While the mayor of South Portland recently recommended that elderly residents reverse mortgage their homes to handle a growing property tax burden, the City Council approved over $1 million in their fiscal year 2025 (FY25) budget to be spent on assisting migrants in the city pay for housing and buy food.
Those seniors have also taken a back seat to higher priorities from the South Portland City Council, which has, in recent years, written into the city budget that addressing the climate crisis and promoting “equity” are top goals.
South Portland Mayor Misha Pride’s comments — which have since sparked massive backlash on social media — came amid discussion of a proposal to allocate an additional $100,000 to the city’s Senior Property Tax Relief Fund at an August City Council meeting.
[RELATED: Maine Mayor on Property Tax Hikes: “Seniors may want to consider a reverse mortgage”…]
“I just sort of throw this out there because I’ve also been thinking a lot about how especially those with fixed incomes can deal with this, it is kind of a last resort measure, but seeing as our property values are so high, seniors may want to consider a reverse mortgage,” Pride said.
“I know it’s an ugly word,” he admitted, “but there are — I’m just saying, I know it’s horrible, but it’s sort of a last resort.”
A reverse mortgage is a type of loan that allows homeowners to borrow against the equity in their home. Over time, it may put their homeownership at risk or leave little equity for senior homeowners to pass on to heirs.
The proposed supplement to the relief fund was aimed at alleviating the strain that rising property taxes, caused largely by the city’s most recent revaluation and a budget increase, have put on local homeowners — particularly seniors living on a fixed income.
The problem is not unique to South Portland, as property taxes are increasing massively all across Maine as the result of increased spending and inflation-driven increases in the nominal dollar value of property.
[RELATED: South Portland Residents Passionately Address Property Tax Concerns at City Council Meeting…]
The order to allocate an additional $100,000 to the city’s Senior Tax Relief program was later passed unanimously by the South Portland City Council at their Sept. 3 meeting.
However, at the same time South Portland residents are feeling squeezed by property tax hikes, the City Council approved a budget of more than $1.8 million for their municipal welfare program that the city specifically states will be going towards “asylum seekers” — noncitizen migrants living in the U.S. who have pending asylum claims.
The South Portland City Council voted to adopt their fiscal year 2025 (FY25) budget on June 25, 2024. That budget earmarked nearly $1.9 million for social services provided through General Assistance.
General Assistance is a welfare program administered at the municipal level that provides vouchers to impoverished or indigent individuals and families to purchase basic necessities, such as food, housing, rent, fuel and medications.
In a presentation on the city’s FY25 budget given in April, South Portland city officials reported that since January 2023, the city received 2,893 General Assistance, with roughly 2,500 qualifying for aid under the program.
In the detailed line-by-line accounting of South Portland’s approved FY25 budget, the city makes explicit mention that General Assistance vouchers, such as for food, prescription drugs, and rent and down payments, are going to “asylum seekers.”
The three largest categories of General Assistance spending in the FY25 budget are rent ($1 million), food ($400,000) and medical & lab supplies ($50,000).
Under the rent category, the city states that while “emergency temporary housing in hotels” is decreasing, costs to the General Assistance program for vouchers that pay for security deposits and other temporary and permanent housing costs are increasing.
In June 2023, the city entered a 12-month contract to house asylum-seeking migrants at the Howard Johnson hotel in South Portland. Hotels in the city were being used as temporary housing for the city’s homeless population since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Detailing the $400,000 earmarked for food vouchers in the General Assistance budget, the city stated that the vouchers are to “Hannaford and the African Mobile Market.”
“Food costs have increased and Asylum Seekers rely on GA for food assistance until they are pending asylum and can apply for SNAP [food stamps],” the city stated. “This budget had been inflated due to hotel situation but with that subsiding we can start scaling back.”
The city also mentions asylum seekers under the third most expensive category of General Assistance spending, medical & lab supplies.
“Most Asylum Seekers are not eligible for MaineCare (children and pregnant women are) and even a small amount of expensive maintenance medications have increased our spending,” the city wrote.
GA social services outlined in South Portland FY25 budget:
Full FY25 GA social services budget approved by South Portland City Council:
Although the General Assistance program accounts for a relatively small proportion of South Portland’s nearly $50 million municipal FY25 budget, the roughly $1.9 million in welfare spending — which the city states is going to noncitizens — is over ten times the $100,000 the City Council approved for their Senior Property Tax Relief Fund.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="31149 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=31149">35 Comments
Keep voting for these socialist democrats . It can only get worse .
Throw out the old . Bring in the new .
