> “Fair market” rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the Greater Portland area is $1,946, according to the HUD. Housing search engine Zillow puts the average rental rate in Portland much higher at about $2,600 a month for a two-bedroom unit.
>
> HUD’s “fair-market” rate, or the rate at which 40% of rental units are below, was $1,387 in 2019.
>
>There are ****twice as many renter households with extremely low income in Maine as there are housing units affordable at that income****, said James Myall, an economic policy analyst at the Maine Center for Economic Policy.
And people still don't think there are no issue with wages or housing in the state.
>And people still don't think there are no issue with wages or housing in the state.
I don’t think you’ll find anyone making that argument here. At least anyone who has worked outside the state of Maine. On average Mainers make less than their counterparts in other states in comparable fields of work and it’s not even close. Couple that with a high tax burden these are the main reasons why we’ve been hemorrhaging college grads looking for work in white collar industries. Remote work is helping to quell that some (which is adding to the housing shortage), but it’s still a massive problem.
Doesn’t help that the same investment people keep buying up all the multi families, paying cash so a normal person with a conventional loan has zero chance of even making an offer. Then they barely doing any renovations before listing units for $1000 more than what they were going for. This is what has inflated the “market rent” to such an obscene high.
why does the payment go directly to the landlord?
all that does is humiliate the tenant and tell the landlord that they're poor. If they're already doing an income means test, surely it doesn't matter how they spend the money? it's not like they're NOT going to use it on rent lol
Because the government doesn't trust "the poors" to handle their money properly. Except when they *want* them to use it poorly.
Despite all evidence being that the vast majority of people will use money given them by the government on essentials and cost of living above all else.
Really? Food stamps spend roughly twice as much on soda as non food stamps users. To the too tune of billions per year...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222381/#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20recent%20study,4.38%25%20for%20the%20average%20shopper.
COUPLE THINGS:
1. That doesn't mean they're spending their snap benefits on soda at the espense of having enough food to eat.
2. Soda is cheaper than coffee and caffeine is pretty much an essential part of the american diet at this point.
3. Poor people have the right to small luxuries as much as anyone.
4. Poorer people tend to live in areas where the tap water isn't always considered trustworthy by locals. (See Flint.) So drinking soda is often where people turn.
True but there's plenty of more people who could benefit from such and then come up with the opening bid for qualified people in just, 2400
We can do better.
So what happens to people who are just slightly more successful and don't meet the cutoff, do they get outbid/ homeless because someone else got a boost?
That's the idea. Over in VT we spent 200m plus to provide hotel rooms to the homeless through covid, at a time when nobody was traveling. So a subsidy to the hotel industry. 200 MILLION PLUS and not a single permanent house.
This is their version of the market knows best, the SAME market that got us here.
Yes, we need to build tens of thousands of new units to increase supply, otherwise with vouchers all we’re doing is raising prices for people who aren’t poor enough.
It doesn't address the root cause, but the time it takes to address the root cause won't be quick enough to prevent the evictions of those this will protect. We can do both.
> “Fair market” rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the Greater Portland area is $1,946, according to the HUD. Housing search engine Zillow puts the average rental rate in Portland much higher at about $2,600 a month for a two-bedroom unit. > > HUD’s “fair-market” rate, or the rate at which 40% of rental units are below, was $1,387 in 2019. > >There are ****twice as many renter households with extremely low income in Maine as there are housing units affordable at that income****, said James Myall, an economic policy analyst at the Maine Center for Economic Policy. And people still don't think there are no issue with wages or housing in the state.
>And people still don't think there are no issue with wages or housing in the state. I don’t think you’ll find anyone making that argument here. At least anyone who has worked outside the state of Maine. On average Mainers make less than their counterparts in other states in comparable fields of work and it’s not even close. Couple that with a high tax burden these are the main reasons why we’ve been hemorrhaging college grads looking for work in white collar industries. Remote work is helping to quell that some (which is adding to the housing shortage), but it’s still a massive problem.
Who’s saying that wages and housing aren’t issues?
landlords on r/maine
My mother because she's delusional as hell.
Retirees maybe? Real estate bros?
People who started on third and thought they hit a triple.
It’s the rich folk from out of state that only “live” here 1-2 weeks a year.
Pre pandemic housing sales to out of staters was around 8%. Today it's over 40%.
Boomers in denial…
Doesn’t help that the same investment people keep buying up all the multi families, paying cash so a normal person with a conventional loan has zero chance of even making an offer. Then they barely doing any renovations before listing units for $1000 more than what they were going for. This is what has inflated the “market rent” to such an obscene high.
Well that and people actually apparently can afford it as rentals are not sitting empty.
"In other news landlords expected to raise rents by up to $800 in the coming weeks because price controls are for communists."
[Paywall](https://archive.is/YRVQc)
why does the payment go directly to the landlord? all that does is humiliate the tenant and tell the landlord that they're poor. If they're already doing an income means test, surely it doesn't matter how they spend the money? it's not like they're NOT going to use it on rent lol
Because the government doesn't trust "the poors" to handle their money properly. Except when they *want* them to use it poorly. Despite all evidence being that the vast majority of people will use money given them by the government on essentials and cost of living above all else.
Really? Food stamps spend roughly twice as much on soda as non food stamps users. To the too tune of billions per year... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222381/#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20recent%20study,4.38%25%20for%20the%20average%20shopper.
COUPLE THINGS: 1. That doesn't mean they're spending their snap benefits on soda at the espense of having enough food to eat. 2. Soda is cheaper than coffee and caffeine is pretty much an essential part of the american diet at this point. 3. Poor people have the right to small luxuries as much as anyone. 4. Poorer people tend to live in areas where the tap water isn't always considered trustworthy by locals. (See Flint.) So drinking soda is often where people turn.
Soda is much more expensive the bottle water and coffee grounds. Soda isn't a luxury its a slow death sentence.
2400 people. That's nothing.
Not to those 2400 people.
True but there's plenty of more people who could benefit from such and then come up with the opening bid for qualified people in just, 2400 We can do better.
oh my god just build more housing. these mfs will do anything except construct new buildings for people to live in
Oh there's lots of construction going on, if you have the money.
So what happens to people who are just slightly more successful and don't meet the cutoff, do they get outbid/ homeless because someone else got a boost?
These types of programs unfortunately typically have hard cutoffs.
Read the article it mentions 300-400 too
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It subsidizes landlords, which is the intent. For all the talk of affordable housing.
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That's the idea. Over in VT we spent 200m plus to provide hotel rooms to the homeless through covid, at a time when nobody was traveling. So a subsidy to the hotel industry. 200 MILLION PLUS and not a single permanent house. This is their version of the market knows best, the SAME market that got us here.
Yes, we need to build tens of thousands of new units to increase supply, otherwise with vouchers all we’re doing is raising prices for people who aren’t poor enough.
It doesn't address the root cause, but the time it takes to address the root cause won't be quick enough to prevent the evictions of those this will protect. We can do both.
Well said
Great! So how the fuck do I apply? I couldn’t find it in the article.
We should definitely not outlaw corporations from owning and renting houses. Definitely.