The Mount Desert Island YMCA found a housing solution for its employees when it bought a single-family home with six bedrooms and common spaces to use as shared housing.
The MDI YMCA bought 2 Rockwood Ave. in Bar Harbor from Tim and Susan Buell for $650,000.
Erica Brooks of Swan Agency Portside Real Estate Group brokered the deal. Bar Harbor Bank & Trust financed the acquisition.
The house has six bedrooms, three bathrooms and common spaces.
“The seller, a local of Southwest Harbor, was thrilled to sell to the Y and I was proud to broker the deal and donate a portion of our commission back to the deal,” said Brooks.
Win-win
The Y started looking casually about five years ago and got more serious with the search over the last two years, Brooks said. Criteria included a multi-family or single-family property that would fit within the nonprofit’s modest budget and would offer enough private spaces for employees and close proximity to the town and the Y.
While the term “affordable housing” is relative, many of the local nonprofits have found the need to provide some housing in order to secure employees, Brooks noted. Not every employee is looking to buy, so having some temporary housing, or rentals, is important, she said.
“I think the challenge overall on MDI for some of these nonprofits is their budget for housing versus the market values” which are on the higher side compared to off-island due to natural supply and demand,” Brooks continued.
She added, “The Y is truly a community center in our town and for the whole island, so to ensure they can have quality employees with safe and secure housing is a win-win.”
Recruitment tool
“The house on Rockwood Avenue will work really well,” said Ann Tikkanen, the MDI YMCA’s executive director.
Tikkanen took the helm in 2021 and soon found that lack of affordable housing made it problematic to hire professional staffers.
An early hire under her leadership was a summer camp director willing to move to the island, but unable to find an affordable rental and ended up living in a small cottage near Tikkanen’s home in Southwest Harbor and then later at Tikkanen’s own family cottage. Over the next few years, the Y rented a patchwork of temporary housing situations including a recreational vehicle which was placed in front of the Y, then a seasonal cottage on Bar Harbor’s outskirts, followed by a studio apartment and also a three-bedroom house, both near the downtown.
Housing for has been needed for full-time and part-time year-round staffers as well as summer camp counselors.
“The board has been looking at all sorts of configurations, mainly duplexes,” she said.
‘Absolute certainty’
At the Rockwood Avenue house, the plan is to supply living space at affordable rental rates to summer camp counselors a well as to professional staffers as they come onboard, while helping them find a permanent home.
In order to operate diverse programs and seven-days-a-week operation, the Y has 35 year-round employees and hires another 10 in the summer.
“Even though this is shared housing, it will help us get full-time employees relocated here as we help them find permanent housing, and we hope they will soon call MDI their home,” she said. “For summer camp counselors, this provides absolute certainty that we can run 10 weeks of Camp Cadillac, the Y’s licensed and affordable day camp for 60 children.”
Some upgrades are underway, including boiler replacement and nominal cosmetic work. The mortgage and upgrades are financed through available capital invested funds. A full-time staffer will move in this month and summer camp counselors begin arriving in June.
The organization now has enough affordable housing for its employees.
Tikkanen credited Brooks for her persistence.
“The combination of the right price and the right house layout, so that our Y employees will feel at home here, was tough to find,” she said. “Erica was confident, stayed the course and found the right one.”
