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Zack Carter of Bangor loves Star Wars, served in the Marines for three years, previously worked as a fisherman in Alaska and has a knack for chess.
The 39-year-old is also living with multiple sclerosis and his family has been searching for an accessible apartment for him since he moved to Bangor two years ago.
Zack Carter’s father has made countless calls to housing managers searching for an available unit where his son can live safely. But time after time, he has been told the waitlists for such homes are years long, or he never hears back at all.
“That’s the most discouraging thing,” said Chuck Carter, Zack Carter’s father. “You call a place, leave a long message or they say they’ll get back to you, and you don’t hear anything.”
Zack Carter’s situation reveals how difficult it is to find housing in Bangor that can accommodate those with mobility limitations, especially for those who don’t qualify for senior housing that’s usually built to serve people who use canes, walkers or wheelchairs. That lack of availability is expected to worsen as Maine’s population — which is already the oldest in the nation — continues to age unless more housing is created.
The family’s search took on new urgency late last month when a fire broke out at Zack Carter’s apartment building. First responders had to break down his door and carry him — then his 400-pound wheelchair — out of his unit because he couldn’t leave on his own.
“I thought it was a car alarm for a while, until [first responders] kicked the door down,” Zack Carter said.
While Zack Carter’s apartment is on the first floor and his door opens to the parking lot, there’s a step down from the threshold of his unit to the ground, which he wasn’t able to traverse on his own during the fire, police records show.
He has a 7-foot-long movable ramp that allows him to get from his door to the parking lot, but someone else needs to set it up before he can leave.
Zack Carter is able to navigate around most of his studio apartment with his motorized wheelchair, but his family’s fruitless search for a more appropriate home is racing against his disease, which breaks down a person’s control of their body.
“In the next five or six years, he’ll probably need full time care, which Zack isn’t looking forward to,” Chuck Carter said. “The MS has gotten more aggressive since he moved here.”
Zack Carter was diagnosed 10 years ago when he woke up with abrupt vision changes. An MRI of his optic nerve located behind his eye revealed the disease, which is known for attacking the central nervous system.
For years the disease didn’t progress and Zack Carter was able to continue living out of state, but his father moved him to Maine about two years ago as his symptoms worsened.
Today, Zack Carter primarily uses a motorized wheelchair to get around, but he’s able to lift himself and walk with support, like a walker. His wheelchair doesn’t fit into his apartment’s bathroom, so he has to shuffle into the bathroom while supporting himself on the sink and other surfaces.
“He can’t feel anything — can’t feel his feet — so the sensation of knowing where your feet are is gone,” Chuck Carter said. “He has normal strength, that hasn’t diminished at all, but there’s just no control over it.”
Zack Carter first lived in his father’s downtown Bangor office for about 6 months, as that was more accessible than the family’s 140-year-old house in the Fairmount neighborhood. The home has narrow doorways and many stairs.
The family was able to secure a first-floor unit in the Bangor Efficiency Apartments development on Hammond Street, which has a kitchen sink, refrigerator, microwave and toaster oven, but no stove or conventional oven. The bathroom also has a bathtub, which Zack has to climb into to shower, usually with assistance.
“This place is not ADA compliant by any stretch of the imagination,” Chuck Carter said. “He can move with a walker, as long as there’s nothing in his way. As his MS gets worse, the need [for accessible housing] is going to get greater.”
While Zack Carter has adapted to his current apartment, he wants to find a unit that gives him more space and independence. Being able to take a shower and leave the apartment without help would be most exciting for him, he said.
Housing that complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act would include ramps and elevators, wider doorways and walk-in showers, along with lower counters, cabinets and lightswitches that someone in a wheelchair could reach, among other considerations.
BangorHousing, an agency that oversees 10 local housing developments geared toward low to moderate income households, has several buildings that are accessible to some degree, but the waitlists to live in them are years-long, said Mike Myatt, BangorHousing’s executive director.
Some BangorHousing developments are adaptable, meaning they’re built with some accessible features, such as wider doorways and handrails, and can be turned into full ADA-compliant units if needed, according to Myatt.
“There’s a massive need for accessible units,” Myatt said. “Not everyone needs full accessibility, but everyone needs to live on the first floor, or in a building with an elevator.”
The agency’s other buildings have more bedrooms because they cater to families, meaning a single tenant would be “overhoused” in a two- or three-bedroom unit, Myatt said.
BangorHousing’s newer ADA-compliant buildings only allow residents who are 55 and older and younger people with disabilities don’t qualify. That’s because those developments were built after the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which helps fund BangorHousing, changed the rules for senior housing, Myatt said.
This means Zack Carter wouldn’t qualify for BangorHousing’s newer Blueberry Ridge building even though some units in the building are fully ADA compliant, Myatt said. But, he could live in some of BangorHousing’s older buildings, such as Birch Circle, which can be altered so someone in a wheelchair can live there.
“The older, more traditional, definition of elderly housing for HUD means 62 and older, or anyone above the age of 18 with a disability,” Myatt said. “The problem is the waiting lists are 7 miles long because everyone on the list needs the unit and no one moves out.”
BangorHousing closed its public housing waitlists late last year because they grew too long and the agency “felt like we were giving people false hope,” Myatt said.
The wait for housing, especially senior and accessible housing, is particularly long, Myatt said, because units don’t turn over quickly. For example, only nine people moved into the agency’s Nason Park development, which caters to older or disabled adults, in 2024 and 2025.
“If you have 1,000 people on the waiting list and you’re able to process four households a year, you’re not rising to the top of the list any time soon,” Myatt said. “If it’s a senior, they don’t move because they don’t have anywhere to go, so they do everything they can to stay there.”
The long waitlists and people stuck in unsafe living situations, like Zack Carter, are the result of the lack of housing supply, both locally and statewide, Myatt said. But creating more housing takes time and increasingly more money due to rising construction costs.
“If we had more housing supply, we’d have more options,” Myatt said. “We’ve got to come up with other ways to increase supply or we’re going to have more stories like this one.”
