Recently, Rockland Main Street – a partnership of residents, business and organizational leaders and local government – polled its stakeholders about our region’s housing crisis. The survey asked them to focus on working families earning between $45,000 and $90,000 a year.

Twenty-two business owners and organizational leaders responded to our survey (not everyone answered all questions). Here are the key findings [See attached PDF for full survey results]:

• Twenty out of 22 respondents (90 percent) ranked workforce housing as a “serious” or “very serious” issue. 
  
  
• Fourteen out of 20 respondents (70 percent) reported having difficulty hiring or retaining employees over the past two years because of inadequate or unaffordable housing. 
  
  
• Sixteen out of 20 respondents (80 percent) said that the housing problem has had a negative impact on their business or organization. 
  
  

These findings reflect a major challenge for our local economy. According to data from the Maine Department of Labor, employers in Rockland will need to replace as many as 200 workers who will retire by 2028. That won’t be easy. Local businesses and school districts already report that good candidates regularly turn down job offers because of high housing costs. 

In Rockland, a two-bedroom apartment now rents for $1,800 – up from $994 in 2017. The median home price has reached $285,000, affordable to households earning at least $115,000 per year that have $57,000 in cash for a down payment. 

In other parts of Knox County, the situation is even worse: median home prices recently hit $407,500. Working households — including teachers, health care workers, skilled tradespeople and many others — can’t afford to live here. 

Our survey also asked stakeholders about housing trusts. A housing trust is a non-profit corporation that acquires buildings or land and removes them permanently from the commercial market. Through deed restrictions, lease covenants and other measures, it reserves these properties for qualified working households. Successful housing trusts now operate on Mt. Desert Island, Deer Isle, North Haven and in Orland, Freeport, Kennebunkport and other New England coastal towns. 

Among survey respondents, around half said they had never heard of housing trusts. When asked whether it would be useful to form one here, ten out of 22 respondents said yes and the others said that they needed more information. No one thought it was a bad idea.

The survey highlights two valuable lessons. Housing shortages are “hollowing out” our local economy. Employers in Rockland are already feeling the bite. Commercial builders haven’t stepped in due to high construction costs, rising mortgage rates and a lack of skilled labor.

The other lesson is that we need to build support for innovative solutions like housing trusts. As someone once said, we won’t solve the problem by doing the same things harder and faster. Survey respondents are open to new ideas and want to know what they are.

Earlier this year, the MidCoast Regional Housing Trust was formed to provide attainable housing for working families in our region. Last month, the Rockland City Council designated MCRHT as a partner in addressing the housing crisis here. 

This is a vital step toward strengthening our community and securing its economic future. Now it’s time to adopt the lessons from New England’s successful housing trusts and bring their innovations here.

David Gogel is Executive Director of Rockland Main Street. Robert Wasserstrom is Treasurer of MidCoast Regional Housing Trust, Inc.