MISSION

Island Housing Trust (IHT) promotes viable, year-round island communities by advancing permanent workforce housing on Mount Desert Island, Maine.

We strive to fulfill our mission in the following ways:

• Supporting efforts by public and private individuals and organizations to create housing that is affordable to the year-round working population of MDI.

• Promoting and seeking to establish public and private partnerships that result in the creation of both rental and home ownership opportunities that enable the year-round workforce to live in MDI's four communities.

• As an organization, IHT creates affordable housing opportunities for applicants who meet our eligibility criteria. Finally, we work with other public and private partners to ensure that workforce housing on MDI remains affordable into the future.

HISTORY

Island Housing Trust was founded in 1989 as the Mount Desert Development Trust, based in the Town of Mount Desert.  Later renamed the Mount Desert Community Trust, the organization completed one workforce housing project in 1994 through a 99-year lease on a town-owned piece of land off Route 198 in Mount Desert, and then was inactive for a number of years.  In 2003, following the second MDI Tomorrow initiative, the Mount Desert Community Trust’s Board of
Directors was reconstituted and the organization’s mission expanded to include all four towns on MDI.  In 2005, the organization’s name was changed to Island Housing Trust to reflect that expanded mission.

Since 2003, Island Housing Trust has completed 46 homeownership projects serving 150 adults and children on Mount Desert Island.  Among the projects are:

• 9 energy-efficient houses at IHT's Ripples Hill neighborhood in Somesville; Phase 3 is in planning and will add 10 more houses;

• 17 Homeownership Assistance Program (HOAP) projects in which IHT provided bridge funding that enabled qualified applicants to purchase year-round houses on MDI;

• 4 houses in the Sabah Woods neighborhood in the Thomas Bay area of Bar Harbor;

• A donated 2.4 acre parcel of land in Somesville that became the site of a single-family residence;

• An anonymously donated house, moved onto land donated by the Town of Mount Desert, on Beech Hill Road;

• 3 partnership projects with Maine Coast Heritage Trust, that to date have provided seven year-round homes in Bar Harbor, with four more homes coming in 2023, and the potential for up to three more homes in the future.

IHT holds covenants on 44 homes, and has overseen the successful re-sale of several of these properties, all carrying IHT’s affordability covenants and thus resold at below-market-rate to
qualified households working on MDI.

VISION

On a January evening on MDI, a neighbor takes her dog for a walk. She passes homes lit with a soft yellow glow through curtains, and thinks about the house two doors down where her son’s teacher might be, at that moment, reading her son’s essay, finished that morning at breakfast. When she turns onto Main Street, a couple leaving the hardware store calls out to friends heading into a restaurant for dinner. They make a date to meet up for brunch that weekend. Others are heading to a program at the library, and others are just going on shift at the Fire Department. Just down the street, a small group of neighbors are going into the Town Office for a town committee meeting, considering the plans and concerns of fellow residents. There is a general bustle in the town.

Many of the households – our dog walker’s for one – are living on MDI in January because they own homes with covenants held by IHT, which made them affordable to purchase and will keep them affordable for future residents. Others are renting year-round apartments that they can afford, and some are setting aside a bit each month to build toward a down-payment to purchase. These opportunities provide stability for the residents, eliminating the uncertainty of moving twice a year between winter and summer rentals, often uprooting students from one school to another each time the family moves. They provide stability for businesses that are able to stay open year-round because there are sufficient customers, and they are able to recruit and retain employees, who can afford to live on MDI.

Island Housing Trust is known for its work and partnerships protecting year-round communities on MDI by providing housing opportunities – homeownership and rental – that are affordable for those who earn a typical income working on the island.