Photo by Getty
Reposted from the Maine Beacon
Late last week, 58 Maine businesses including bars and restaurants, a dental practice, a solar energy company, providers of childcare, counseling, and behavioral home health services, and a car mechanic, sent a letter to Gov. Janet Mills and the members of the legislature’s Joint Select Committee on Housing asking them to prioritize rent relief in the legislature and the budget this year.
The call came as a bill to create a statewide rent relief program similar to the one called for in the business owners’ letter had its work session on Friday in that committee. The bill was tabled but not before several Republican members of the Housing Committee voiced concerns about placing burdens on landlords.
Rep. Cheryl Golek (D-Harpswell) introduced LD 1710, “An Act to Establish the Maine Rental Assistance and Guarantee Program and Amend the Laws Regarding Tenants and the Municipal General Assistance Program,” last year. Housing advocates and many renters backed the bill, while landlords and their allies fiercely opposed it, and the bill was put on hold until this year. Landlords repeated many of the same arguments in Friday’s session.
The signers of the business letter said high rents hurt their ability to “attract and retain workers, put pressure on local governments and tax bases…and hurt customer spending as family budgets are squeezed.”
But business owners’ calls for rent relief also emphasized that it’s the right thing to do: In a statement, signer Phil Coupe, Employee-Owner of ReVision energy, said rent relief “helps maintain housing for families who are living on the edge of barely being able to afford their apartment and homelessness.”
LD 1710 would help Mainers who make around 30% of the annual median income or less (for a family of three, that’s around $28,000 a year) if they do not get Section 8 federal rent assistance. LD 1710 is the only bill before the legislature this session that would provide sustained help for these renters with very low incomes, allowing them to afford new or existing affordable housing that would otherwise be out of reach, and would reduce evictions and homelessness. The majority of individuals who access rental assistance need help for an average of three years or less.
The letter highlights gaps in Maine’s housing policies that rent relief could fill with targeted and fast support. “The investments your administration has made to support building affordable housing and the unhoused are well placed, but we can see that Maine continues to have huge unmet housing needs. According to a Maine Center for Economic Policy analysis, nearly one-in-three Maine workers who rent a home or apartment pays more than one-third of their income toward housing.”
Dan Neumann studied journalism at Colorado State University before beginning his career as a community newspaper reporter in Denver. He reported on the Global North’s interventions in Africa, including documentaries on climate change, international asylum policy and U.S. militarization on the continent before returning to his home state of Illinois to teach community journalism on Chicago’s West Side. He now lives in Portland. Dan can be reached at dan@mainebeacon.com.
COMMUNIST PARTY OF MAINE 