Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), along with co-sponsor Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), is aiming to fight the housing crisis with grants for rural homeowners seeking to renovate their property and install new rental units.
[RELATED: Democratic Lawmaker Proposes Six Months of State-Funded Housing for Recently Released Inmates…]
“Communities all across Maine and the nation are facing a serious housing shortage,” said Sen. King. “Unfortunately, one law we can’t repeal in Congress is the law of supply and demand. And right now our rural communities, in particular, are up against a short supply problem coupled with serious demand — leaving many people without a place to live that is affordable or close to their community.”
“This bipartisan, commonsense effort is another step toward combating the housing crisis and ensuring Maine people can live where they work. By making it more affordable for folks to renovate their homes, or build news one, we can help offset the rural housing shortage,” he added.
“There is a high demand for rural housing across Kansas, and it’s important that our housing programs offer creative solutions to address this issue,” said Sen. Moran.
The proposed Farmhouse-to-Workforce Housing Act, first introduced in 2024, would offer up to $100,000 in grants to rural homeowners renovating their homes to include a rental unit or building a new rental structure on their property.
The grants would come as an expansion of the existing Housing Preservation Grants (HPG) program. According to King, the current HPG grants are underutilized and only cover small costs and repairs.
The grants will only be available to build on properties that already have a home over 25 years old, and will not be given to anyone making over 150 percent of the median income for their area.
The bill, intended primarily to help low- and middle-class Americans, includes protections to prevent the grants from being used by corporate developers or homeowners seeking to quickly increase their property value before selling.
Grant recipients must live on the property being developed for at least five years following the grant; otherwise, they will be required to repay the full amount of the funds received.
Additionally, the grant requires that the new rental units cannot be leased for terms of less than six months.
Although a recipient can receive up to $100,000, the funding received under the grant cannot exceed 50 percent of the total cost of the project.
King’s bill would appropriate a total of $200 million to fund the grants, to remain available until the full amount is expended.
While King’s bipartisan bill seeks to address the very real housing crisis and could greatly benefit rural homeowners, it could face an uphill battle in the legislature because it seeks a substantial appropriation of funds at a time when the Trump Administration, along with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), works to cut excess spending.
There you go King, another useless unaffordable plan. Could you 4 possibly be anymore useless?
I wonder how the “Independent” will vote on HR 28 which hits the Senate floor on Monday. No transgender males in girls sports folks….let’s see if he he does what Schumer tells him as usual.
More money laundering?
Stop giving away other people’s money.
When the 3 to 4 million illegals are sent packing, we will have more than enough homes for Americans.
Like many towns allow people to add rental properties to their land…
You go first anus. I think a nice multi family flop house in your front yard would be a good lead by example.
Zoning laws.ate local laws and once the illegals are gone there will be more housing available.
Neat. Now… how about some property tax (extortion) relief?
Towns will merely increase the taxes on property owners by ordinance, fees, or other methods… in addition to the sharp increase in taxes due to the property valuation change. The system of property taxation is extortion–plain and simple–and being based on real estate comp values just means poor and middle class, working people get edged out. The Ritchie Rich folks from away won’t have any problem. END PROPERTY TAXES.
No, no, no, Anus. Quit pissing my Tax Dollars away.
Multi unit housing is a poor idea. Bad for the community tax base. Over whelms schools and community services. Besides the real issue is getting rid of 20 million invaders stealing the funding and services from American citizens.
Yeah, we all want to build housing on our property for the release of inmates… I’d absolutely love to give convicts another chance around my family on my property… especially illegal ones…sounds so virtuous.
If someone has enough land they shouldn’t have to ask permission to build on their own property.
After the illegals have been shipped out there will be a housing surplus.
King Angus should just keep his commie hands out of people’s private lives and private property.
100k WTF are you gonna build with a 100k?
Another Scam that Angus will make Money from! Angus will do nothing that does not pay him! People of Maine, Keep voting this useless person into office? You get what you vote for!
Farmhouse to Workforce sounds like another liberal communist plan to get rid of single family housing. Bait poorer rural folks into doing this and then they will suddenly change the rules and require the owners to rent to the section 8 folks on welfare.Angus wants to keep everyone on the plantation.
“King’s bill would appropriate a total of $200 million to fund the grants” Gee, this sounds like a whizbang great way to rip off Maine’s one million tax payers, at the rate of $200.00 per each of us for an unstated number of years in the future. King is an “Independent”, that is, an independent communist.
We done got a part of a section of swamp out back that’ll hold up a couple a them $100,000.00 trailers, at least until the mud thaws and the bugs come out.
This is forwarding Obama’s plan of slowly destroying rural and suburban areas.
I hadn’t realized that King isn’t even from Maine; he’s from Alexandria. VA (DC swamp) and didn’t move to Maine until after he graduated from law school! WTF?!?! How in the hell did Mainers vote for this assh@le for governor? And of course he couldn’t wait to get back to the swamp and be a fake independent Senator later in life.
Honest Mainers got suckered BIG TIME.
Just an excuse to make property taxes higher. Many folks are already building Accessory Dwelling Units on their property to Air BNB/rent out. Many do it without telling their town or pulling permits. This way they can assess and tax.