Tenant advocates in Maine are puzzled by an apparent drop in eviction filings of nearly 30% through the first six months of the year.
Excluding the first three years of the pandemic, when a national moratorium and other programs helped to limit evictions, the roughly 2,200 filings would be the lowest in the state since at least 2010. The data represents the number of eviction filings, and not the number of final eviction judgments entered.
Maureen Boston, the director of intake for Pine Tree Legal Assistance, said the reported trend doesn't match up with what's happening on the ground. She said her organization has received about 1,500 calls about eviction-related issues this year — only about 100 fewer than 2023, and far higher than in 2019.
"From our perspective, the need for help with eviction work still is exceeding our capacity," Boston said. "And so we're still getting more calls from people who need help with eviction-related issues, than we're able to provide them the full level of service that they're looking for."
Oriana Farnham, a staff attorney at Maine Equal Justice, said the drop doesn't reflect concerns she hears from clients about housing instability. Farnham notes that many evictions are resolved outside of court, and that many tenants are encouraged to move out before court, so a landlord doesn't file an eviction case. She cites figures from the U.S. Office of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
"HUD says that, actually, around one-third of tenants move out just after receiving an eviction notice," Farnham said. "So people are being evicted who don't show up in eviction data, routinely."
Farnham said her organization hears fears from many immigrants that going to eviction court could affect their immigration case, which she said is false.
Ned Payne, a Portland-area landlord, said part of the decline may be due to the region's scarcity of housing, which he thinks has led some tenants to communicate more with their landlords and make payments on-time, so they don't lose their place.
"And I think landlords also know the pain and cost of an eviction. So that both parties are more than ever, just trying to work things out," Payne said.
Maine's one-night, annual "point-in-time" count earlier this year showed fewer people experiencing homelessness, but MaineHousing largely attributed the decrease to the end of pandemic-era funding for emergency motel room stay. The agency said the number of people "without shelter, in traditional shelters, and in transitional housing all remain elevated," and many have returned to "informal arrangements" for housing needs, such as couch surfing or doubling up with a friend.
The legislature included $18 million in the state's supplemental budget earlier this year for a rental relief program that's expected to assist about 2,400 people.
