SOUTH PARIS, Maine — Home builders around Maine routinely turn clients away or add them to yearslong wait lists. This one is begging for more business.

KBS Builders, a manufactured home company, can churn out up to four homes a week in their hulking western Maine headquarters. Their customizable modular homes are built to the same standard as a stick-built home and leave the factory within months to be shipped — 90 percent finished with utilities already installed — to sites all across New England.

But KBS is only operating at 60 percent of that building’s capacity. Five years ago, the company bought a second factory out of bankruptcy that sits empty. While their business is growing, a web of arcane regulatory barriers unique to Maine is holding it back from doing more here.

The state treats manufactured homes as singular products, so they are taxed once on materials and again on installation. They also cannot be sold directly to consumers, so KBS requires middlemen to put them up. Neither the installers nor contractors working on stick-built homes need licenses, but Maine requires licenses to do modular work.

“I’ve taken all the complexity out of assembling this building, and you’re still requiring someone to have licensure to install this on site. But somebody can go get all the raw parts and build it themselves on site with zero license?” KBS President Thatcher Butcher said. “You tell me where that makes sense.”

New Hampshire and Vermont regulate the industry the same way, although New Hampshire has no sales tax. Licenses are administered by the Maine Manufactured Housing Board, which was established in 1986 to control the quality of mobile homes, which were synonymous with poorly built trailers. Today, a modular home is often more energy efficient than a stick-built home.

Butcher has repeatedly lobbied legislators to provide parity between modular and traditional site-based construction. Lawmakers have been more interested in licensing all contractors like 35 other states do, although a bill on the subject failed last year. Rep. Tiffany Roberts, D-South Berwick, plans to submit a similar measure again this session, she said.

There are only a dozen licensed modular home installers in Maine, Sarah Sturtevant, a research consultant at the Maine Affordable Housing Coalition, found by calling through a list on the Manufactured Housing Board’s website. Those installers are able to charge a premium, edging consumers away from modular construction, Butcher said.

“Our growth in Maine has very much been more limited than in other states, which is unfortunate, because out of all the areas that we service, I think Maine has the most need for housing,” Thatcher said.

KBS’ expansion would also bring more dependable construction jobs to western Maine, a region that was once home to several manufactured housing builders before the 2008 recession. KBS currently employs 120 people, many of whom said they preferred working for a modular builder to doing site-based work.

“The big advantage for these guys is the inside environment. Working inside, they’re not shivering to death when they’re doing their job, and it makes a big difference,” Gary Cossar, a receiver at KBS’ warehouse, said.

Being able to build homes year round is another perk of building modular in Maine. Sam Hight, who runs the Hight family of car dealerships in Skowhegan and is a developer who has built three rural affordable rental projects with KBS, broke ground on an 18-unit project in Madison in November and had it finished by April.

Unlike with stick-built projects he’s done in the past, Hight didn’t have to wait for laborers or subcontractors to become available and travel to his remote site. KBS has a full team including electricians, plumbers and finishers working together in South Paris.

Lawmakers will soon consider promoting modular construction to meet lofty housing goals this upcoming year. Sen. Rick Bennett, R-Oxford, said he is submitting one bill that would remove the double tax and another that will focus on rebuilding the industry in Oxford County with startup capital and incentives. Other lawmakers are interested in focusing on it as well.

“[This] industry presents an opportunity for future growth and innovation in how we get housing built and how we address the underproduction issues that we face, not only here in Maine, but certainly across the country,” House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, said.

Near the end of December, Pliable Marketing, a Maine-based marketing company that burst onto the NIL scene throughout 2024 with a focus on athlete branding, expanded its growing list of clients.

University of Maine at Augusta freshman Emma Boulanger joined more than 30 other athletes at the high school, college and professional levels under the Pliable Marketing umbrella from all across the United States.

They wasted no time in helping her secure a name, image and likeness deal, as she now has a partnership with Aroma Joe’s, a local coffee shop. They have two locations in the Maine capital and she is the ninth person who has become an ambassador for the business.

“As a college athlete, I am excited about the opportunity to pursue name, image and likeness opportunities. I see this partnership with Aroma Joe’s as a way to spread positivity to others, including promoting women’s sports to inspire the next generation of young girls. Aroma Joe’s and Pliable have created some amazing opportunities for high school and college athletes so I am really excited to be part of more events in the Augusta community and beyond,” said Boulanger.

A two-sport athlete, Boulanger is currently playing forward for the women’s basketball team, where she has played in 16 games and is averaging 4.4 rebounds. During her senior year at Sacopee Valley High School, she was named the Western Maine All-Conference First team and invited to the Maine McDonald’s All-Star game.

A three-sport athlete in high school, she played soccer and softball in addition to her work on the hardwood. At Augusta, she will be playing softball in the spring.

“Emma is one of the hardest working athletes I have met. She typically starts her day working the morning shift at 4 a.m. and then goes to class, has practice or a game and maintains really good grades. As a two-sport athlete, she has really good time management skills. When you factor in Emma’s personality and her passion for Aroma Joe’s, this was a perfect name, image and likeness partnership for her. I know she really wants to use her platform as an athlete to give back to her community and support the next generation of high school and college athletes in Maine and beyond. Emma is a great role model and is going to inspire a lot of other athletes with this NIL partnership,” said Greg Glynn, founder & CEO of Pliable.

