The Islands Challenge Fund formed by the Maine Community Foundation, the Maine Sea Coast Mission, the Island Institute, and Genesis Community Loan Fund offers a model for helping year-round residents in any resort community to create affordable housing.Housing - Maine

Heidi Shott

English

Research Papers in Economics

16    Fall 2008
Ten  years  ago,  residents  of  Vinalhaven, 
Maine’s largest year-round island community, 
took the first step to address a growing con-
cern.  Many  elderly  neighbors  and  relatives 
were obliged to travel to mainland nursing fa-
cilities and often ended up living there perma-
nently, away from families and friends. The 
residents contacted the Genesis Community 
Loan Fund (GCLF) to see if there was some 
way that people who needed nursing services 
could receive them on the island.
GCLF assisted the islanders with tasks 
such as nonprofit incorporation and grant 
writing, and by 2001, Vinalhaven Eldercare 
Services opened the Ivan Calderwood Home. 
The facility allows 16 islanders to receive the 
care they need while remaining part of their 
community as long as they live. 
Islands’ Unique Needs
The  Calderwood  Home  project  raised 
awareness that Maine’s 14 off-shore island 
communities would need a source of grant 
funding and technical assistance to preserve 
and  sustain  year-round  communities  not 
only for elders, but also for young, work-
ing families. 
Maine’s unbridged island communities 
embody a cherished cultural and historical 
tradition. Their sustainability is threatened 
by  escalating  property  values;  expensive 
goods, services, and transportation; a lack of 
affordable workforce housing, medical care, 
economic  development,  or  technological 
infrastructure;  and  uncertainty  about  the 
future of fishing in the Gulf of Maine. 
GCLF, other concerned organizations, 
and islanders themselves saw the need for 
safeguards to ensure a strong social fabric. 
They began to collaborate. In so doing they 
may provide a model for other vulnerable 
communities.
Taking Action
In 2004, the Maine Community Founda-
tion, the Maine Sea Coast Mission, the Is-
land Institute, and GCLF formed the Is-
lands Challenge Fund. A grant of $220,000 
from Jane’s Trust of Boston got the fund 
going, and since then it has been making 
$25,000 grants to island organizations de-
veloping affordable year-round housing.1
Progress Seen
The Islands Challenge Fund had an almost 
immediate  impact.  On  Monhegan  Island, 
where the year-round community hovers at 
around 70 people and the loss of one young 
fishing family can threaten the overall viabil-
ity of the school and the winter community, 
there is new housing. In November 2007, the 
island’s fifth affordable home sold with help 
from an Islands Challenge Fund grant.
As Doug Boynton, a Monhegan lobster-
man and the first president of the Monhe-
gan Island Sustainable Community Associa-
tion (MISCA), said at a state capitol rally last 
year, even “six year-round affordable homes 
on Monhegan can make a big difference.” 
No ISLAND
is an 
ISLAND
Maine’s Island Housing 
Groups Collaborate
by Heidi Shott
Genesis Community Loan Fund
Getty Images Communities & Banking    17
For Boynton, help from GCLF was critical 
because “most of us on the islands are so busy 
working that we don’t have the extra time to 
find ways to get the funding and support we 
need to help the island community.”
Despite being busy, Monhegan residents 
applied  island  resourcefulness  to  overcom-
ing many financial and regulatory obstacles. 
Pushing  beyond  their  comfort  zone,  they 
tapped summer residents to help raise funds. 
They reached beyond the island for financ-
ing assistance from the Genesis Community 
Loan Fund and Camden National Bank. 
With  the  success  of  each  new  island 
project, the partnerships and the ease of op-
eration between the island organizations and 
funding institutions has gained momentum. 
Camden National Bank Community Rein-
vestment Act officer Vera Rand says her bank 
has now made loans for “affordable hous-
ing, elderly housing, and sustainable initia-
tives on Islesboro, Vinalhaven, Monhegan, 
and North Haven. In addition, the bank has 
sponsored grant applications—through the 
Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston—that 
have been successful in garnering funds to 
support two projects.”
Collaboration Grows
Collaboration  is  growing. To  help  people 
learn about activities on other islands and 
connect with nonprofit partners, an Islands 
Affordable Housing Symposium was held 
in April 2006. More than 100 legislators, 
islanders, and members of Maine’s afford-
able  housing  community  attended.  That 
same month, the Genesis Community Loan 
Fund learned it had received a $300,000 
grant award from the U.S. Department of 
Agriculture’s  Rural  Community  Develop-
ment Initiative to help eight of Maine’s is-
lands build organizational capacity.2
Then in 2007, the Rockland-based Is-
land Institute developed a second granting 
program to support affordable year-round 
island  housing—the  Affordable  Coast 
Fund. In one more example of collabora-
tion, that fund shares the Islands Challenge 
Fund’s  granting  application  process  and 
uses the same grants committee, composed 
of residents from several islands and staff 
