Maine's First Regional Housing Production Targets
The Governor's Office of Policy Innovation and the Future (GOPIF) works with state agencies to develop innovative policy responses to Maine's most pressing long-term challenges. To address the state's growing housing shortage, GOPIF commissioned HR&A to conduct a comprehensive analysis of housing needs and production gaps — establishing region-specific production targets for the first time in Maine's history. Building on that analysis, HR&A and HousingWeaver developed the State of Maine Housing Data Portal, a central repository of housing and community data to support ongoing planning efforts statewide.
The Challenge
Maine's housing market was under pressure: post-pandemic in-migration had driven up costs in coastal communities, short-term rentals were converting scarce workforce housing into seasonal inventory in some markets, and state housing production was lagging. While state and local leaders understood the problem, they lacked the shared data to quantify it by region, disaggregate need by income and household type, or set data-driven production targets.
The Approach
HR&A integrated Maine's demographic data, economic indicators, and housing supply information to provide a clear view of housing dynamics across the state, then projected future housing needs based on economic and population forecasts. The resulting State of Maine Housing Data Portal organizes data into five categories: demographics, income and jobs, housing supply, rental affordability, and homeownership access.
Statewide portal organizing data across demographics, income, supply, affordability, and ownership.
Key features include:
- On-demand housing needs assessments that any county or municipality can instantly generate and save as a PDF or CSV
- USDA Section 515 rural rental housing data visualizations to track subsidized stock at risk of expiring in rural communities
- State eviction filing data updated monthly
- Building permit data submitted by municipalities with populations of 4,000 or more
Results & What's Next
Monthly-updated building permit data supports ongoing tracking against the new regional production targets.
Maine has established region-specific housing production targets for the first time, grounded in documented supply gaps and household growth projections across all 16 counties. The State of Maine Housing Data Portal now serves as the shared foundation for housing policy coordination across GOPIF, MaineHousing, and the Department of Economic and Community Development, and informed the state's 2025 Roadmap for the Future of Housing Production.