Despite the evening's ten below temperatures, residents of the Riverview Trailer Park gathered on February 5 at the Fort Kent town hall to hear from the Genesis Fund staff about an idea that would allow them to remain in their homes past the November date the park owners have set for closure.

Executive Director Beth McPherson and Communications Director Heidi Shott traveled to Fort Kent at the behest of John Bannen, the town's director of planning and economic development, who is concerned about the displacement of 16 households that reside at the park. Some park residents, who own their mobile homes but lease the land on which they sit, have lived at Riverview since the late 1960s. Several are elderly and some are young families for whom the cost of moving a not-so-mobile home to another piece of land is prohibitive. The current owners, faced with insurmountable water and sewer infrastructure problems, issued the legally mandated one-year park closure notification in late November.

At the same time the Genesis Fund, with its staff just returned from training on resident-owned cooperatives in New Hampshire, was considering how to begin the work. “After the initial phone call with John Bannen, I realized that we had our first project to assist with whether we were ready or not,” said McPherson. “The people at Riverview needed assistance and the Genesis Fund was the only group in Maine trained to help.”

As one of the founding organizations of the Coalition for Coastal Workforce Housing, the Genesis Fund participated in an event in the Hall of Flags at the State House on February 27.

(Above: As Rep. Ted Koffman of Mount Desert Island speaks to those assembled at the State House, Rep. John McKane, Newcastle; Rep. Hannah Pingree, North Haven; Doug Boynton, Monhegan; and Roger Berle of Cliff Island and the Island Coalition; look on.)

The event was set up to call attention to the more than 50 bills submitted in this legislative session regarding affordable housing. A dozen housing organizations, including the Genesis Fund, displayed materials in the Hall, and speakers included Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, Rep. Ted Koffman, Rep. Jon McKane, Chris Wolff of the Island Institute, and Doug Boynton, president of Monhegan Island Sustainable Community Association (MISCA).

The Coalition for Coastal Workforce Housing, co-chaired by Genesis Fund Associate Director Liza Fleming-Ives, has worked with Majority Leader Pingree to submit three bills this session: (1) creating a local option real estate transfer tax - a 1% tax on properties sold for more than $500,000 that would become available to local towns to support housing for lower to middle income Maine residents, (read text of LD 762)(2) increasing the Homestead Exemption for Maine residents from $13,000 to $20,000, and (3) amending the Property Tax and Rent Refund Program to increase the maximum benefit and expand eligibility.
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An opportunity to pose questions to an expert panel of housing and community development leaders about Maine's current housing challenges and emerging solutions will be offered on Tuesday, March 20, in Rockport.

The forum, which will run from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., will be held at Camden National Corporation's Hanley Center located at 245 Commercial Street (off Route 1 just south of the Route 1/Route 90 intersection).

Panelists will include Genesis Fund's Executive Director Beth McPherson; Tobi Goldberg of the Federal Home Loan Bank; Erin Cooperrider of Community Housing of Maine; Rodney Lynch of the City of Rockland; and Carlton Pinney of Penquis CAP Agency.

Camden National Bank will sponsor the forum. If you would like to attend, please RSVP by March 14 to Sherry Guarneri at 236-2388 or by email to squarneri@camdennational.com

On April 1, the beginning of the Genesis Fund's fiscal year, two longtime and much-valued board members will take their leave. Charlie Boothby of Bangor and the Rev. Steve White of Newcastle are six-year veterans of the board.