Talk of the Towns returns with new housing report for Deer Isle-Stonington

Final report on housing recommendations to be released at roundtable meeting Nov. 19

By staff

STONINGTON–An upcoming Talk of the Towns meeting asks the question: “How can Maine and our local communities get our fishing families living back where they belong – by their boats along the shore?”

A new report by the Deer Isle-Stonington Housing Task Force, co-chaired over the past year by Stuart Kestenbaum and Travis Fifield, aims to help answer that question. The report makes recommendations for “how the two towns can accelerate the availability and production of workforce housing in ways that complement the work of the island’s two nonprofit developers, Island Workforce Housing and Homeport,” according to a news release. 

“The roundtable invites and will include the many voices that make up our coastal communities: fishermen, educators, business and home owners and workforce members, nonprofits, volunteers, health officials, public sector workers and elected officials,” according to the release.

This is the third year of the Talk of the Towns regional conversation series.

Members of all three organizations will be in attendance: the housing task force, which will release its report; Island Workforce Housing, a nonprofit that built apartments at Oliver’s Ridge for local workers; and Homeport, a group that is converting the former Island Nursing Home into workforce and elderly apartments. Additional “invited special guests from neighboring communities who have successfully added to their affordable housing production,” will also be at the event, the release said.

The discussion series is sponsored and hosted by the Town of Stonington in partnership with the Island Institute.

The evening aims to “open into a conversation on actions we can each take to ease our regional housing – and with it, labor – crises,” the release said.

The housing roundtable event starts at 7 pm on Nov. 19, and will be held on the second floor of the Stonington Town Hall on Main Street. The public is invited to attend. Accessible parking and entry are available from the rear of the building.