Deer Isle and Stonington are pleased to announce the year-long contracting of Dan DeBord, doing business as DeBord Municipal Consulting, on Aug. 1 as a half-time housing manager working island-wide to address the towns’ most pressing economic issue: a continuing and damaging lack of housing affordable to its workforce at all income levels.
“It’s incredibly important to maintain the housing creation momentum on the island,” said Stonington Select Board Chair Travis Fifield. “Having Dan on board as the municipal housing manager will help ensure the towns keep a focus on spurring the creation of even more.”
The island’s workforce housing shortage has been addressed multiple times by multiple organizations. Two nonprofits, Island Workforce Housing (IWH) and Homeport, are contributing 22 and 23 units respectively, with the 22 IWH units already in service and Homeport’s units, a conversion of the former Island Nursing Home, due to come online later this fall. Beginning in 2024, the two towns jointly ran an interlocal housing task force which conducted an employer market survey and last December issued a five-point plan available on the towns’ websites. The research and plan indicate the island remains short of over 100 units of affordable housing to fulfill demonstrated workforce demand. The newly contracted housing manager will work alongside Maine Service Fellow for Housing Holly Werner to implement this plan.
DeBord is a municipal planner whose career has been built in Maine’s island and coastal working waterfront communities, from a two-year municipal capacity-building Island Institute Fellowship on Monhegan to full-time commercial lobster fishing and town administration on Frenchboro.
The new position is supported by a grant from the Housing Opportunities Grant Program of the Maine Department of Economic & Community Development and the Maine Office of Community Affairs.
