During a critical housing shortage for Mainers, the state government continues to take in more migrants than it can accommodate.
A city ordinance proposal last week suggested that Westbrook, Maine, rely on private residences to house migrants, leaving many Mainers scratching their heads. State residents can barely house themselves, much less the refugees, asylum seekers, and illegal immigrants Gov. Janet Mills (D) continues to import. High interest rates and high building costs have pushed the average sale price of a single-family home in Maine to $360,000. With “new Mainers” already receiving 90 to 95 percent of Westbrook’s welfare benefits, officials ought to be prioritizing the housing crisis.
The amount of asylum seekers in Maine has increased tenfold since 2018, yet Maine’s government is dead set on letting more migrants into the state while Mainers struggle to afford to stay in their homes.
In order to meet current and projected demand, Maine will need an additional 84,000 new homes by the end of the decade. Yet, affordable housing projects across Maine have been beset by high costs and restrictive zoning and density requirements, usually set at the local level. A recently completed apartment building in Brunswick has been restricted to no more than 24 units per acre.
A more recent grant by the Maine Housing Authority to construct 248 units in Augusta, Bangor, Scarborough, Gardiner, Lewiston, and Waterville cost $30 million in state subsidies. The Maine Housing Authority also has a program that allows migrants to obtain up to two years of rent free apartments. Many of these affordable housing units are being set aside for migrants, despite the massive shortage of housing statewide and native Mainers struggling to make rent under sky-high inflation.
Maine’s elderly population is at particular risk of rising costs. A record number of Mainers faced homelessness in 2023, mainly due to high inflation that has made 65% of U.S. adults mark their financial situation as worse than the previous year, according to the Federal Reserve Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households 2023 Report. Normally, high rent prices are focused on Portland and Bangor, but Maine homeless shelters are seeing an uptick in seniors on fixed incomes being priced out of their homes.
Nearly three-quarters of middle class Americans’ earnings have fallen behind the costs of living, leading to a higher risk of younger Mainers also ending up on the street. Maine’s tax burden is ranked highest in the nation, while the Pine Tree State also carries the highest property tax burden in the country. Mainers taxpayer dollars that are subsidizing these migrant housing projects, like the $13 million housing complex in Brunswick, while Maine’s elderly population and middle class face the choice of either moving out of state or being homeless should take notice.
Governor Mills and state policymakers are ensuring that Maine’s middle class continues to shrink under housing costs that are exacerbated by the state’s heavy tax burden. At a time of unprecedented economic strain on Maine’s middle class, Governor Mill’s plan to create an Office of New Americans to deal with the potential 75,000 new migrants coming to Maine is shortsighted. Maine housing is already at capacity, and neither Mainers nor migrants will get any help from the Mills Administration.
Roy Mathews is a Writer for Young Voices. He is a graduate of Bates College and a 2023 Publius Fellow at The Claremont Institute. His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Examiner, and Law & Liberty.
DEMOCRATS DESTROY EVERYTHING THAT THEY TOUCH AND THIS IS JUST ONE MORE DESTRUCTIVE POLICY BY THE MILLSTONE AROUND THE NECK GOVERNOR WHO SHOULD IN THE REAL WORLD BE IMMEDIATELY IMPEACHED FOR BREACH OF FIDUCUARY RESPONSIBILITY IN RUNNING THE STATE.
What about OLDER AMERICANS ? Inflation, taxes and increasing shelter prices and to old to work. Their life savings lost to inflation, eaten up to pay off college loans and illegals all of whom should be working and not be burden on the OLDER AMERICANS, Joe joke, mr. king. ms. pingree. But you are making the dependent on you to live. Were are NGO’s when it comes to helping the 80 year old Americans
Westbrook citizens, and those in all other Maine communities, might (that’s “might”) want to consider this ordinance when – and only when – Janet Mills leads by example and welcomes illegal immigrants into her home, both her personal residence and Blaine Mansion. Massachusetts Gov. Healey is trying on this same measure for size, going so far as to recommend that it become state law, but I don’t see her opening her home yet. (Knowing the oppressive attitude of the leftist legislature against the working class taxpayers who provide their income, such a law will probably be established, but resistance by the commonweal, both liberal and conservative, will make enforcement impossible.)
People cite the Constitution’s 3rd amendment, about prohibiting the quartering of soldiers in private homes, as protection against this kind of tyranny, but 1) the prohibition is against soldiers, not civilians, and 2) consider the ongoing reckless slaughter of the Constitution. We are required to adhere to the law, but the elites currently in power are not.
Yet Mainers could still vote these same politicians or ones just like them whose beliefs and policies have directly caused these life altering issues. The media they depend on puts a rosy picture on a rapidly sinking ship and people actually believe what they are led to believe.
We’re only talking about one issue in this article. Are people really that tone deaf to where they are being led?
Maine is in trouble and it’s only a matter of time before the shit hits the fan.
LMAO!!! NEW SQUATTERS! TAKING EVERYTHING WESTBROOK TAXPAYERS VOTED FOR
The demos are looking for votes. We should not give them ours! just let the illegals vote for them
We can help as voters when we go to the ballot box.
There’s one simple way to stop this. Vote Mills out of office and every Maine legislator who votes for this influx of illegals.
We can’t vote Mills out of office, but what we can do is vote in Republican in house and senate in the election and end the dumorats majority. 3500 votes was the total difference in who controlled the house in the last cycle. VOTE RED!!!!
Here in South Portland we’re seeing some of the illegals buying houses.
How are these people getting the money to buy homes and the expensive cars they drive with their illegal licenses?
This article got bumped off my Facebook
“This goes against our Community Standards on cybersecurity.”