AUGUSTA, Maine – Gov. Janet Mills announced Thursday she will nominate Sara Gagné-Holmes to serve as Commissioner of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.
Gagné-Holmes will face a hearing before the legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee and must be confirmed by the Maine State Senate.
Gagné-Holmes, a Maine native who has served as Deputy Commissioner of the Department for the past five years, has been the Acting Commissioner since June 1, after Jeanne Lambrew stepped down to become the Director of Health Care Reform for the Century Foundation, a Washington-based think tank focusing on research and policy change.
“Acting Commissioner Gagné-Holmes cares deeply about the health, safety, and welfare of Maine people, and she has dedicated nearly her entire professional career to improving the lives of people across this state,” Mills said. “Her deep policy and managerial experience, her intimate knowledge of the department — including both its strengths and its challenges — along with the respect she has earned from her colleagues, lawmakers and others, and her collaborative approach to solving problems make her the right person at the right time to take on this important role.”
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DHHS is the largest department in the Maine state government, with more than 3,000 employees across eight Offices and two psychiatric hospitals.
“The Department has made great strides in advancing our mission of ensuring health, safety, resilience, and opportunity for Maine people. We have more work to do to fully implement our progress, better meet the needs of the Maine people we serve, and continue building trust through listening, transparency, and accountability. I look forward to discussing how we will achieve those goals with the legislature, our many partners, and the public,” Gagne-Holmes said.
Gagné-Holmes grew up in Sanford before earning an undergraduate degree at Bowdoin College in Brunswick and a law degree from the University of Maine School of Law. After law school, she served as a law clerk with the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.
She practiced law with a focus on health care at a Maine law firm before serving as a Health Policy and Legal Advisor in the Governor’s Office under Gov. John Baldacci. She also led work in nonprofit legal services and advocacy at Maine Equal Justice Partners and philanthropy at the John T. Gorman Foundation.
She joined the Maine Department of Health and Human Services in March 2019.
Mainers consider the housing crisis to be a bigger problem than any of the others facing our state.
The lack of housing inventory at all income levels, which was caused by historic underproduction and higher migration rates, has sent home prices soaring in recent years. It is harming Maine businesses and shutting many out of the housing market entirely.
Average home values and median home prices increased more in Maine in the last year than they did nationally. Other northeastern states have seen bigger hikes. But other metrics show that the crisis is virtually as bad here than anywhere else nearby, especially when you account for the fact that incomes are lower in Maine than in any other state in the region.
Here are three datapoints putting Maine’s housing crisis into perspective.
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Sale prices are growing nearly as fast here as anywhere in New England.
Median home sale prices are growing nearly as fast in Maine as they are in any other northeastern state. Regionally, they’ve increased by anywhere from 5.9 to 11.3 percent in the last year. Maine is riding the middle at 8.2 percent, higher than any New England state besides Rhode Island, according to Redfin.
To purchase the median home for sale in Maine right now, you need an income of just under $112,000 a year, assuming no debts and a $20,000 down payment, according to Zillow’s affordability calculator. The median household income here is a little under $72,000, according to census data. That shows how out of whack the housing economy is for the average person.
Home values in Portland are growing as fast as they are in Boston.
Over the past year, there have been signs that Portland’s red-hot pandemic housing market is slowing down. But that’s all relative. Home values here still grew by 3.8 percent over the past year as of November, which was only slightly below Boston at 4 percent, according to Zillow.
But when stacked up against the other largest cities in each New England state, Portland is second only to Burlington in seeing the lowest increase in home values in the past year. Providence, Rhode Island, has seen the largest hike, followed by Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Both those cities are facing major shortages and price increases, although they are still far cheaper markets to buy in than Portland. The typical home value in Providence is just over $400,000, which is roughly in line with Maine’s statewide average.
Maine’s rental crisis is worse than in this nearby Canadian city.
The southern Quebec city of Sherbrooke — only 40 miles from Maine’s western border — is in the midst of an “unprecedented housing crisis,” according to a local news outlet.
The city had a vacancy rate of only about 1 percent in October and 25 percent of households are spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent. Here in Maine, that latter figure is far worse.
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Nearly half of all renters in both Bangor and the Portland-South Portland area are spending at least 30 percent of their income on housing, data from Harvard University found. Roughly 45 percent of renting households in those areas pay over 30 percent of their income on housing, and 24 percent pay more than 50 percent.
As in Sherbrooke, officials here attribute the crisis to a low vacancy rate, a lack of affordable housing supply and the high cost to construct new units. The reasons for the crisis are clear everywhere, but the solutions are coming slowly.
State police are searching for a 41-year-old man they say strangled his pregnant partner.
Dusty O’Brien is wanted for domestic violence aggravated assault, reckless conduct and violating conditions of release, state police said Wednesday. He is out on bail for a separate domestic violence arrest, according to police.
Police say O’Brien strangled his pregnant partner on Tuesday and fled his residence before police arrived.
He is known to frequent the Porter area and other parts of Oxford County.
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Time lapse video: Northern lights near Milwaukee, Wisconsin
See a time lapse video of the northern lights dance across the sky north of Milwaukee, Wisconsin in Bayside on Thursday night.
Parts of the United States could be in for a magical Christmas sight: The Northern Lights.
Alaska and the northern Midwest states have the best chance of getting a glimpse of the dazzling sights, but the northern most reaches of New England may see it too, according to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. Based on maps they released, Maine has the best chance of seeing it tonight.
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It’s possible more New England states will get a view of the Northern Lights, also known as aurora borealis, tomorrow night when the view line dips down into Vermont and New Hampshire.
Map of where Northern Lights may be visible on Christmas 2024
Map: Where Northern Lights may be visible tomorrow
Christmas won’t be the only shot at seeing the Northern Lights from this storm. NOAA is predicting a broader swath will be able to see the Northern Lights tomorrow night, including parts of New Hampshire and Vermont.
How to see the northern lights
The best time to see an aurora is when it’s dark out, usually between an hour or two of midnight, according to NOAA. Officials recommend getting away from city lights and sticking to lower latitudes.
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“There may be aurora in the evening and morning but it is usually not as active and therefore, not as visually appealing,” NOAA said.
Where to check the northern lights forecast
To track the latest northern lights forecast, check out these websites:
Are the northern lights dangerous?
The solar storms that cause the northern lights can affect technology by inducing extra currents in the ground that can degrade power grid operations, according to NOAA.
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