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Laura Mitchell is executive director of the Maine Affordable Housing Coalition. Michael Myatt is chief executive officer of Bangor Housing.
If you want proof that building new housing is one of the fastest and most effective ways to address the challenges facing the Bangor region, look no further than the Sunridge Senior Housing now rising in our community at the end of Sunset Avenue.
In just two months, the structure of this new development by Bangor Housing has gone up. Two months. At a time when progress on housing and homelessness can feel slow or theoretical, Sunridge offers something powerful: Visible momentum and real results.
That matters because Bangor, like much of Maine, is facing a housing shortage that touches nearly every part of daily life. Employers struggle to hire and retain workers when people can’t find homes. Families are squeezed by rising housing costs that leave less money for food, transportation, and health care. And the ongoing reality of unsheltered homelessness in the city underscores the human cost, community cost, economic cost, and municipal costs of a system that simply does not have enough places for people to live. Bangor Housing just announced they have years-long wait lists.
Housing is not a side issue. It is the foundation beneath all of these challenges.
Bangor Housing understands this, and its work reflects a comprehensive approach. In addition to developing new homes like Sunridge, Bangor Housing has also received a Home for Good award to provide housing for people experiencing chronic homelessness — using an evidence based strategy proven to reduce unsheltered homelessness and connect people to stability and services.
New housing for older adults plays a critical role in fixing a broken housing market. When seniors can move into safe, accessible homes designed for their needs, it opens up existing houses that may be too large, costly, or difficult for them to maintain. Those homes then become opportunities for younger families, workers, and first-time buyers. One new home doesn’t just help one household. It sets off a chain reaction that benefits the entire community.
Right now, that chain reaction isn’t happening at the scale we need. A healthy housing market typically has at least 5% of homes available for sale. Today, Bangor and much of Maine fall well below that threshold. The result is a market where prices rise, competition intensifies, and too many people are locked out, whether they’re trying to rent, buy, or downsize.
The market is broken not because of demand or unknown, unsolvable issues, but because of a lack of supply that is driven by red tape, regulation and fear.
The speed of construction at Sunridge shows what’s possible when funding, policy at the local and state level, and leadership align. But one development alone cannot solve the Bangor region’s — let alone a statewide — housing shortage. Our housing challenges are from decades of policy, underinvestment and underproduction of housing. To build at the scale we need, we must all take bold action at the local, state, and federal level.
That means advancing regulatory and permiƫng reforms that speed up housing development and lower costs across all housing types. It means continuing, and expanding, state and federal investment in affordable housing for older adults, people with disabilities, and others with the
greatest need. And it means recognizing that housing policy is economic policy, workforce policy, and health policy all at once.
The choices policy leaders at all levels make now will determine whether projects like Sunridge, remain the exception, or become the norm.
Bangor can see the solution rising in front of us. With the right slate of policies in place, we can build more homes, faster, and create a housing market that supports our economy, strengthens families, and allows our communities to thrive for generations to come.
