Yes on 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?

This is, in a sense, a trick question. Maine, with its low incomes, aged housing and pronounced population shift from north to south, does have a housing problem. The trick, should this bond be approved, will be for the public and their elected representatives to see that the money is spent where it truly is needed.

Part 2 is the easy part. The scourge of domestic violence goes unabated and too often its victims – largely women and children – find escaping from the batterer made difficult, even impossible, by the lack of anywhere to escape to. Often, they end up in homeless shelters or living in cars. Sometimes, they have no choice but to go back to the batterer.

This $2 million will be used to develop transitional housing – decent and safe accommodations to give these victims a real chance at making a new start. Grants to the many fine domestic-violence organizations in the state will allow currently substandard buildings to be renovated for this purpose; in some cases, direct financial may be made available to victims. This small sum will not end domestic violence, but giving victims a real opportunity to leave the perpetrators behind can break the cycle.

The first part is tougher. Maine has some of the oldest housing stock in the nation and increasingly it is falling into disrepair. Persistently low incomes and high unemployment in northern Maine put home ownership out of reach for many; landlords cannot charge sufficient rent to make renovation possible. In southern Maine, the population shift has sent property values soaring, keeping many moderate earners from buying; the surging demand caused by rapid growth has led to the conversion of subsidized rental units to for-profit, eliminating that sector of affordable housing.

The difficulty will be addressing this need without aggravating the population shift. Failed economic-development policies caused many northern Mainers, especially the young, to move away and many communities there are now so depleted they no longer have sufficient work force to attract economic development. As this money is put to use through a variety of initiatives proposed by the Maine State Housing Authority, great care must be taken that the efforts made to accommodate all those new workers in the south are matched by efforts to revive the north. Initiatives, and there are a few suggested, that would subsidize southern Maine developers who now choose to build a few expensive homes instead of many affordable ones, are entirely inappropriate uses of taxpayer money.

This part is further complicated by some inexplicable mixing of purposes. Along with increasing the supply of affordable housing, some of this $10 million will be used for the absolute necessity of assisting overburdened homeless shelters and to create more housing for those with mental illness and retardation. The failure of the Legislature, which crafted this question, to specify how much will go toward meeting this important obligation is troubling. If voters approve, the Legislature’s task will be to see that this obligation is met.