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ProjectHOME - Maine’s leading housing navigation program
November 13, 2023
Published by Bangor Daily News | By Zara Norman
Maine housing agencies are incentivizing landlords to provide homes to vulnerable tenants, a strategy that is working but remains difficult to scale up due to a shortage of overall units.
Groups from Caribou to South Portland are offering local landlords financial guarantees and logistical support if they offer units to Maine families experiencing housing instability and homelessness. Two groups using this strategy, Portland’s Quality Housing Coalition and the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter of Waterville, have found permanent homes for just under 200 families – many of whom have experienced chronic homelessness – this year alone.
Project Home, the Portland group’s flagship program, has an applicant pool of over 2,000 families waiting to be matched with a unit right now. That underscores the short supply of housing statewide that is driving up costs and limiting how far they can reach, although policymakers largely see them as successes to date.
“Given that we’re in the middle of a shortage, and we will be for a while, probably, I think this is probably one of the best tools we have,” Erik Jorgensen, director of government relations at MaineHousing, the state’s housing authority, said.
The Maine Association for Public Interest Law (MAPIL) auction is a time honored Maine Law tradition, one that has been going strong for 37 years. An integral part of this tradition is also the presentation of the Excellence in Public Service Award, conferred to a Maine Law alum who has dedicated their career to lawyering in the public interest. This year’s recipient, Victoria Morales ‘05, currently serves as Executive Director of Quality Housing Coalition, a Maine-based nonprofit devoted to tackling the many facets of the affordable housing crisis in the state
For the last four years, the authority has been circulating 17 housing vouchers for young people aging out of foster care. Now they are getting an additional 13.
More than 1,500 are queued up, hoping to receive up to $800 a month in rent relief and a one-time payment to catch up on back rent.
Maine Calling
Supporting & creating quality housing opportunities for those in need in Maine.
Quality Housing Coalition is a 501 (c)(3) charitable statewide nonprofit organization in Maine.
Land Acknowledgement
The work of QHC in York, Cumberland, Oxford, Androscoggin, Sagadahoc, Kennebec, and Penobscot counties is conducted on the stolen ancestral lands of the Wabanaki long before colonists named our state Maine.
We acknowledge the painful colonial history harming the Wabanaki and their land and commit to better understanding it.
We acknowledge the strong and personal relationship between the Wabanaki and the land and waterways.
We commit to building more sustainable and inclusive communities and celebrating Indigenous culture.