BREWER – The head of the Brewer Housing Authority is retiring after 281/2 years on the job, but don’t expect to see her slowing down any time soon.

Dorothy “Betty” Igoe is literally going next door to the Ellen M. Leach Memorial Home and simply moving from working as a full-time executive director to one with fewer hours.

Igoe will retire Jan. 17 from the housing authority and will begin her new job as executive director of the Leach Home soon afterward. She and her husband already are the nighttime resident assistants at the 90-unit senior housing facility.

“These residents are just like family,” she said of the Leach Home. “It’s a great place.”

The housing authority’s board of commissioners in November hired Gordon Stitham of Orrington to replace Igoe. Stitham has been a housing authority employee for nearly two decades.

The desire to help people and to encourage them to help themselves has kept her job interesting over the years, she said.

“I was low-income myself for quite a few years so I truly understand their problems and difficulties,” Igoe said. “It gives me a lot of satisfaction to help them better their lives.”

As the Brewer Housing Authority executive director, Igoe has overseen the Heritage Apartments, the Charles Dartnell Apartments, and four other residential living areas and is responsible for several social services programs. It’s the success of these self-help programs of which she is most proud.

“You don’t only help [residents] with affordable housing, you need to help them in other ways to make them self-sufficient,” Igoe said.

Many residents have been able to buy new homes, graduate from college or to get better paying jobs under programs offered through the housing authority, including the family program Resident Opportunity and Self-Sufficiency, which is paid for through a competitive grant offered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“It’s quite rewarding [to watch clients] move up and better themselves for themselves and their children,” Igoe said.

She was hired June 17, 1979, and became executive director in September 1982. Igoe estimates that since that date she has dealt with hundreds of changes in federal laws and guidelines about how to run the low-income facility.

“There are constant changes over the years – sometimes they’re better, sometimes they’re not,” she said. “HUD [funding] is not at 100 percent. It’s difficult to manage properties and maintain programs … with less money.”

The senior services program, which ensures that older residents have the services they need to stay healthy, is another housing authority social service that makes Igoe proud.

The Leach Home provides housing to mostly low-income residents, with nearly 80 percent of its senior renters receiving some sort of subsidy.

A charitable trust established by Mabel Tyrell in 1926 originally helped create the Leach Home and annually supplements its budget. Market-rented housing units also contribute to the budget. The facility opened in 1995 with 30 apartments and congregate living space. Another 30 units were completed in 1997 and a third 30-unit wing was added in 2002.

Igoe said she strongly believes that people live longer when they’re surrounded by other people so there needs to be more places like the Leach Home.

“We have two meals a day, activities, a nurse and beautician,” Igoe said. “You don’t have to be in your apartment isolated; you can visit each other, play cards, socialize.

“It’s like a great big extended family,” she said.

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