Susan M. Collins (from left), president of Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and Jamie Dorr, executive director of Midcoast Youth Center in Bath, take part in a roundtable discussion in Bath on Wednesday, Oct. 12. Maria Skillings / The Times Record
After being awarded a $375,000 grant to tackle housing, child care, employment and mental health issues in their communities, Sagadahoc County professionals sat down with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Susan Collins Wednesday morning to talk solutions.
The towns of Arrowsic, Bath, Bowdoin, Bowdoinham, Georgetown, Phippsburg, Richmond, Topsham, West Bath and Woolwich will benefit from Working Community Challenges grant, awarded by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Working Places Initiative.
The funds will be distributed over the course of three years to applicants Bath Tech, the City of Bath, Merrymeeting Adult Education, Midcoast Center for Health and Wellness, Midcoast Community Action, Midcoast Youth Center, Regional School District 1 and United Way of Mid Coast Maine. The initiative is backed by private funds, with $2.7 million in contributions from local and national philanthropy and federal grants, according to the bank’s website.
Collins sat down with the grant recipients Wednesday at the Midcoast Youth Center in Bath to “deepen her understanding” of Maine and its economy, said Midcoast Youth Center Executive Director Jamie Dorr.
In regard to housing, Dorr said her top priority is helping homeless youth in her community. She said there are at least 65 students at Bath’s Morse High School and Topsham’s Mt. Ararat High School who are without housing at any given time.
Despite her efforts to find a spot for these children in a homeless youth center in Lewiston or Portland, she hit a dead end. Dorr said those centers haven’t had openings in over a year.
Housing shortages were a frequent topic at the meeting.
Just 602 of Bath Iron Works’ roughly 7,000 employees live in Bath, according to Vice President Jon A. Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald said in the past four years, the company has seen a tremendous amount of turnover, and the main cause is lack of housing. He said the company has gone to great lengths to hire employees from out of state but lost many new hires after six months because they could not find permanent housing.
Bath Iron Works isn’t the only business suffering from a lack of housing.
Mid Coast Hospital employee Melissa Fochesato said support staff can’t afford to live in the area and general practitioners who can afford it can’t find any housing available.
Claire Berkowitz of Midcoast Maine Community Action piggybacked on the housing issue, saying there wasn’t enough affordable housing. She said the cost of housing in Bath is “out of control.”
Despite raising two daughters in Bath, she said they will never move home because “they can’t afford it.”
Berkowitz also raised concerns for Midcoast residents as the winter season approaches.
“Rental and heating assistance won’t be enough this year,” she said.
In addition to Mainers’ economic struggles, the mental health component often coincides.
RSU 1 employee Katie Joseph said the federal funding her district received during the pandemic has added more social workers to their staff, but “after the first week, their caseloads were full.” Joseph said the school has partnered with MaineHealth to open up a school health center on site, in hopes of assisting more students.
“I’m really impressed by the commitment and passion of the group that came together here today,” Collins said.
Other Maine Working Community Challenges grant recipients include Greater Bangor, Washington County, Maine Highlands, Katahdin Region and Lewiston-Auburn.
For more information, visit bostonfed.org.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the number of Bath Iron Works employees who have housing in Bath. There are 602 BIW workers living in Bath.
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