A 30-unit permanent supportive housing facility for homeless residents is moving forward after Bangor City Council approved a property tax reimbursement Monday that will help the project overcome a funding gap.
Under the approved tax increment financing district, or TIF district, and accompanying credit enhancement agreement, the city will reimburse 75% of the property taxes paid by the Yellen Pines facility for a 30-year period.
The housing project is moving forward while some residents push back, part of a growing sentiment of distrust for homeless service providers and nonprofits among a subset of the Bangor community. Some community members expressed that they don’t believe the apartment building is worth sacrificing potential tax revenue.
Yellen Pines will offer studio apartments for people who have been chronically homeless in Bangor with 24/7 services on site to help residents get health care and substance use treatment and readjust to living indoors. The Bangor Housing Development Corporation plans to build it on Corporate Drive, near the former site of a large homeless encampment known as Tent City.
The project, which is primarily funded by a state grant, has been delayed due to difficulties finding enough money. Bangor has not contributed any grants toward the project, but the tax reimbursement will allow the developer to “borrow more money to help pay for things that are expensive with this project,” Mike Myatt, its director, said during a committee meeting last week.
“We’re not asking for capital dollars,” he said. “We are asking for very precious taxpayer dollars, but we feel that that investment from the city in Yellen Pines will come back in savings” in costly police, jail and other expenses that weigh on cities with large homeless populations. Myatt told councilors the project would not be able to move forward without the TIF and credit enhancement agreement.
The estimated cost to build Yellen Pines is $11,185,881, and the developer is short $1,205,211 in funding, according to a June memo from Biguita Hernandez-Smith, an economic development officer for the city.
The city estimated that the building will generate about $46,000 in taxes each year, according to the memo. Under the tax agreement, the city will reimburse 75% — about $34,500 — to the project while keeping about $11,500 within the city’s affordable housing TIF district fund for other initiatives. That’s about $1,035,000 in reimbursements over 30 years.
Councilor Michael Beck noted that the city would not generate any tax revenue from the property if Yellen Pines was not built and the land continued to sit empty.
“It’s been sitting dormant for how long? I mean, there’s no projects waiting in the wings, just dying for that land with something that’s going to move this city forward,” he said.
The developer, a nonprofit partner agency of the Bangor Housing Authority, was approved for an option agreement to purchase the land from the city for $120,000 in October.
Monday’s council meeting was crowded, and four community members spoke in favor of the agreement for Yellen Pines during public hearings while six spoke against it. Some said they thought the project was too expensive and argued against sacrificing any tax revenue for it.
“That’s a lot of money for the taxpayers to give up,” Councilor Carolyn Fish said during Monday’s workshop. She also said she opposed the agreement because she couldn’t be sure that Yellen Pines would be limited only to people who are from Bangor.
Myatt said in several workshops that while he couldn’t say how many of the building’s residents would be from Bangor, they would be chosen based on the people who already interact with Bangor service providers and have the highest need.
Michael Furrow, a resident who has taken out papers to get on the city council ballot this fall, argued that the developer profits from the “homeless industrial complex” and suggested that the people who would be housed at Yellen Pines are “individuals who have no hope of recovery.”
Some at the meeting, including Councilor Wayne Mallar, also expressed concerns about substance use on the premises. Myatt said that while it’s possible residents might use drugs in their private apartments, “the whole point of having the wraparound services is that Preble Street will be there to encourage folks to not do that.”
Both parts of the tax deal were approved in 6-3 votes, with councilors Michael Beck, Daniel Carson, Susan Deane, Susan Faloon, Joe Leonard and Angela Walker voting yes. Councilors Carolyn Fish, Susan Hawes and Mallar voted no.
Hawes, the council chair, did not say why she voted no, nor did she answer a phone call Tuesday seeking comment on her vote.
Some of the project’s criticism from the public mirrored the Trump administration’s approach to homelessness as the president has, through executive orders and changes to funding structures within the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, worked to drastically shift programs away from the longstanding Housing First model and toward treatment-based programs with work requirements.
In one of the stranger moments of the meeting, resident Suzette Furrow said she worried about pedophiles living in the apartment building. Myatt later approached the public comment podium to state simply, “we will not be housing pedophiles at Yellen Pines.”
Others were more supportive, saying the project would have far-reaching effects in the city such as savings in law enforcement and emergency services costs and helping people maintain housing after getting off the streets.
“We see individuals move into housing and then sometimes return to homelessness because they don’t have the ongoing support they need to be successful,” Jennifer Lolar, Maine’s homeless response hub coordinator for the Bangor region, said. “When people have the tools to remain housed, it allows shelters, outreach teams, and other providers to focus their limited resources on those who are still experiencing homelessness.”
The building is expected to open by the end of 2027. There are several other housing projects with similar tax agreements in the city, including two market rate residential properties on State Street and the senior apartment project Milford Place, Anne Krieg, the city’s community and economic development director, said during a workshop Monday.
Once residents move into Yellen Pines, property-related expenses will be paid for with revenue from rents, which will be partially subsidized by housing vouchers, Myatt explained at a city council committee meeting last week. The 24/7 services provided by the Portland-based nonprofit Preble Street will be funded through the state with revenue from the real estate transfer tax.
Bangor was also awarded state funding earlier this year to build a second permanent supportive housing project, although planning for that is still in the early stages.