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MAINE IS CELEBRATED NATIONALLY
for its idyllic vacation and retirement
attractions, but most of us who live here are keenly aware of another landscape:
the less-travelled streets and hamlets where intense poverty and hardship exist.
The neediest in our communities are increasingly deprived of even basic necessities,
with the most significant unmet need being warm, safe homes. People who cannot find
an affordable place to live often retreat from the economically more vital areas
in the southern part of the state to impoverished regions further north where rents
are still cheap -- but jobs are hard to come by.
In recent years government programs that once provided loans and subsidies for housing
and other community projects have been drastically reduced. At the same time, the
for-profit housing industry has lost the capacity to build profitably for the low
end of the market. In Maine, community-based groups with imaginative ideas for making
housing truly affordable have been stymied by lack of capital and technical skills,
particularly in the early stages of their projects. This is the gap the Genesis Community
Loan Fund has been helping to bridge since 1992.
WHAT COMMUNITY LOAN FUNDS DO
Community loan funds like Genesis
are unlikely financial institutions. They solicit low-interest loans or donations
from churches, corporations, foundations and
Two brothers explore
the terrain around their family's new home in Bremen, Maine. The faith-based Genesis
Community Loan Fund has helped make new homes like this available to families whose
income is no more than half the county median income. |
individuals, then reinvest the money
at below-market rates of return in poor neighborhoods and underserved communities.
Some of the ventures financed would make a conventional lender queasy. Community
sponsors of affordable housing often are start-up organizations that can offer only
limited collateral. In most rural areas, deep-pocket developers and solid credit
histories are rarities. Still, for the 49 such community funds on which there are
industry data, defaults run at the enviable rate of 1.2 percent of total loans.
A FAITH-BASED FUND
The Genesis Community Loan Fund was
founded in 1991 in Wiscasset as a faith-based fund, with assistance from Coastal
Enterprises, Inc., and the Lilly Endowment. The following year Genesis made its first
loan: $50,000 to Coastal Housing, Inc., for development of Ward Brook in Wiscasset,
a nine-unit rental complex for single-parent families with incomes below the poverty
level. Most of the money for the project came from four midcoast congregations who
were alarmed by the absence of safe, affordable housing for families such as these.
In 1996 the Maine Community Loan Fund, which had been founded at about the same time
in Portland, transferred its assets and loan portfolio to Genesis, doubling its size.
Today the unified Genesis Community Loan Fund has revolving loan capital of over
$700,000. It has aided 43 projects throughout the state of Maine with $990,000 in
below-market-rate loans and substantial technical assistance. These loans have helped
leverage an additional $9.8 million from Maine banks and other institutions to create
212 units of affordable housing for Maine's most vulnerable populations, including:
- low-income working families (25
single family homes);
- single mothers and their children
(16 rental units with supportive services);
- low-income frail elderly (44
assisted living units);
- chronically mentally ill and/or
developmentally disabled adults and children (72 rental units with supportive services);
- Maine's first hospice residence
for the terminally ill (6 units);
- transitional homes for families
made homeless by domestic violence (6 single family homes);
- the homeless (35 shelter beds).
COMMUNITY-BASED CARE FOR THE ELDERLY
Housing and caring for the state's
rapidly aging population is a growing challenge. Today Maine has the 14th highest
proportion of persons over 65 among the 50 states, but will move up to 5th in just
two short decades, according to Census Bureau projections. Accordingly, Genesis has
taken a special interest in developing an alternative model to serve the state's
frail, low-income elders – typically living alone and, due to illness or increasing
incapacity, suffering from loneliness and neglect, poor nutrition, over- or under-medication
and threats to mobility and safety. These Medicaid-eligible elders need frequent
assistance with their daily activities but they do not need to live in a skilled
nursing facility.
Last year non-profit community-based organizations in Old Town and Darmariscotta
set out to develop alternative care options for their frail neighbors. Their shared
vision: a model of quality extended care that allows elderly persons to remain within
their own familiar community, and that is also far less disruptive of normal life
and far less expensive than the usual institutional solutions. Genesis was asked
to oversee the development of plans for the two assisted living projects. Not only
did we lend acquisition and construction funds totaling $100,000, but we also succeeded
in raising long-term financing for the projects from state and federal agencies.
Together, the two new licensed homes that opened in April are providing housing and
services to 32 frail elders with very limited resources.
AN ALTERNATIVE SPACE IN A DEPRESSED NEIGHBORHOOD
The mission of Genesis to serve the
needs of the disadvantaged encompasses other kinds of community service projects
as well. For example, In September Genesis made a 10-year mortgage loan of $20,000
to Friends of the St. Lawrence Church, a
At its October 1998 meeting the board of The Episcopal Church Publishing Company
(ECPC), the publisher of The Witness, voted to make a low-interest investment of
$25,000 in the Genesis Community Loan Fund.
All of ECPC's investments are managed in a socially responsible way, with a portion
being placed in faith-based, community focused enterprises such as Genesis. |
Portland grassroots organization
with a plan to transform the long-vacant Munjoy Hill church into a center to promote
community involvement in educational, artistic and cultural activities. By paying
off a burdensome short-term note, the Genesis loan frees up capital for buil
ding improvements essential to obtaining
an occupancy permit.
The church is separated into two areas -- a vaulted sanctuary seating 400-500 persons
and a two-level parish hall. The Friends group expects the renovated building
to provide an affordable home base
for professional and amateur performing arts groups and also to serve as flexible
programming space for nearby elementary and pre-schools, for public forums and for
youth activities. Already several programs are up and running at the church. One
is a pilot "school to work" program organized under the Maine Department
of Labor that is putting neighborhood youth to work on demolition and refurbishing.
THE HEALING POWER OF HORSES
Another Genesis project involves Riding to the Top (RTT), a nonprofit therapeutic
horseback riding program founded in 1993 in the well-founded belief that horses are
excellent healers. Over the past five years, RTT volunteers have worked with over
100 riders with physical, emotional and learning disabilities, ranging in age from
3 to 70.
The physical therapists who designed the program and are its volunteer directors
say that the experience of riding a horse permits physically disabled persons the
sensory-motor input of walking without extraordinary effort. Everything from the
sensory feedback of touching a horse to the relationship developed when horse and
rider communicate builds self-esteem, trust and confidence. Parents, teachers and
therapists report on the tremendous positive change in troubled children's behavior
when horses enter the picture.
After working out of other barns for five years, RTT decided last spring to buy its
own 10-stall barn, riding ring and wooded trails in Windham. Genesis provided mortgage
financing of $50,000 for ten years to assist in acquisition of the property.
THE NEED FOR CREDIT
In Maine the need for credit in low-income
neighborhoods and communities is far greater than our loan fund can currently meet.
But as new loan capital and equity investments become available, Genesis will continue
to link those resources to housing and community development projects to serve Maine
people who have limited opportunity to better their own lives.
Beth McPherson is executive director of
the Genesis Community Loan Fund
<genesis@lincoln.midcoast.com> based in Bristol, Maine.
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