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Nyawal Lia is a Housing Community Organizer with the Maine People’s Alliance.
As a community organizer, I talk to Mainers across the state every day about the issues they face and, most importantly, the solutions they desperately need.
Far too often I hear that the top concern is housing.
It’s not hard to see why. In October, a report revealed that Maine faces a roughly 80,000 home shortage, a result of both historic underproduction and future demand. That same report found that households now need to make more than $100,000 per year to afford the average home in Maine. Not only are there too few homes, but the existing ones are unaffordable for the majority of Mainers.
This housing crisis has had a devastating impact on Mainers. An annual census counted more than 4,000 homeless people in the state this year, more than double the pre-pandemic numbers. Almost half of Mainers are rent-burdened, meaning they spend more than a third of their income on rent alone. Youth homelessness is also on the rise, with more than 2,000 students experiencing housing insecurity this year, nearly 60 percent more compared to the last five years.
Maine’s housing crisis is unprecedented. So it’s time to make an equally unprecedented investment into the solutions.
What does this look like? It looks like training and employing Mainers in high-quality, good-paying construction jobs. It looks like investing in safe and affordable housing construction, fit with clean and energy-efficient appliances.
We also have to protect Mainers’ right to housing right now. We have to crack down on corporate landlords who evict long-term tenants, charge them predatory fees, and subject them to rent hikes as high as 35 percent. Not only do these corporate landlords dominate property ownership in the state, they are based in other states like California, meaning their profits don’t even benefit our economy. It’s time we hold these corporations accountable.
Still, there will remain other Mainers who struggle to find housing, for whom conditions like substance use disorder and mental illness impede financial stability and make affording rent impossible. Unhoused Mainers are subject to inhumane sweeps of their encampments — sweeps like that of the Marginal Way encampment in Portland that occurred just last month and displaced dozens of people.
Instead of upheaving entire communities, Maine must look into why so many are forced to live in tents in the first place, as opposed to, say, state-funded recovery centers. Today, only three detox facilities accept MaineCare — two in Portland and one in Bangor. These treatment programs are saddled with months-long waitlists and severe staffing shortages, meaning even if more beds are added, treatment gaps will persist. Instead of investing money into sweeps, then, it’s time our state invested more in addiction recovery programs.
While these proposals may seem far fetched or expensive, the investment we make today will lead to a stronger and more prosperous Maine tomorrow. Given the threat workforce shortages pose to our state’s economy, affordable housing, robust social services and strong tenant protections will be paramount to attracting smart and eager people to Maine — and making sure they stay.
This is why Housing Justice Maine and the Maine People’s Alliance are joining a national coalition calling on President Joe Biden and Congress to stop regressive budget cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, provide $1 trillion of federal funding over 10 years to create more affordable housing and enact a Green New Deal to fund the repair and modernization of our public housing stock.
Housing should be the least of our worries, not a top concern. Fortunately, Maine has an opportunity to advance comprehensive solutions to our housing crisis by investing in green and affordable homes, strengthening tenant protections and making sure every Mainer gets back on their feet. This is an investment that Maine deserves. And it’s an investment Maine needs now.