Boothbay Selectmen Candidates Talk of Affordable Workforce Housing and Expanding Corporate Culture
And I suggest a new alternative culture paradigm
In Boothbay, Maine we are in our very short local election season. Two candidates are competing for Boothbay Selectmen. Neither candidate is breaking barriers but there is a clear party line distinction between the two candidates. Russell Pinkham stands closest to my values and philosophy. Aaron Axelrod has a lively-looking picture. He is pursuing, to a T, the centrally managed corporate state template for success.
Pinkham is a long-standing resident of the region who grew a roadside fish shack into a fancy gourmet market, situated on the side of the road leading into Boothbay Harbor. Pinkham is the more grounded of the two. Axelrod is a recent resident.
Russell Pinkham identifies affordable housing as an issue of concern but does not indicate causes and solutions. Pinkham has a working relationship with the fishing community and is likely more conscientious of environmental issues than Axelrod who pays homage to the idea of keeping our waters “safe and pristine” as he advocates for aggressive development that is said by the State to endanger our water supplies.
Axelrod is an artist with a corporate background. He has an enthusiasm and unusual openness in local politics and lets us know more than Pinkham does about his vision for the future of the region. Axelrod advocates for a “world-class” educational system echoing the dreamers colluding with the architects designing the fifty million dollar school. Axelrod talks of “creative financing” and wants large businesses at Industrial Park, which means taxpayer-subsidized businesses and building more housing to accommodate the corporate workforces. However, it also means competing with MRRA, a municipal corporation serving as an instrument of the State, that has both Pine Tree Zone and Opportunity Zone status.
MRRA’s streets flow with tax exemptions and subsidies. It’s not a sensible competition to get into, especially for a community that has natural assets for developing as an alternative to the corporate order. I wish that Axelrod could turn that enthusiasm and creative drive toward a different vision because I like him, just not where he wants to take us.
In the midst of election season, on 04/25/2022, the Boothbay Region Housing Trust announced having received funding for an affordable housing project :
The Boothbay Region Housing Trust, a registered Maine 501(c)(3), has received notice from an anonymous donor of the intent to donate an approved property development in Boothbay Harbor. The development will allow the construction of seven new affordable homes. BRHT receives development lot donation
The lack of affordable housing is a symptom. Gentrification is the underlying cause. As long as the community is rallying around gentrification, the return of affordable housing for those of ordinary means is a pipe dream, short of building blocks of grid houses that all look just the same, which BRHT sees as the solution.
An image of housing development on The Boothbay Region Housing Trust website is identical to an image on Martha’s Vineyard’s Island Institute website with a caption that says “ Island Housing Trust on Martha’s Vineyard - The Inspiration for BRHT”.
The website displays income data, also available on areavibes, stating that in our community the median income for renter-occupied households is $20,417, which is nearly 28% lower than the median renter income for Maine overall. This information tells us that BRHT is probably planning on rental units.
On a page called Initiatives. data about income, unemployment rates, and poverty levels is cited above a large block of white letters on a blue background that says the following:
Initiatives
Phase 1: Raise $375,000 to purchase property in Boothbay Harbor to build 14 homes.
Goal to raise money September 1, 2021.
Please consider donating or volunteering!
The targeted goal, the municipality, and number of units is specific. The address is hidden. An announcement on April 25 2022 follows the same pattern. The approved property development in Boothbay Harbor does not have an address. The missing information is glossed over.
Photographs and text adorn the BRHT website but notably missing is a description of the housing project design and the structure of financing. BRHT’s mentor organization, the Island Housing Trust on Martha’s Vineyard, is the only source of that type of information.
IHT repurposed the historic Hanover House Inn as year-round affordable rental apartments in Vineyard Haven. Description on the Island Housing Trust Website (emphasis by author)
The terminology on the IHT website is "rental apartments", a term that once included a private kitchen at a minimum, but the Hanover House Inn is composed of rented rooms with access to shared communal spaces. Rent income paid by the workforce is used to pay expenses of the property owner, using the acquired property as the collateral. Collecting 15 rents for what looks like a single-family home helps the owner, IHT, to pay the mortgage or other expenses. The owner of the property, IHT, has an agreement with the hospital that assures the property will be leased through the employer to workforce employees.
What happens if the employee wants to change their job? Mirroring deals made between the State and its private partners, the workforce is the pawn in the game that is spun as a benefit for the workforce. The arrangement with the hospital assures that the Island Housing Trust will have the funds to cover the expenses of its property acquisition. The affordable housing renter is put in a bind that makes it difficult to change employers.
The borrowed picture on the BRHT website of wall-to wall-houses is very pretty airscape visualizing BRHT’s advocacy for “the need to reduce density requirements from 10,000 square feet per residential use to 5,000 square feet.”
The prevailing mentality about workforce housing is that it is housing for people who work in external locations and do not need space beyond the bare essentials which are also diminishing as individual kitchens are being eliminated in recent housing solutions. By creating smaller spaces for the workforce, opportunities are also diminished as the activity of developing opportunities requires space. The workforce becomes more isolated than ever from upward mobility.
Once the phrase was “affordable housing” or “low-income housing” but as another evolution of the wealth divide completes, the term of use becomes “affordable workforce housing” implying a new reality- that working people cannot afford to own and in some cases rent a home without additional passive incomes. A working wage is no longer a living wage, I don’t mean minimum wage, which is not intended as a living wage - I am talking about what used to be the middle-class wage which was called earning a living.
The term and meaning of “affordable workforce housing” avoids a larger systemic problem through compartmentalization. When there was a middle class, people earned a living by working a job, and that meant being able to afford a place to live. Today earning a living requires more than an hourly wage earner can make, it requires a supplemental passive income and thus the popularization of the side hustle. Side hustles require space.
The big picture: A ton of pandemic-era adaptations are becoming common fixtures in new homes. The model homes that builders are showing off today are meant for working, living and learning, not just coming home and crashing at the end of the day. Axios -How the pandemic is changing home design
The homes described in the Axios article are not affordable homes but conceptually they could be if one sensibly configures a business in the home design to affordable opportunity growth.
My concept for the Museum of American Designer Craftsmen is the only potential affordable house concept that incorporates affordable opportunity growth. The wording is not worked out in proper detail but is conceptually in the avante guard of affordable housing thinking and solves the problem that was used in 1976 as an excuse to establish the corporate state that centrally manages the economy-that was - the difficulty of the small entrepreneur in finding funding. Small entrepreneurs are part of the economy that subsidizes large corporations that create foundations that fund the tax-exempt sector. The tax-paying sector deserves equal access to complete the ecosystem so that what goes around comes around. The museum as a fiscal sponsor for the designer-craftsmen community can make that possible so that small entrepreneurs can apply for debt-free funding from non-profit sources to establish studio spaces and other related projects.
I need three willing non-profit board members to apply for 501(3)(C) status. A study of the 990 filings of various non-profit organizations shows that board members are not paid. The Boothbay Region Land Trust reports the hours that board members contribute is about two hours a week. The Directors of non-profit organizations are paid. A salary of around a hundred thousand dollars annually is commonplace.
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This post is published on Mediums Data-Driven Investor. 4/30/2022 as
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Boothbay Selectmen Candidates Talk of Affordable Workforce Housing and Expanding Corporate Culture
I have a profound respect for Substacks that cover a local angle. I'm in Montreal, not too far from Maine. I've watched things like Bitcoin mining companies come into Quebec, and develop significant jobs for local and rural areas.