SKOWHEGAN, Maine — Governor Mills and Speaker of the House Ryan Fecteau were in Skowhegan on Tuesday to break on the Mary Street Apartments.
The project will provide 40 new affordable housing units for families in the Skowhegan area.
Speaker Fecteau’s legislation, LD 1645, An Act To Create Affordable Workforce and Senior Housing and Preserve Affordable Rural Housing, increases the current rate of new affordable housing production by creating the Maine Affordable Housing Tax Credit program.
“The bipartisan work that went into this bill demonstrated that together we can make significant headway on one of the largest challenges facing our state — providing safe, affordable housing to working families and older Mainers who need it,” Fecteau said in a release.
“A home is more than brick and beams. It’s a place where you lay your head at night, where you raise your kids, where you get ready for work and pay your bills. Now, as a result of this historic tax credit program, the largest investment in housing in Maine’s history, 40 more families in the Skowhegan area will have a safe, affordable place to call home,” Mills said in a release.
Officials said the Mary Street Apartments project site includes the historic hospital of the former Maine State Reformatory for Women, originally built by the Works Progress Administration in 1937 as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program.
Mills also announced an additional $38.6 million in funding as a result of the state's ability to refinance bonds and purchase new bonds at low-interest rates. Mills said that will provide the state the ability to use that money towards the construction of more affordable housing.