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Liza Fleming-Ives is executive director of the Genesis Fund, a Brunswick-based nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that connects communities in Maine and northern New England with the capital and expertise they need to create affordable housing and other essential community resources.
A renter in Thomaston was grateful and emotional when she learned earlier this year that the Genesis Fund and our partners had created a solution to keep her apartment in the federal program that makes it affordable.
She told a Bangor Daily News reporter that it had taken her several years to find her home, including time when she lived in barebones, uninsulated cabins as a farm laborer. When she finally moved into her apartment, she said, “I was crying, because I had been living in a situation that was like camping. It was life-changing for me to get in here.”
Like her, thousands more Mainers — workers, seniors, single parents and people living with disabilities — deserve housing they can afford. Yet, at a time when housing experts estimate our state needs 20,000 to 25,000 additional units of affordable housing, rural Maine could see thousands of affordable housing units disappear.
More than 7,500 apartments in rural Maine are part of a U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development program that keeps them affordable. However, market pressure and the impending payoff of 30- to 40-year-old mortgages puts many of these properties at risk of losing their affordability.
Without proper intervention, these units could be sold, leaving the USDA program and quickly becoming unaffordable for the tenants who call them home.
What’s encouraging is that Maine is demonstrating bipartisan leadership in addressing this issue.
The Maine Legislature unanimously passed the affordable housing tax credit in 2020, carving out a portion to help preserve properties like these, as well as build new affordable housing. Drawing inspiration from the state’s successful historic preservation tax credit, it was endorsed by diverse stakeholders.
This year, under the leadership of Sen.Teresa Pierce and Rep. Traci Gere, co-chairs of the Legislature’s Joint Select Committee on Housing, the Legislature diligently sought information to determine what further action would best protect the housing rural residents can afford.
The Legislature passed a bill to expand opportunities for MaineHousing or local housing authorities to step in to preserve USDA properties that may be coming up for sale or have their mortgages pre-paid, thus safeguarding the restrictions and rental assistance that keep the units affordable.
Gov. Janet Mills signed the bill into law, as she did the tax credit three years ago. The budget she signed this year also recognizes and funds the need to build more affordable housing in rural communities through the Rural Affordable Rental Housing Program.
But Maine cannot tackle the scale of the affordable housing crisis alone, nor can any other rural state. It is crucial that Maine’s congressional delegation encourage a robust federal response to the urgency and scale of the rural affordable housing challenge, and the necessity of preserving the units where people live today.
We’re grateful they are doing so.
All four of Maine’s congressional representatives — U.S. Sens. Angus King and Susan Collins, and U.S. Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden — are urging USDA Rural Development to make rule and process changes needed to support preservation in a nation where, according to the National Rural Housing Coalition, federal rural housing programs have historically financed 500,000 units of rental housing where people live in rural communities. Until changes are made, the affordability of thousands of those units will remain at risk.
It’s critical, too, that as Congress embarks on the budget debate for the coming fiscal year, our representatives support substantial funding for rural housing programs.
Maine’s leaders in Augusta are setting an impressive example in acting to preserve rural affordable housing, and we can be grateful to Maine leaders in the nation’s capital for continuing to lead work for strong, effective federal achievement. Representing Mainers includes recognizing the extent of the affordable housing crisis in our country, where “living in a situation that was like camping” shouldn’t be acceptable in any community.