Mike Myatt never expected to face so much opposition in Bangor.
The executive director of Bangor’s housing authority has unexpectedly come into the public eye in recent months after his proposal for a tax reimbursement on a housing development for homeless people came under fire by some residents.
The backlash was so intense that Myatt and his team decided to forgo a second supportive housing facility in Bangor for which the state already awarded funding, he told the Bangor Daily News.
Myatt’s recent experience in a job he’s held for more than a decade shows how one small decision about housing development turned into a flashpoint for the city’s frustrations around affordability and homelessness. Beyond the intense focus on homelessness in the city in recent months, Myatt said he thinks rising costs across the board made the project, Yellen Pines, particularly delicate.
“I just think things are really, really expensive and when people look at their taxes going up, they want to make sure that that is going towards something that’s going to work,” Myatt said in his first extended interview since a heated City Council meeting in August. “You’ve got so many working families and property owners in Bangor that are also struggling.”
Myatt has seen that struggle in his role as CEO of BangorHousing, a job he’s held for 15 years. The housing authority recently had to close its public housing waitlist because it had gotten too long.
BangorHousing is quasi-municipal, meaning it was created by state statute. It operates independently, without any funding from the city, but Bangor appoints seven commissioners to its board. The closest comparison is something like a water district, Myatt said.
He’s responsible for 567 public housing units, and BangorHousing isn’t allowed to expand its housing stock further. That’s why these new developments must be built and owned by a nonprofit affiliate, the Bangor Housing Development Corp. BangorHousing will still manage the building.
That partnership has caused confusion as some residents have taken issue with Myatt’s involvement in both organizations.
Myatt is the secretary and treasurer of the Bangor Housing Development Corp., but he’s not a voting member of its nine-person board nor does BangorHousing control the nonprofit, he said, adding that it’s a typical setup for housing authorities.
He previously worked for Avesta Housing, the affordable housing developer that built the Logan Place permanent supportive housing project that opened in Portland in 2005.
“I saw firsthand that it worked,” Myatt said. Residents who participated in a study of Logan Place in its first year saw that mental healthcare costs plummeted despite growing uses of those services, as well as more than 80% fewer nights in jail and police interactions, according to a cost-analysis report.
Those shifts, resulting in cost savings for taxpayers, are a big reason why Myatt is excited for Yellen Pines to open. He plans to commission a similar cost-analysis report when it does.
The development in Bangor will be a 30-unit building with 24/7 supportive services, provided by the nonprofit Preble Street, for people who have been chronically homeless.
Myatt is careful to distinguish Maine’s “home for good” model from simply “housing first,” which doesn’t necessarily provide supportive services in addition to housing and has been deprioritized under the Trump administration. Yellen Pines will have staff on-site at all times who can help residents get healthcare and substance use treatment and adjust to living indoors again.
If given the chance to do anything differently in the public process around Yellen Pines, Myatt said he may have tried to find ways to answer residents’ questions more extensively.
His team asked the city for a 75% tax reimbursement over a 30-year period to help finance the project but decided not to request any capital dollars from the city or the county. The tax deal was approved last month after weeks of debate.
“We wouldn’t have asked if we didn’t need it,” he said.
City councilors have agreed to a set of restrictions to the city’s contribution, including a cap on the annual reimbursement, a preference for Bangor residents, annual reporting to the city and reconsideration of the deal if the property changes hands or is used for another purpose.
Public discussion of the project also has raised questions about accountability measures for the chronically homeless people who would move into the facility.
All residents will have a lease and a set of rules to follow, Myatt said. If a resident breaks rules, causes disruptions or uses illegal drugs, staff will intervene. If the behavior continues, the resident will be evicted, he said.
Myatt’s goal is for residents to stabilize their health, reconnect with family, make better choices and maybe reach a point where they’re ready to work. Residents would be eligible for BangorHousing’s family self-sufficiency program, which incentivizes finding meaningful employment and has helped 27 public housing residents save up to buy their own house, Myatt said.
Some critics have worried about what could happen to the development if the funding for services ended, but Myatt pointed to Logan Place’s continued funding over 20 years across both Republican and Democrat administrations.
Many residents also balked at the project’s $11.2 million price tag, saying they support new housing but only at a lower cost.
Myatt said there are a few reasons why Yellen Pines costs so much more than a typical 30-unit efficiency apartment building.
“Building something to the MaineHousing standards is hard. It’s not something that anyone can do,” he said. For projects like his, the state requires a high level of insulation, air conditioning and a fully electric building.
The building also includes commercial space and extra security features, as well as space for staff and medical providers to work with residents.
Additionally, the developer will have to remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS, from the site, which could cost about half a million dollars, Myatt said.
About $7 million of the project cost is going toward construction, with other budget items covering expenses like architect and engineer fees and the reserves required by MaineHousing for replacements and repairs, he said. Myatt pledged that if anything needed to be replaced, he would not ask the city to fund it.
His team is in conversations with MaineHousing now about getting funding across the finish line, and is working on final pricing with its contractor. The team doesn’t plan to build the second permanent supportive housing facility for which the state agency awarded it a grant earlier this year. Instead, Myatt is hoping that the state will let the Bangor Housing Development Corp. put a portion of that award toward Yellen Pines.
Construction is slated to begin sometime this winter or spring.
“I really want people to know that this will be managed professionally. Tenants will have accountability, and if they’re not following the rules or taking things responsibly, then they will lose their opportunity to be here,” Myatt said. “We know it will make a difference, from the data.”