An amendment to Governor Janet Mills’ $120 million supplemental budget request passed the Senate on Tuesday afternoon that would place modest limits on the state’s ballooning General Assistance program in exchange for exempting temporary and emergency shelters.
General Assistance is a taxpayer-funded welfare program administered on the municipal level in Maine that provides the poor and indigent with vouchers to pay for housing and basic necessities.
While the welfare program is administered at the municipal level, Maine law requires the state to reimburse those cities and towns for 70 percent of the spending.
The amendment to the supplemental budget request, a draft of which was obtained by the Maine Wire on Tuesday, would limit housing assistance under General Assistance to a maximum of 12 months in a 36-month period.
Proposed by Senate Majority Leader Mattie Daughtry (D-Cumberland), the amendment carves out an exception to that one-year limitation on housing assistance for “temporary housing and emergency shelters.”
The Maine State Housing Authority (MaineHousing) defines emergency shelters as “any facility, the primary purpose of which is to provide a temporary shelter for Persons Experiencing Homelessness or for specific populations of Persons Experiencing Homelessness.”
Noncitizen migrants who have been released into the U.S. with pending asylum claims — thousands of whom have arrived in Maine over the last several years — are eligible to obtains housing and rent vouchers through General Assistance.
Those housing and rental vouchers are used by the homeless and by migrants living in shelters to move into apartments or other housing arrangements.
Portland, neighboring South Portland, and other cities and towns across the state have seen their General Assistance cost balloon due to the inflow of asylum-seeking migrants.
A review of records from the Department of Health and Human Services by the Maine Wire showed that the city of Portland accounted for $79.6 million of all General Assistance welfare spending in the state of Maine from Jan. 1, 2019 to June 30, 2023.
During that time period, Portland’s welfare spending consumed 72.8 percent of all General Assistance spending in the state, which totaled $109.3 million.
The adoption of the amendment comes as Maine lawmakers are fighting against the clock to pass a budget that will address a $118 million deficit in the state’s MaineCare program.
Gov. Mills’ original version of the supplemental budget would have capped the use of General Assistance at 30 days per household, as well as limited usage of an emergency rental assistance program. Those proposed welfare reforms were shot down by Democratic lawmakers.
Maine Republican lawmakers have pushed for more stringent limitations on General Assistance, with House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor) calling for a three-month limit on the welfare program.
Tuesday’s amendment vote furthers the process of the budget, but additional votes and debate will still happen in both chambers before enactment. The supplemental budget itself did not gain the 2/3 vote necessary for enactment in a Tuesday night vote.
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