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I was puzzled by the logic, or lack thereof, in David Marino Jr.’s recent Bangor Daily News article, “Maine’s trend of hanging onto homes for decades plays into affordability crisis.”
Is it better to turn over homes, each time making a profit, or to stay in your home and remain a part of the community? We have owned our home since the mid-1990s. Our daughter grew up here and went to school in the neighborhood. We know our neighbors and aren’t in a hurry to move.
Does this mean we are contributing to the housing crisis as the article implies? I hope not.
The issue is complicated, as the BDN’s ongoing coverage has shown. There is a great profit motive at play in much of the new housing that has gone up in our part of the state. In Portland, there was the well-meaning, but disastrous “green new deal” referendum that adds to construction costs and makes building “affordable” housing even less attractive.
This is a problem the market is unlikely to sort out on its own. Rather, we need to be thinking about where we need housing and building truly affordable housing in the places people work and want to live — not just luxury condos that are priced out of the range of most working Mainers and supported by local tax breaks.
That will go a long way to solve the problem.
Kathryn Ackermann
Portland
