Those were some of the many questions posed to a panel of about 12 southern Aroostook County residents Friday morning as part of a two-hour discussion sponsored by the Aroostook County Action Program.
“Every three years ACAP conducts a comprehensive community assessment to determine strengths, needs and opportunities,” said Deb Jacques, ACAP resource developer.
“We have several different approaches to help ensure we achieve a thorough report, including quantitative data, a community survey, and forums that allow for input and feedback on a variety of topics.”
“It’s very important for us to get feedback,” added Jason Parent, executive director for ACAP. “We had some great response to our online and paper survey that we conducted throughout Aroostook County. And we are hoping through these forums we will get information that will help us craft our next three-year strategic plan.”
Three sessions were held simultaneously at ACAP offices in Houlton, Presque Isle and Fort Kent via a video-conferencing system. The sessions featured a time for each satellite office to discuss the issues that they felt were the most important to their particular area and those findings were then shared with the other locations via the video conference.
Madison McLean, a consultant for John Snow Inc. — a public health management consulting and research organization based out of Boston, said the purpose of the community feedback forums was to gather information on several topics that have been identified by ACAP as areas of concern. Those topics included: geography, poverty, income, housing, transportation, health care, food, pregnancy and substance abuse.
“We have been engaged with ACAP for some time,” McLean said. “We initially gathered as much data as we could find on Aroostook County, but it was all very secondary data. It was data with no real story behind it.”
The forums, McLean said, will give consultants, and ACAP, a better understanding of what issues are impacting the people of Aroostook County and what areas they should be targeting for improvements.
In the southern Aroostook session, participants stated they enjoyed living in The County because of the strong sense of community, family and safety, as well as affordable housing. Some of the negatives on living in the area were weather, distance to travel to get to larger cities and levels of poverty. Many in the discussion felt lack of education and generational poverty were two of the biggest risk factors.
Aroostook County has also been losing population since its historical peak at 106,000 in 1960. The 1994 closure of the Loring Air Force Base left just under 74,000 by 2000, and last year’s population was estimated at 68,500.
Several stated that more should be done to explore attracting people with telemarketing jobs to the area. Having people who can work from their homes, thanks to favorable internet connection speeds in the southern Aroostook area was viewed as a positive.
Substance abuse was viewed as a negative by all three focus groups. “[Substance abuse] lends itself to so many other issues,” said Tammy Goetsch. “It’s kind of amazing that people living in poverty can afford drugs.”
Affordable property was viewed as one of the bigger positives for the area. “We have a lot of very affordable lakefront property,” said Rob Faulkner. “People can actually afford lakefront property here as opposed to southern Maine.”
In the St. John Valley, regarding the positives of living in northern Maine, the general consensus among the Fort Kent group was the sense of community and the people.
Among the negatives for the Valley, most cited limited access to goods and health care as issues. Participants also said difficulties have increased when people cross the border back and forth to Canada since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
High levels of poverty was a topic resonating throughout Aroostook County as all three sites mentioned it was a concern. Participants also cited poverty as reasons for poor nutrition, as the panel felt health foods were too expensive to purchase on a regular basis.
Finding good-paying jobs is difficult and members at the forum cited that as one reason people and families leave Aroostook County for elsewhere in Maine or New England. At the same, managers with employers large and small say they’re having trouble finding good workers.
Officially, Aroostook County’s unemployment rate stands at 5.5 percent, although some estimate the effective unemployment rate among working-age adults could be about double that when factoring in the long-term unemployed who have stopped looking for work. Seasonal unemployment was viewed as being a big problem as those in the lumber and farming industry can have long periods of no income.
Nearly 70 people turned out for ACAP’s community forums. “We are grateful for the diverse group of Aroostook County residents who took the time to share their thoughts on everything from housing, education, employment and more,” Jacques said. “Business leaders, retirees, social service providers, health care providers as well as residents who receive ACAP services turned out for these events. They told us what is working well in their communities and where improvements need to be made.”
The information provided will be used as part of ACAP’s comprehensive community assessment report which will include key findings and recommendations based on the forums, a community survey, and quantitative data from various federal, state and local resources. The report will be finalized in early, 2017 and results will be provided to the community.
For 44 years, Aroostook County Action Program, Inc. (ACAP) has provided the people of Aroostook County with services and resources that help individuals and families achieve greater economic independence.
As a leader, or in partnership with others, ACAP provides guidance to the community in responding to emerging human needs in the areas of community health, early care and education, energy and housing, and workforce development services. For more information on ACAP, or to make a tax-deductible contribution, please contact the agency at 771 Main Street, on the web at www.acap-me.org, or by calling 764-3721.
Reporters Don Eno of the St. John Valley Times and Anthony Brino of the Star-Herald contributed to this story.
