With an Aug.
16 deadline looming to close a temporary shelter in Portland, Maine, the Quality Housing Coalition has launched a campaign to find homes for asylum seekers, the Portland Press Herald reports.
"They may have an extra room, they may have an extra two rooms in their house, they may have an extra flat or an accessory dwelling unit," says Victoria Morales, with the coalition.
"And they may not have thought that they really could be a part of the solution to the housing crisis."
Morales says homeowners will be asked to sign a one-year lease, and rent will be paid through municipal general assistance programs for asylum seekers still waiting for work permits.
The home share campaign is an expansion of an existing program that pairs low-income tenants, mostly asylum seekers, with landlords willing to rent to them, and provides support and financial guarantees.Morales says those same backstops would be offered to property owners who rent to asylum seekers.
"And so we offer a financial guarantee for any back rent, if rent isn't able to be paid by a subsidy or a system," she says.
"We offer damages payments if there's any damage to the unit."
Portland is currently housing 77 asylum seekers families, most of them from Angola, the Democratic Republic
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