12/23/20 - RENTER RELIEF UNDER NEWLY PASSED STIMULUS BILL

WELCOME to State Representative Lynne Williams’ Blog. Using this medium to communicate, I hope to offer understandable information that will be useful in navigating many issues in the state, not the least of those issues being the pandemic.

In this first blog post, I will focus on pandemic relief for Renters. As you may know, Congress FINALLY passed a CVOVID-19 Relief Bill. I certainly can’t say I read the 5500+ pages of this bill, but I have tried to gather information from groups and associations that support renters and have attempted to winnow the information down into an understandable and useful form.
The CDC’s federal eviction moratorium has been extended through January 31, 2021. Yes, that is only about 6 weeks, so immediately after Congress returns to work, on or around January 3, 2021, they will need to extend this ban further. This short-term ban will provide much needed relief for renters, who are at risk of losing their homes.
Emergency Rental Assistance, funded through the Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF), will be allocated to the states and it is estimated that Maine will receive $200,000,000. It will be up to the state to determine how those funds will be utilized but they must be used to provide rental assistance, which will likely be rent payments for those who have fallen behind, or are at risk of falling behind. Some assistance will likely be given towards utility payments and other housing expenses, perhaps heating costs. Assistance can be provided for a period of up to 12 months, and states can provide an additional three months if necessary “to ensure housing stability for a household.” To be eligible for rental relief, the recipient must meet income requirements. The last Area Medium Income  (AMI) I could locate for District 135 - Bar Harbor, Lamoine and Mount Desert - was the 2019 figure of $67,000, based on a 4 person household. Recipients must have incomes below 80% of this figure which is $53,600 and the program must prioritize households below 50% os this figure, or $33,500, as well as those who are unemployed and have been for 90 days or more.  Landlords and property owners may aid tenants in making an application for assistance or may apply on the tenant’s behalf.
Maine will be administering this program so as soon as I hear how and when applications for this program can be made, I will post the information.
The State just sent $600 payments for those Mainers who are receiving unemployment benefits. That is not federal money, but rather money that the State had remaining from some of the earlier programs that the State offered to Mainers to help ease the impacts of the pandemic.

ENJOY the holidays and I will be back writing more in a few days. Next up will be information about the new Paycheck Protection Loan Program.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

  From the Quietside Journal: State Rep. Lynne Williams... issued the following statement after QSJ reported that the federal government has weighed in on the American Aquafarms’ application for an industrial salmon farm in Frenchman Bay. “I am so pleased that Acadia National Park has come out strongly against the industrial salmon farm proposal, and brings up issues that DMR doesn’t appear to address, including scenic resources, night sky and cumulative impacts. When I heard that Secretary (Deb) Haaland was coming to Acadia, I was hoping that she would listen and understand the impacts that the proposed project would have on the Park and the Bay. Clearly she did, since sources say that the letter has her approval. Thank you Superintendent Schneider and Secretary Haaland, for protecting our Bay and our communities."
Read more
 As of today, my bill LD 1242, regarding oversight of the Maine Medical Marijuana Program has become law. The Governor had until midnight last night to veto the bill but she did not. Clearly our 117-25 vote in the House and 33-2 vote in the Senate had something to do with that, as did the bi-partisan nature of the vote.  Thank you to all of my co-sponsors and a huge thank you to Susan Meehan and Arleigh Krause who worked the legislature for weeks before the vote. Likewise, thanks to all of the caregivers who gave up days to be at the Capitol so that they could engage the legislators and talk about the program. And, of course, a huge thank you to Rep. Patrick Corey who used his legislative skills to help us get an "ought to pass" vote out of Committee, Alysia Melnick, lobbyist (in the good sense) supreme, to Mark Barnett and the Maine Craft Cannabis Association, and to Paul McCarrier who has spent much more than a decade working to protect and improve the Maine M
Read more
 As anyone who how knows me is aware of, I am NOT a late night person. But I was pleased and honored last night to stay up until about 2 am to help pass the Maine Supplemental Budget at the Augusta Civic Center, which passed unanimously less one vote. It had to pass by a 2/3 majority in order to qualify as an emergency and go into effect immediately. In short, the supplemental is an adjustment to the 2020-2021 budget, which is passed in order to make adjustments to the original budget that reflects situations that arose subsequent to passing that budget last year. The major situation that had to be addressed was the financial costs of the pandemic to the people of Maine. Following is what the supplemental passed last night includes: Critical relief for 160,000 Mainers who lost their jobs due to the pandemic: The supplemental budget includes $47M to exempt unemployment benefits from state income taxes. Without this relief, Mainers who relied on unemployment benefits at some point during
Read more