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| OHI Moves Part of Operation to Brewer
BREWER — OHI, a growing nonprofit agency serving children and adults in a six-county area, has relocated a large part of its operation to Brewer. In what might be called the nonprofit shuffle, Hermon-based OHI moved into space at Twin City Plaza formerly occupied by Eastern Area Agency on Aging, which has moved into the Good Samaritan Agency’s former digs on Essex Street in Bangor. The Good Samaritan Agency relocated to new facility on Ridgewood Drive in Bangor.According to OHI Executive Director Bonnie-Jean Brooks, OHI’s decision to move some of its functions from its former locations in Hermon and on Hammond Street in Bangor, near the Hermon town line, was prompted by several factors, among them a need for more space and the fact that a night club opened next door to OHI’s children’s services division. Despite objections from Brooks and Linda Hussey, director of children’s services, Club Chaos last fall was granted a liquor license for space in the same building in which children’s programming was based. Sharing space with a night club in which alcohol is served was not in the best interest of OHI’s clientele, Brooks observed. ‘‘What we stated at the [Bangor] City Council meeting was a concern that we had about providing services to children who had come from homes that had a great deal of violence due to substance abuse,’’ Brooks said this week. Another concern was possible noise from the club. Case conferences and supervised visits involving OHI’s staff, minor-aged clients and their families were held as late as 7:30 p.m., Brooks pointed out. After learning of some of the challenges OHI was facing, Brewer City Manager Stephen Bost, a former OHI employee and the agency’s first quality improvement director, and Economic Development Director Drew Sachs offered Brooks their assistance. ‘‘The timing was great,’’ Brooks said. Sachs said he assembled a list of available properties and took OHI staff to visit four possibilities, none of which belong to the city but which fetch the city more in property taxes when occupied. Among the reasons Brewer was interested in OHI, Sachs said, were that the agency is rapidly growing and provides valuable services. ‘‘We have high hopes that when they are ready to expand, they will expand here,’’ Sachs said. According to Sachs, Twin City Plaza is among many area shopping centers that are meeting competition from malls by evolving from retail and service to professional and ‘‘niche retail’’ in orientation. Important to Brooks was that OHI’s new site is ‘‘in a town where the city government has reached out to us, which is surprising and pleasing to have happen.’’ The move began in mid-December and was accomplished in stages, Brooks said this week. Now working out of OHI’s space in Brewer are the agency’s Quality Improvement Division, Children’s Division, Training Division and employment specialist. A nonprofit agency, OHI is funded by the Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services and by the Department of Human Services. OHI was established in 1979 with a $79,000 grant from the then-Bureau of Mental Retardation. It consisted of two group homes in Bangor and Orrington and a staff of 12, Brooks said earlier. Today, the agency has a $10 million budget, more than 65 supportive housing programs and about 400 employees who serve a six-county area. The agency, which serves people with a range of mental and physical disabilities, also provides children’s services and therapeutic foster programs. Brooks said this week that she has been pleased with the organization’s space choice, which has been repainted and recarpeted. ‘‘Twin City [Plaza] is on the bus line and that makes it attractive from our point of view,’’ Brooks said, adding that it also is within walking distance of a number of other local businesses This is a copyright article written by Dawn Gagnon that appeared in the Bangor Daily News, Wednesday, February 2, 2000. Brewer Economic Development Office
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