Jan. 18—People on the verge of eviction because they can’t afford rent may soon be limited to three months of General Assistance housing support in a one-year period.
The new limit, proposed in Gov. Janet Mills’ supplemental budget, is aimed at reining in costs that ballooned during the pandemic and returning the state program to its original mission of being a short-term safety net program of last resort.
General Assistance spending increased threefold during the pandemic to $43 million in fiscal 2023 from $13 million in fiscal 2019 — an increase driven largely by the use of hotels as emergency shelters. Lawmakers enacted limits on hotel use, which helped lower costs to what officials expect will be $20 million in this fiscal year. But spending remains well above the baseline budget of $10.4 million, state officials said.
General Assistance is administered by towns and cities but the state covers most of the costs and sets the rules. A public hearing on the proposal is scheduled for Thursday at the State House.
The proposed limits on housing assistance would not apply to emergency shelters and would include hardship exemptions for people with severe mental or physical disabilities and those with a pending application for Social Security Administration assistance, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Recipients would have to provide proof of special conditions when applying for additional assistance.
“Limiting GA to three months of housing during a 12-month period will realign the program to its statutory purpose of being a time-limited, last-resort program and enable it to operate within its baseline budget,” DHHS spokesperson Lindsay Hammes said in an email. “Further, not allowing municipalities to exceed the maximum levels of assistance will provide needed cost certainty to the program.”
It’s unclear how many people could be affected, but Hammes said the proposed changes to the program are expected to reduce overall expenditures by $10 million a year.
The proposal comes amid an ongoing shortage of housing and rising rents, raising the prospect of more people being pushed into homelessness, especially those who might not qualify for other rental assistance programs.
Kathy Kilrain del Rio, advocacy and programs director at Maine Equal Justice, a nonprofit that helps low-income families, said the proposal caught her by surprise and that it will only increase housing insecurity for some of the most vulnerable Mainers.
“It doesn’t make sense to us for more people to lose help in maintaining stable housing amid a housing crisis,” Kilrain del Rio said. “It seems more expensive and causes harm in lots of other ways for people to end up losing their current housing and becoming unhoused or needing to seek shelter through the emergency shelter system. So we were really surprised by the proposal.”
The proposed time limit also comes as Republicans have made it clear that they plan to make welfare reform and blocking any tax increases a priority this session, although they have not released any detailed proposals.
Maine is one of 25 states with a GA program, but each state’s program is different. Here, the state funds 70% of the costs, while 30% are shouldered by municipalities.
State officials raised concerns two years ago about the explosion in costs associated with housing assistance.
General Assistance was originally designed as a last-resort, emergency program to provide financial assistance such as vouchers for housing, utilities, medication and other necessities. However, it was expanded during the pandemic for ongoing housing support and to reimburse municipalities for costs that exceeded regular program maximums.
That expansion, plus the need for more emergency shelter and the rising costs of housing, food and other necessities, led to a threefold increase in spending between 2019 and 2023.
Support for people in danger of losing their permanent housing accounted for $10.7 million of the total spending in 2023, according to a DHHS report to lawmakers two years ago that warned the spending was unsustainable. An additional $25.8 million was spent on temporary housing, including emergency shelters and hotels, which were used heavily during the pandemic.
Most of those additional costs were covered by federal stimulus funding and surplus state revenues. But the federal pandemic assistance has dried up and other state revenues, including the income and sales taxes, are flattening or declining, forcing Mills and lawmakers to take a second look at spending priorities.
Lawmakers previously enacted time limits for using General Assistance to pay for hotels, but continued to allow people to use it for housing assistance without a time limit.
In fiscal 2024, General Assistance spending dropped from $43 million to $36 million, according to DHHS.
Hammes said one-time appropriations from the state, including $10 million in the current budget, should provide enough funding to cover costs through the fiscal year ending June 30, when GA costs are expected to total $20 million.
Kilrain del Rio said there are many reasons why people would need GA to help with housing costs, including being unable to qualify for subsidized housing or experiencing a personal emergency, like an illness or expensive car repair, that causes them to fall behind on rent. And there are waiting lists for more long-term housing vouchers, she said.
“General Assistance is the program of last resort, so as part of utilizing General Assistance, you have to have tried to seek out any other potential resources,” she said. “If someone is utilizing General Assistance, it means they have run out of help and if you take that away there’s really nothing else for them to turn to.”
Kilrain del Rio said she would rather see lawmakers look for ways to increase revenue instead of cutting GA. But both Mills and Republican leaders have said they would not support any increases in income or sales taxes this session.
“People who are utilizing General Assistance are the people having the hardest time meeting their basic needs, so it’s really hard to see any help being taken away from that population,” she said.
The Legislature’s Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee will consider the proposal and is scheduled to hold a hearing Thursday.
Staff Writer Rachel Ohm contributed to this report.
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