Housing advocates in Maine celebrate big wins from this legislative session

A group of renters, advocates and some lawmakers formed a human chain of paper keys outside the State House on March 13, 2024 urging legislators to fund homeless shelters and rent relief in the supplemental budget. (Jim Neuger/Maine Morning Star)

84,000: The number of additional housing units Maine needs in the next decade to meet the state’s housing demand. 

This number, which came from a statewide study released in October, was repeated over and over again as members of the Maine Legislature’s Housing Committee weighed dozens of bills this session, hoping to make a dent in the state’s housing crisis. 

With the business of the legislative session mostly complete, housing advocates say that the work done in Augusta since January shows a continued investment in solving the combined challenges of limited housing stock, rising costs and widespread insecurity. 

Erik Jorgensen, senior director of government relations and communications for the Maine State Housing Authority, said the support coming from both the Legislature and the Mills administration has been largely nonpartisan because people from different viewpoints agree that it is an issue. The progress made this past legislative session is a testament to those different perspectives coming together to find solutions, he said.

“You can have different opinions about cost or whatever but people understand the need for this and they recognize this is our part of solving what is a national problem,” Jorgensen said. “Maine is really taking a bold step to try to move the needle.”

That bold step has come in the form of $76 million in the supplemental budget passed a few weeks ago — on top of $70 million in last year’s biennial budget for new construction and $12 million for emergency housing—— to continue funding existing programs and projects as well as help create new ones. 

“We think that these are really smart investments,” said Andrea Steward, affordable housing policy advocate for Maine Equal Justice. 

Given the various housing-related challenges, Steward said successful efforts from funding new construction to launching a pilot rent relief program are all “pieces of the puzzle to really help us all come together.”

The public push for rent relief

One area that saw significant public engagement was around the issue of rental assistance. After multiple events, including a rally and delivery of a letter signed by dozens of business owners, $18 million in one-time money for a rent relief pilot program was added to the supplemental budget. 

The pilot will provide eligible people with up to $800 per month in rental assistance paid directly to a person’s landlord for up to two years. The Maine State Housing Authority is responsible for designing what Jorgensen described as an “eviction prevention” program. 

In 2023, more than 5,500 Maine households faced eviction, up from about 4,000 just the year before, according to state court records. 

Jorgenson said MaineHousing will work with advocates and other invested parties to find the most effective way to use the money. Because the $18 million is one-time money, Jorgensen said the agency wants to avoid creating cliffs for people and sending them back into an unaffordable situation once the money is gone. 

But Allina Diaz, a community organizer with Maine Equal Justice, said she hopes rent relief will continue to be funded in the future and serve as a longer term solution beyond this initial $18 million. 

“We’re hoping that through the pilot program it’s going to become visible what the need is as people apply,” she said. 

Getting state assistance for renters was a top priority for Maine Equal Justice, a nonprofit civil legal aid and economic justice organization, which along with other groups organized a postcard campaign, rallies and other efforts to tell lawmakers that Mainers need rent relief. 

While the money allocated to develop new affordable housing is helpful, Steward said those projects take time, whereas rent relief can be a targeted, immediate solution to keep people in their existing homes.

Added funding for new development

The bulk of the supplemental funding has been slated for developing new affordable housing, to get the state closer to that goal of 84,000.

These include existing programs, such as $20 million for the Rural Affordable Rental Housing Program and the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program, which both support the development of new housing units.

“The big blocks of funding for construction are really the key,” Jorgensen said. “Those things are going to be what we need to really move the needle.”

The Rural Affordable Rental Housing Program is a subsidy program that was created in the last few years to create buildings with five to 18 rental units suited to the needs of a particular community.

Jorgensen said it has been helpful in attracting new developers, which was another goal of the program. So far, the program helped fund the creation of more than 200 units across the state including in Madison, Rockland, Presque Isle and Belfast, according to data Jorgensen shared with Maine Morning Star. It’s hard to say for certain because construction costs are still “brutally expensive,” Jorgensen said, but the money allocated in the most recent supplemental budget could fund another 50 units. 

Shelter funding still in limbo

One urgent aspect of the housing crisis is providing shelter for people experiencing homelessness. 

The supplemental budget included $2 million to specifically help students experiencing homelessness. Jorgensen said MaineHousing is working with the Department of Education to determine how best to utilize those dollars. 

However, legislation that would provide an infusion of much-needed cash to the state’s low-barrier shelters, remains in limbo. 

A subset of Maine’s homeless shelters are low-barrier, which means they accept guests regardless of substance use, criminal involvement, mental illness or other ongoing needs. Five low-barrier shelters in Bangor, Portland and Waterville told the housing committee in December they were at risk of closing because of a combined $4 million deficit.  

LD 2136 would increase funding for homeless shelters from $2.5 million to $12.5 million, with dedicated funds for low-barrier shelters. Originally, the low-barrier funding was in a separate bill, but the Housing Committee combined the two and added a study group to investigate the root causes of homelessness.

“The money for homeless shelters is huge,” Steward said. 

However, despite passing both chambers of the Legislature, the funding was not included in the budget, nor has it been taken by the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee, which has a pot of discretionary funding to dole out. 

More than a hundred bills have yet to be acted on by the budget committee and, as of Tuesday afternoon, it remained unclear if and when they would reconvene. 

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