BangorHousing announced it will close the waiting lists for all public housing properties next month.
CEO Michael Myatt said that fewer families are moving out of public housing this year, and the agency doesn't have enough units to meet demand.
"So for one bedroom units in our public housing, we're pulling people from the waitlist that applied in 2019, so we just really felt like we were giving false hope to folks," he said.
Myatt said the agency has moved 30 people into units this year out of the more than three thousand on the wait list.
He said the agency has seen a sharp drop in the number of families moving out of public housing units. He attributed some of that to rising housing costs in the city.
"And then another factor could be, maybe it's instability, just the world, in terms of the job market, if you're worried about losing your job, or if you're worried about cutting your hours back, that also prohibits you from sort of moving and doing different things," Myatt said.
He said the agency has more than three thousand people on the waiting lists and manages 833 units in the city.
The agency is also facing potential funding cuts in the next federal budget. Myatt said the latest deal would cut the agency's operating subsidy by more than 10%, around half a million dollars.
