NORWAY — More than 20 landlords from the greater Norway-Paris area came to the Municipal Building Thursday night to meet with prospective tenants and to learn more about the Section 8 low-income housing program.

“This is a coming together,” MaineHousing Director Dale McCormick said of the first-in-the-state housing fair for landlords and tenants of Section 8 housing.

Representatives from MaineHousing, Avesta Housing (the firm that handles Section 8 housing for MaineHousing) and Pine Tree Legal Assistance, along with Norway Code Enforcement Officer Joelle Corey-Whitman were there to answer landlord questions that ranged from removing exterior house paint to a landlord’s right to enter a tenant’s apartment under a 24-hour emergency notice for repairs.

The housing fair idea came about recently after MaineHousing announced it would stop paying rent for 14 tenants currently living in Section 8 apartments owned by a longtime Norway landlord after allegations of substandard living conditions in some Norway-Paris Section 8 apartments surfaced in November. The action came after reinspections of Section 8 apartments.

The Section 8 program is the federal government’s major program for assisting very low income families, the elderly and the disabled to afford decent, safe and sanitary housing in the private market, according to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. Housing vouchers are issued and administered locally by public housing agencies — in this case Portland-based Avesta. Avesta receives federal funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to administer the Section 8 voucher program in Oxford, Androscoggin, York and Cumberland counties.

Currently, some 1,300 residents in these four counties are serviced under Section 8 by Avesta. The need is many more times that, said officials.

“In a sense this is an experiment,” McCormick said of the fair that had standing room only for landlords and about a dozen prospective tenants, including Jeremy Nay of Mechanic Falls, who was advised to come to the meeting because he couldn’t find adequate housing in the Mechanic Falls area.

“I can’t find anything,” said the single father of 8-year-old twins. Nay said he volunteers at a church in Auburn 30 hours a week doing maintenance and is without a car currently. With bills to pay and worried about providing Christmas presents for his children, Nay said he was hopeful Thursday night that he would be able to connect with a landlord who would have something for him, even though it was a distance from his job.

Landlords said they were pleased with the fair, but several had questions about what could be done under Section 8 regulations.

The majority of questions would be resolved by a well-written lease agreement drawn up by a lawyer, said landlord David Andrews of Paris after the meeting, who said he was interested in renting to tenants with Section 8 vouchers.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link