BANGOR, Maine — Bangor City Council has $3.8 million American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds left over after the council allocated more than $17 million to various businesses and organizations earlier this year.
With two new members following last month's election, City Manager Debbie Laurie said council members are reestablishing their priorities, and members will soon begin deciding how to disperse the remaining ARPA funds.
Laurie said the city council has already allocated $4 million to PENQUIS childcare programs, $2.4 million to the Hope House Health and Living Center, and $1 million to Habitat for Humanity.
Laurie said city council also decided to provide funding to fill financial gaps that were halting PENQUIS' affordable family housing project on Milfred Street. PENQUIS also received funding to help rehabilitate the Pine Tree Inn located near University of Maine Augusta at Bangor.
Laurie said the building has 41 units that will be used as permanent supportive housing for people who are unhoused or who are experiencing homelessness.
Some money was even given allocated to the Bangor Public Library—which ultimately funded the yearly salary that was needed to hire an onsite social worker.
But—with 83 percent of funding being allocated to address areas of focus like housing, homelessness, access to childcare, public health, substance use and disorder services, some business owners and organization directors said they felt slighted by Bangor City Council's handling of the rescue funds.
Owner of The Learning Garden Haliegh Rice said, "We were overlooked again."
Rice said she applied for ARPA funds in hopes to create an outdoor learning space that could have potentially allowed her to take in six additional children. She said adding six more children would have equated to about $1800 more per month in tuition earnings.
Rice said enrolling more children in her daycare allows her to decrease monthly tuition cost for parents, cover overhead cost like mortgage, heat, water, food expenses, and even increase pay for her workers. Rice said when she found out that ARPA funds were available and that her business did not have to be a nonprofit to qualify for the funds, she was excited.
She said that excitement fled when her application was denied, and when she didn't get an explanation for why.
"We only asked for $15,000," Rice said. That is a drop in the bucket compared to the money that has been allocated to other programs," Rice said.
Rice said although she agrees that the organizations that received funding all work to fill various gaps in the community, she said feels that Bangor City Council passed out large lumpsums of money that didn't trickle down to some businesses that asked for much less and that needed the additional funding the most.
Rice said she feels like small business projects were overlooked to fund larger, more well-known organizations with bigger footprints. She said when she inquired about why her application was denied, she received a visit from a council member who said the council agreed to allocate some funding to nonprofit organizations. Rice declined to share which council member visited her.
Rice said she feels like city council members could have set aside at least $100,000 or even a little more aside for business and organizations that requested smaller dollar amounts. Rice said city council members could have given a helping hand to the little guy while still giving substantial support to PENQUIS and other large name organizations.
Laurie said there was no criteria that council members followed when they decided what organizations and what businesses would receive funding. She said the council adopted a public application process that had few limitations. She said United Way assisted with the application review process, and she said United Way appointed a citizen review board who ranked applicants based on their own discretion. She said there was not a guide set that outlined what businesses or organizations should get funding versus another.
"You are not going to fund everything," Laurie said. "I think they measured the merit of each individual application. That's not to say that applications that weren't funded didn't have merit."
Laurie said she believes councilmembers provided funding to entities that they felt would have the largest impact.
Like Rice, founder and executive director of the nonprofit organization Dignity First Jamie Beck would also beg to differ.
Beck said she feels like the review process was rushed. She said she applied for ARPA funds, hoping to get support for plans to build 120 tiny home units of permanent supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness—but her application was also denied.
She said like Rice, she also did not receive an explanation for why her application was denied. She said when she inquired about the denial, she was told that her request for $5 million was too large and that nonprofit organization was too new for council members to trust its potential success.
Beck said she was alarmed that council members would allocate such large dollar figures to the Hope House being that the organization is in such an unstable condition.
"It feels uncomfortable that money would still be allocated, especially $2 million," Beck said. "That's a substantial amount of money. Especially to a project that is kind of at the whim of a new administrator."
Chatter of Penobscot Community Health Center (PCHC) selling the Hope House has come up a few times within the last few months, and PCHC is still searching for a new owner for the entity. According to PCHC's president and CEO Lori Dwyer, the Hope House will be forced to close if it does not have a new owner by October 2024. The building has 44 dorms and 12 overflow mats that provide housing to people experiencing homelessness and battling drug abuse.
Even with the Hope House receiving more than $2 million in ARPA funds that Laurie quoted, Dwyer said PCHC is still struggling to secure adequate funding to keep the Hope House open and running, and Dwyer said it cannot continue running operations at the Hope House long term.
Beck said, for these reasons, the money Bangor City Council streamed to the Hope House was a waste, stating that the money could've traveled much further if the funds were better allocated.
She said she believes the citizen review process was skewed.
"I think it might have been a misstep to use completely volunteer reviewers who don't necessarily have," Beck paused to chuckle. "I read through the form for people to volunteer, Beck said. "You didn't have to be a resident of Bangor. You didn't have to work in Bangor—you didn't have to have any knowledge about how a grant process works. You didn't have to write grants or review grants on a professional basis. You didn't even really have to interact with Bangor at all. You just had to fill out the form and be trained."
Beck said she believes having an outside review process was a good call, but the idea was poorly executed. She said she believes people who are closely connected to Bangor and who understand the city's needs should be the ones who complete reviews.
Laurie said she would not comment on how an individual organization feels about not receiving APRA funds, but she said everyone is passionate about their projects.
"It doesn't mean that someone's project is not valuable," Laurie said. "It just means that city council had to make some tough decisions—and they did."
Beck said she would like to see the city council personally meet with applicants to get a real feel for the projects that they are saying yay or nay to. She said she hopes city council members take a different approach this time around.
"They still have opportunity to do a lot of good with the money that they have left," Beck said.
Laurie said there are currently 386 units of housing that are in progress and that have already received permits. To look at the city's progress on creating affordable housing, click here.
Beck said she is still moving forward with plans to create a tiny home neighborhood, and she is working towards securing a property for the community. For more information about Dignity First, its goals, and information about how to get involved, click here.
Business owners or large corporations in the community who want to support local daycare businesses can help by sharing resources about how daycares can find supplemental food programs or by donating tangible, day to day items.