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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Money Woes Worsen Significantly for Renters in Maine

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Monday, May 13, 2013   

AUGUSTA, Maine - Just because you have a job doesn't mean it's easy to pay the rent in Maine. A new report, Housing Landscape 2013, from the nonprofit Center for Housing Policy shows more than 42,000 local renters are spending more than half their income on housing.

According to report co-author Maya Brennan, senior research associate at the Center, there has been a significant increase in the percentage of working renters in the state who are dealing with what the report calls a "severe" cost burden.

"These households are working and they're still unable not just to afford housing, but to even come close to affording it," Brennan stated.

The report found that nearly 21 percent of Maine renters shouldered a severe housing cost burden in 2011, a jump of 6 percent compared to 2010. Brennan said that declining incomes and federal cuts in housing assistance contribute to the problem.

She added that people who spend more than half their income on housing often face very tough choices about what else they can afford.

"That's a status that puts you at risk of not being able to afford food, afford health care, basic, y'know, truly basic necessities," she cautioned.

She also said communities too often limit rental housing because of concerns it will drive down property values.

"It's important to make sure that communities are allowing housing of different sizes and different types to be built, because if we don't, we're restricting the stock, and pushing the rents up."

The report said that nationally, working renters saw their housing costs rise by 6 percent from 2008 to 2011, while their household incomes fell more than three percent.

A link to that report is at NHC.org



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