PORTLAND, Maine — A nonprofit in Maine is offering to pay homeowners who will house asylum seekers as the state faces a lack of housing.
The Quality Housing Coalition announced Tuesday it is expanding its Project HOME program. It currently uses General Assistance money to pay rent to landlords who will house asylum seekers: Tuesday's expansion announcement includes paying homeowners who have an extra room to host families seeking asylum in Maine.
The expansion comes about just one month before the Portland Expo, which has been sheltering roughly 300 asylum seekers, is set to stop operating as a temporary shelter. That deadline is Aug. 16.
City staff said Tuesday there are currently 77 families in the Expo, comprising 251 people.
The program will offer landlords and homeowners who are willing to provide a bedroom, entire home, apartment, short-term rental, or Accessory Dwelling Unit the assurance of guaranteed rent, yearlong housing support, and a financial guarantee, with incentives on a case-by-case basis.
Morales said the General Assistance formula for paying rent is close to market rate. She said that prior to 9 a.m. Tuesday, 10 families have already said they are interested.
She said QHC offers financial guarantee for any back rent if a subsidy or system cannot pay the rent. She said they also offer payments for any damages to a unit.
The landlords, homeowners, and housing seekers are all vetted, before QHC and its partners help match families with those units and their owners. Victoria Morales, the coalition's executive director, said each tenant gets a housing mentor to help them navigate food, education, health care, and employment for the full year of the lease.
"The crisis has existed for a long time prior to today, and so it's really an urgent crisis that we're calling on everybody to reach out," Morales said. "Offering a room in your home, offering an additional unit that you have is a big deal, and we want to be able to value that and provide you with compensation."
Morales said the program has been going for six years. In 2019, the commitment for landlords and homeowners was for three months, but homeowners were not paid: they could volunteer. Back then, 41 hosts stepped up, according to Belinda Ray, a former Portland City Councilor and current member of the Greater Portland Council of Governments.
"I do feel slight relief that we're pulling this together, but I'll feel more relief when everybody has found a place to be," Portland City Manager Danielle West said.
West said the Riverside Industrial Parkway shelter, which will be solely for asylum seekers, is still scheduled to open sometime in November. That will only be for singles.
Mayor Kate Snyder said the city has been housing asylum seekers at the Homeless Services Center on Riverside Parkway and at a family shelter.
Portland's Health and Human Services director, Kristen Dow, said the city has already redeployed five of the city's resettlement staff to start looking for housing, and has been backfilling a hotel in Saco that Portland has contracted with to house asylum seekers.
When asked if she is confident the city will find homes for all the 251 people living in the Expo before the Aug. 16 deadline, Dow said, "we are very hopeful and continue to be."