Community Project Funding/Congressionally Directed Spending - Construction - The Bangor Region YMCA proposes to build a Comprehensive Health Center as part of a new $52.7 million YMCA for Eastern Maine. As the most rural state in the U.S., Maine faces significant challenges in delivering adequate, affordable healthcare to its citizens. More than 61% of Mainers live in rural areas and are faced with overwhelming barriers to healthcare access, particularly low income, uninsured, older adult, and Medicaid enrolled residents, many of whom live in the rural communities served by the Y. These challenges are compounded by the fact that Maine has the highest percentage in the nation of people aged 65 and older with one third of them living alone, a lower median household income compared to the national average, and chronic shortages in its professional healthcare workforce. Moreover, several of Maine’s largest healthcare organizations recently posted multi-million-dollar losses, highlighting the fragility of the state’s healthcare delivery system. As Maine emerges from the pandemic, local residents have expressed serious concerns about an ongoing mental health crisis, challenges in accessing healthcare, growing poverty rates, increasing substance use and alcohol use, and lack of transportation as barriers to getting and staying healthy. The Y’s goal is to address Eastern Maine's urgent healthcare needs by housing medical, mental health, and other health services under one roof at its new Comprehensive Health Center, expanding its evidence-based chronic disease programs in partnership with the region’s major healthcare providers, and providing a wide variety of affordable, accessible health programming that addresses the comprehensive health needs of rural and urban Mainers of all ages and economic backgrounds. Specifically, this $5 million FY24 CDS request – to be matched in non-federal funds by the YMCA – would help fund a $21 million Comprehensive Health Center as part of a new YMCA for 152,300 people, many rural, older, and low-to-moderate income, living in 23 cities and rural towns in Eastern Maine. Locating the Comprehensive Health Center in a new YMCA means its users will have opportunities to connect with the Y’s other programs – from infant, early education and school-age care to a community food pantry and programs to address the public health crises of loneliness and isolation – ensuring a cross-sector exposure that is essential to a Mainer’s lifetime health and prosperity. This project aligns with HRSA requirements for a CDS request because it is for the cost of construction for facilities for health and prioritizes improving healthcare in rural areas, particularly around mental healthcare services, health promotion and education, and chronic disease management.