from supporting organizations. Thanks to 
the combined efforts of the funds, 11 grants 
totaling $215,000 had been awarded to is-
land housing groups by spring 2008. 
With the Islands Challenge Fund re-
quiring contributions of at least an equal 
amount of local dollars before grant funds 
are released, islanders have raised $356,000 
on their own. An additional $50,000 grant 
to the Genesis Fund from Jane’s Trust in 
2007 enabled subsidized interest rates (as 
low as 3 percent) on four loans to island 
groups to help them purchase homes that 
could be leased or resold to income-eligible 
island families.
Another example of collaboration has 
been  with  “intermediary  organizations”—
nonprofit housing developers that have the 
experience and capacity to assist islanders. 
Avesta  Housing  of  Portland,  for  ex-
ample, is assisting the volunteer-led hous-
ing group on Peak’s Island, HomeStart Inc. 
Similarly,  Community  Housing  of  Maine 
took the lead on a six-unit apartment build-
ing of affordable rental housing on Vinal-
haven, where two-thirds of the 137 renter 
households  in  2000  had  annual  incomes 
below $35,000.3 With help from Commu-
nity Housing of Maine, six qualified rent-
ers will be able to move to decent housing 
by 2009.
And every bit of help counts. As direc-
tor Dale McCormick of the state housing au-
thority, MaineHousing, puts it, islands have 
“special challenges.” The challenges include 
higher  costs  for  land,  transportation,  and 
construction—and a bigger portion of island 
income going to purchase goods on-island 
(where they are often marked up 25 percent 
to 30 percent) or to transportation for less ex-
pensive goods from the mainland.4
In  addition,  unexpected  construction 
costs are harder to manage on islands. In 
one example, Islesboro Affordable Property 
began working on a five-acre parcel and en-
countered soil unsuitable for a septic field. 
It had to haul gravel from the mainland. 
Says director Joanne Whitehead, “The cost 
of these [three] septic systems increased to 
$15,000 to $17,000 a piece.” If IAP had not 
brought in modular homes on barges, the 
septic-system  surprise  would  have  pushed 
the project over budget. 
In 2007 IAP sold the first house to a 
teacher, a key community member who—
after  17  years  of  renting  from  Islesboro 
summer people during the winter and mov-
ing out when they returned for the season—
really needed a home. 
Sharing Ideas
Increased  interest  in  developing  afford-
able housing has motivated islands to seek 
out and share information. Chebeague Is-
land Community Association gives credit to 
Monhegan, Islesboro, and North Haven for 
materials on eligibility criteria and housing 
applications that led to the purchase of its 
first affordable home in 2007. 
As the groups continue to learn from 
one another’s successes and challenges, the 
capacity of the entire effort will grow. Is-
landers’  get-the-job-done  attitude  will  see 
to that. As Liza Fleming-Ives, the Genesis 
Fund  associate  director  who  administers 
both the Islands Challenge Fund and the 
USDA Rural Development grant, puts it, 
“Island  people  understand  that  finding  a 
solution to their affordable housing crisis is 
critical to the survival of their communities 
and their way of life. ... I have such great re-
spect for their intense dedication to serving 
their communities, even when it means tak-
ing on a role—like raising funds or learn-
ing the intricacies of ground leases—outside 
their comfort zone.
“Part of our work is technical, yes, but 
part of it is offering the encouragement that 
the work they are doing-ensuring that their 
island life is sustainable for their children 
and their grandchildren-may be long and 
hard, but it’s worth it. 
“Patience and hard work are two things 
that year-round islanders understand.”  
Heidi  Shott  is  communications  director  of 
the Genesis Community Loan Fund, which is 
based in Damariscotta, Maine.
Endnotes
See  Jane’s  Trust,  http://www.hembar.com/selectsrv/
1 
janes.
GCLF applied for a RCDI grant for “pass-through” 
2 
funds  to  eight  named  island  groups.  Not  all  14  of 
the year-round islands qualified to be included in the 
grant. For example, Peaks Island was ineligible because 
it is in the City of Portland.
Housing Demand Analysis of the Town of Vinalhaven, 
3 
Maine  (Hallowell,  Maine:  Planning  Decisions  Inc., 
2004).
See 
4  Sustaining Island Communities (Rockland, Maine: 
Maine  Coastal  Program,  Island  Institute,  1996), 
85-87. Preliminary follow-up research conducted by 
the University of New England’s Samuel McReynolds 
in 2006 confirmed that costs for island residents’ basic 
supplies remained constant since the original research.
This Communities & Banking article is copyrighted 
by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The views 
expressed are not necessarily those of the Bank or 
the Federal Reserve System. Copies of articles may 
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No island is an island: Maine's island housing groups collaborate

http://www.bostonfed.org/commdev/c&b/2008/fall/Shott_Islands_Challenge_Fund.pdf

No island is an island: Maine's island housing groups collaborate

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