Question 1

Do you favor a $12,000,000 bond issue to provide: (1) The sum of $10,000,000

to address the affordable housing crisis in Maine; and (2) The sum of $2,000,000 to provide housing for victims of domestic violence?

Tina Roberts gets upset when she hears that abused women who found the courage to leave their homes and assailants are being forced to go back to live with their abusers.

She believes many of the abused women who return are doing so mostly because they have no other place to go. With housing costs and rents so high, the women – and often their children – are either forced to live on the streets where they risk injury or death, or they return home to face similar risks.

“People go back for any number of reasons,” Roberts said. “I don’t want people to think that housing is the only one. [But] it’s one of the major ones. They have no choice because they have no place to live. It’s especially frustrating when the choice is forced upon them from the outside.”

That’s why Roberts, a resource development coordinator with Spruce Run, a shelter and support system for people who have been victimized by domestic violence, supports Question 1 on the Nov. 6 referendum ballot.

Question 1 reads: Do you favor a $12,000,000 bond issue to provide: (1) The sum of $10,000,000 to address the affordable housing crisis in Maine; and (2) The sum of $2,000,000 to provide housing for victims of domestic violence?

The $12 million is expected to leverage an additional $20 million to $30 million in private and federal funds.

For Roberts, the $2 million being requested to provide transitional and permanent homes for victims of domestic violence is a must. The ability to move to a home of their own from the hell they were living in will dramatically change the lives of abused women and their children.

“It’s a larger community issue,” Roberts said. “What do people need to feel safe? They need a home.”

The remaining $10 million in bond money will go toward rehabilitating existing housing, buying land and creating new affordable rental units for low-income individuals and families. The Maine State Housing Authority, which will administer the money, is expected to hold several hearings statewide and to review proposals by developers and groups, before selecting those projects that do the most good for the least amount. Funding will be awarded as either grants or low-interest rate loans.

Housing must be built or made available for more than 10,000 people statewide who are homeless, according to supporters of the bond issue.

In the stressed areas of the state, primarily along the coast and in southern Maine, the cost of just a plot of land often exceeds $50,000.

Because the state has no specific plans for exactly where the bond money will be spent yet, there are some concerns that too much of the funding will be funneled to southern Maine.

T.J. Martzial, housing programs manager for the city of

Bangor, hopes the money will be distributed throughout the whole state. Although the Portland area has more of the problems, it doesn’t have all of them, he said.

“There is a little concern for that,” Martzial said recently. “At the same time, we have to balance that the housing problem in southern Maine is much worse. The Maine State Housing Authority hasn’t tipped its hand as to how the money is going to be divvied up.”

Despite such concerns, however, Martzial said he supports the bond issue.

“When it comes right to it, $12 million isn’t a whole lot of money to address this issue,” he said.

According to statistics from MSHA, the bond money – combined with the private and federal funding it is expected to draw – will preserve, rehabilitate, repair or develop 460 to 600 units.

MSHA Director Michael Finnegan said that over the years, the term “affordable housing” has been attached to meeting the needs of low-income individuals and families.

But with incomes not rising as fast as housing prices and apartment rents in Maine, “affordable housing” has evolved to mean “work force housing” or “attainable housing.”

Finnegan said he hopes the bond issue will help build homes and apartments that will become available for “the teachers, the policemen … the people who represent those in the work force.”

The bond issue also is being touted as an economic stimulus package.

MSHA estimates that the economic benefit of the $12 million in bond money will multiply to include $18 million to $20 million in income for construction jobs, and $60 million to $66 million in construction sales, service purchases and retail-wholesale purchases.

“Affordable, available work force housing makes jobs more attractive to qualified workers and makes it easier for employers to find and hire them,” according to an MSHA statement that was presented to the Legislature in promoting the bond question.

No groups have come out publicly against Question 1. Three statewide groups, however – besides the individual community action programs, the homeless shelters and other social support organizations – have given their backing. The Maine Community Action Association, the Maine State Chamber and Business Alliance, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland have endorsed the bond issue.

“For us, the availability of decent and affordable housing is a fundamental human right and one that is essential to preserving the dignity of the human person,” said Bishop Joseph Gerry, leader of Maine’s 250,000 Catholics. “Support for the housing bond issue on the November ballot is an opportunity for Maine citizens to demonstrate their solidarity in assuring that all, regardless of income or status, have at minimum a safe and warm place to call home that is affordable to them.”