As part of the deal with Aroma Joe’s, Boulanger will receive compensation for her name, image and likeness by appearing in social media posts and making promotional appearances for the business.

She will be promoting events in August, Kennebec County and other places around New England. Boulanger is featured in a commercial that will appear during telecasts of the basketball games on Munzing Media as well.

“We are very excited to work with Emma since she goes to college so close to the two Aroma Joe’s locations in Augusta. This partnership is unique because she is the first community ambassador who already works at Aroma Joe’s and her college is located in the same city where Aroma Joe’s has two locations. This will make it easy for her to be involved in community events and help spread positivity in the Kennebec Valley area and beyond. We know Emma is going to be a great role model for kids to look up to, and to showcase how athletes can give back to their communities,” said Crystal Brown, Community Marketing Manager for Aroma Joe’s Development ME/NH.

Calls started coming into Maine Family Planning clinics on November 5, and they haven’t stopped. In the wake of Trump’s re-election, Mainers across the state have been making appointments to get IUDs and implants, forms of long-lasting birth control, out of concern that the new administration could limit access to contraceptives.

“It’s been non-stop,” says Shasta Newenheim, regional manager for Maine Family Planning, a nonprofit with eighteen clinics across the state. “We’re seeing a lot of people who are choosing to either get (implants and IUDs) replaced early. Or, if it was something they thought they wanted in the past, they definitely want it now.” 

Maine Family Planning is not the only organization fielding an influx of calls. Providers that have reported increased contraception requests include Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, the Mabel Wadsworth Center, York Hospital and MaineHealth Obstetrics and Gynecology in Biddeford.

Among the providers that responded to questions from The Maine Monitor, only Northern Light Health reported no change in contraception requests. But an obstetrics and gynecology provider affiliated with Northern Light Health, who requested anonymity to protect her job, took issue with this characterization and told The Monitor that she has seen requests for long-acting reversible contraception and sterilization increase dramatically since the election. 

To Aspen Ruhlin, who works at the nonprofit Mabel Wadsworth Center in Bangor, the impetus behind the increase is clear: “If you’re on the pill, there’s always the risk that you run out and can’t get more. But if you have something in your uterus or arm that lasts for years, it’s a lot harder to lose access to that.” 

Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, which operates in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, saw its average weekly requests for long-acting reversible contraceptives more than double after the election, according to a November 21 press release. At the organization’s Maine health centers, appointments grew from a weekly average of 26 appointments to 48 in the week after the election. 

“Our patients are scared,” Nicole Clegg, interim-CEO of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, said in an interview eight days after the election. “We’ve already experienced a spike in patients seeking long-acting reversible contraception and emergency contraception.” 

“We saw this last time too,” she said. 

Maine Family Planning also saw an influx of patient requests following Trump’s 2016 election and after the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade — in line with national trends.

A 2024 study published in the journal Jama Network Open that analyzed a national data set of medical and prescription claims found downward trends in most contraception services since 2019, but found sharp, temporary increases in all contraception services after the 2022 decision. 

“We are in a place that we’ve already been before; we know what we’re up against,” Newenheim said. “This is just another signal that there’s a real movement to take away (reproductive) rights. There’s always the question of, where is it going to end? Our patients feel that too.”

Newenheim said many patients are motivated by a fear that the Trump administration could bring changes that influence insurance coverage of birth control. 

During his first term, Trump expanded the types of employers that could deny contraception coverage on moral or religious grounds, weakening the federal contraceptive coverage guarantee in the Affordable Care Act, which mandates that most private insurance plans in the U.S. cover contraception without out-of-pocket costs for patients. 

Maine is one of 31 states that require private insurers to cover contraception, and one of eighteen states that prohibit cost-sharing, according to data compiled by KFF. MaineCare’s Limited Family Planning Benefit covers contraception — including pills, IUDs, and implants — for individuals at or below an annual income of $31,476.

Trump’s administration also enacted policies that stripped funding from reproductive rights organizations that provide contraception and abortion care, including a “gag rule” that prevented clinics receiving Title X funding from referring patients to an abortion provider. 

Clegg, of Planned Parenthood, said it’s unclear what will happen to federal funding after Trump takes office on Jan. 20, noting that “the crystal ball is cloudy.” But many Mainers are not waiting to find out. 

In addition to requests for IUDs and implants, Dr. Ashley Jennings, a gynecologist at York Hospital, cited increased requests for tubal ligations.

Planned Parenthood and Mabel Wadsworth Center described increased requests for vasectomies, and Planned Parenthood and Maine Family Planning described a jump in requests for gender-affirming care.

Mabel Wadsworth Center has seen a number of current patients seek gender-affirming surgery sooner than they’d originally planned.

“I have spoken to patients currently receiving gender-affirming health care who are in tears because they fear it’s going to be taken away,” said Newenheim. “This isn’t birth control. This is their day-to-day; this is their identity.”

Despite widespread concern, providers expressed their commitment to patient care.

“We refuse to be fearful,” says Newenheim. “We are dedicated to the mission of not giving up and ensuring these basic human rights are extended to our patients.”