higher on the wait list because of her age, as BangorHousing prioritizes people who are 62 and older. But after nearly three years, she’s grown discouraged and frustrated.
“I would jump up and down if I ever got a voucher,” Barbara said. “But sometimes I don’t think I’ll ever get one.”
BangorHousing is allowed to dole out 454 vouchers a year, but the money from the Department of Housing and Urban Development only stretches far enough to cover 423 because of high rent prices, Holt said.
That leaves another 31 households on the waiting list indefinitely.
“It’s a balancing act,” Holt said. “We have 454 vouchers that we’re awarded from HUD, but due to the price of rent, I don’t think we’d ever be able to fill that.”
In the 15 years Mike Myatt, executive director of the Bangor Housing Authority, has worked for the organization, it has always spent all of its voucher funding but hasn’t given out as many vouchers as it could due to local rent prices, he said.
The national Housing Choice Voucher program limits participants to spend no more than 40 percent of their income on their portion of rent, Holt said, and the voucher covers the rest.
In Barbara’s case, a voucher would knock her monthly rent payments to a maximum of $480, giving her at least $720 to spend on other necessities or save. With her current monthly payments, Barbara would have $377 left over — roughly $300 more than what she has now to stay afloat.
While it still wouldn’t be much, Barbara said it would help her be more independent and not worry that she might have to live with family members, which she did previously after divorcing her husband roughly 20 years ago.
“I don’t want to have to live with my daughter,” Barbara said. “She should be able to do the things she wants to do and not have to worry about me. There may come a time when I can’t live by myself, but I’d like to think I have a few years left before that.”
Many older adults will keep a voucher until they die, but that’s not the case for everyone, Holt said. Some will get better jobs and won’t need assistance anymore because their monthly income rises, which frees their voucher up for the next person in line.
The housing agency also has to be careful not to spend more than the federal government hands down. If that happens, “you have to take people off the program,” Myatt said.
BangorHousing paid an average of roughly $714 for each voucher holder’s unit as of July 2025, which is far more than the organization once spent per unit, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The average per unit cost for BangorHousing voucher holders amounted to roughly $516 in November 2020. Five years before that, the agency’s per unit cost was less than $450 on average.
Each month, BangorHousing sends about $300,000 to roughly 150 Bangor landlords. By the end of the year, that’s $4 million the voucher program adds to the local economy, Myatt said.
“What a huge economic engine that is and it helps local landlords cover their payroll, insurance, taxes and other costs,” Myatt said.
Myatt received confirmation that the Department of Housing and Urban Development will continue to fund voucher payments through the end of the year regardless of the ongoing government shutdown.
But, if the government doesn’t reopen by the end of the year, funding for next year’s housing assistance nationwide is “undetermined at this point,” Myatt said.
