At around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, the executive director of Bangor’s housing authority discovered he was unable to withdraw any of his operating funds.
The lock-out happened shortly after the newly inaugurated President Donald Trump announced a freeze on all federal grants and loans, a move that Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, decried as “far too sweeping” and one expected to impact trillions in government spending.
The memo announcing the freeze from Trump’s acting director of the Office of Management and Budget said it would be effective at 5 p.m. Tuesday, but BangorHousing’s executive director, Mike Myatt, said he is already unable to access federal funds.
“We’re locked out. I can’t draw down any of our grants. I can’t draw down anything,” Myatt said. “And I just reached out to my colleagues, and most of them are responding like, ‘We’re frozen, too.’”
All of Myatt’s operations — from construction activity on public housing projects to paying down tenant rent and utility bills — are at a standstill, though it’s still unclear whether the system is just undergoing a widespread glitch and he has yet to receive guidance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, he said.
“I absolutely expected it for some of the outstanding grants that we have had obligated or allocated, but never in a million years did I think that we would lose the ability to draw operating subsidy,” Myatt said.
MaineHousing, the state housing authority, said it received a notice from the federal Office of Management and Budget Monday night about the freeze but has yet to receive clarification on which programs are being affected.
“Like you, we have a lot of questions,” Scott Thistle, the agency’s spokesperson, said. “It does, however, appear to affect MaineHousing’s federally funded programs.”
If this indeed is a suspension to all public housing operations, Myatt doesn’t see how any agency like his could last more than a couple of months. Construction activity on any public housing projects across Maine will need to stop without the federal funding, he said, and agencies will be unable to pay any bills.
“I’m speechless,” Myatt said.