Ruin our schools . Ruin our healthcare . Ruin our way of life .
Put more signs in your yard . Wave more flags . Make a new flag .
Pretend to be pious . Pretend to be virtuous . Pretend to be informed .
You get what you vote for .
Vote Republican next time and watch your life change for the better !
im real tired of people saying “you get what you vote for, dum mainers” there is nothing that leads me to belive our elections are not stolen, the canadites are hand picked, its all a sham. seems like purpose of politcal parties is division.
I’m laughing so hard I almost pissed myself! Tax payer = sucker. Time for the rats to leave this sinking ship. Conservatives are welcome at the free state of NH. Liberals can drown in their own filth.
I complained to the City Council and City Manager about this and was told that because the city allowed illegals into town they have to provide general assistance or the city will lose federal taxpayer money.
I’m wondering what the balance would be if they grew a pair and either stopped the g a or kicked the illegals out of town.
The state is now providing no money down home loans that the illegals are allowed to use section 8 money to pay on.
Just shuffles them from hotels.
Spineless is the best description of South Portland City Council and Manager.
Having elected Deqa Dhalac previously as the mayor of SoPo, it’s not surprising the current woke dimwit in that position would do this.
Come move to tax free NH.
Leave now it will only get worse.
How about going through city voter registrations and assessing everyone registered as a democrat money on their tax bill to pay for the illegal invaders!
They are illegal. They don’t belong here. Round them up and take them back and drop them where they belong.
Janet Mills should have never put up billboards in Texas telling migrants to come to Maine. With the housing crisis, and no $$ for retired seniors it was a bad idea. These socialists need to go.
The mayor and city council need to be turned into Strange Fruit
The Town’s Addministration should be ashamed
Mr. Pride – given the arrogance of your comments regarding seniors, remember that one day you, too, will be a senior. God help you if an administrator treats you the same way!
Work hard your whole life and the state.takes everything you have to give to one’s that just got here with their hands held out. Fing sick. Maybe public office jobs should be pro Bono. Then they can finally give something to the community
This is disgusting. I left Maine for this reason . They have done nothing for me when I needed it . All they did is tax me every pay check and everything else possible. Born and raised here, treated like the unworthy . All set with you idiots. Keep giving our dollars to non citizens.
These are “New Mainers”, to hell with the old Mainers.
Can’t wait for “The Call To Prayer for Allah ” to be the new State song ….There is no plan to fix anything , The plan is to destroy everything …
What kind of name is Misha Pride? Real name, or a made up one for a liberal weirdo?
Seniors is another word for people who have been paying taxes for generations of school children, keeping the government running, plowing the streets, taking out the trash, and being stand up citizens. Now, the city is breaking the fifth commandment for political ideology.
Wow.
A sane man would assume that to reduce assistance payments for housing etc, you’d build more housing. Econ-101, kids.
If the tax payers run out of money how long will the city last?
VOTE RED!!!
He and the town appraiser should be jailed for fraud!!
Good luck Portland!!!. I’m sure it will coming to my town soon!!!!
IF you are NOT a citizen, THEN there should be NO welfare. IF you are a citizen, THEN there should be very limited welfare with a very limited time!
you get what you vote for and that is a fact. Facts could care less about your feelings and yes Mainers are dumb because they have had plenty of chances to change this. They continue to vote the same Communist-DemocRATS into office who continue spending like drunks. Add insult to injury there is not one bond or budget that dumb Mainers have not voted down in decades, just look at the school budgets. Feel free to prove me wrong.
Voting for Dems and their policies has consequences.
I don’t feel bad for the elderly they are the same people who are clueless about every issue and they keep voting Democrat they deserve what they get keep voting Democrat then
So unfair to our own citizens!
Seniors aren’t the only ones being affected.
Every homeowner has had their taxes go up and every renter. Landlords of smaller apartment buildings aren’t rich for the most part. Every time their taxes go up rents necessarily go up to help cover the higher taxes.
This irresponsible handling of city business hits everyone.
mass deportations
Where is the love?
Seriously. What are you thinking? We have homeless people and homeless veterans living on the street
Parasites!!! They will never contribute nor have they ever contribute back to society. Unless you consider crime a contribution. These commies on the city council want the elderly take out a reverse mortgage so they default they can buy the property up and make free housing for more immigrants at your expense while they being municipal workers don’t get state taxes taken out of their checks they should be absolutely ashamed of themselves.
WOW WTH?????? Get these DEMORATS OUT OF MAINE!!!!!!! Send those SPENDERS to MASS where they belong!!!!!