ME Housing Enterprise

Material in this series is dated from 1980 through 1994 and includes memo, floor statements, correspondence, Congressional Research Service, government, statistical, and other reports and summaries, and drafts of legislation. The material relates to federal, state, and local housing programs, infrastructure, and economic development. It includes information on assistance for families to find homes, identify mortgage funding, and find rental assistance or homeless shelters. Particular emphasis in the records is on Maine's participation in these programs.

The series also contains information about community development programs, housing authorities, housing finance, low-income housing, public housing projects, rental housing, shelters for the homeless, urban housing, valuation of property, rental housing, rural housing, and housing policy. Among programs described are: Urban Development Action Grants, Farmers' Home Administration programs, housing development grants, Community Development Block Grants, and the Low Income Housing Tax Credit. Information on these programs concerns subsidized housing programs, rental rehabilitation, rental housing development, housing counseling assistance, housing for the elderly and handicapped, and congregate services programs. Some files and reports address appraisal of the values of these government loan-funded housing projects. Significant numbers of files refer to the 1989 scandal involving mismanagement of federal housing loans under the administration of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Samuel Pierce.

The senate Banking Committee processed housing legislation. The Family Support series contains additional files concerning housing issues. Grace Reef covered both housing and family support issues for Senator Mitchell, and this series includes five boxes of early housing files compiled by Estelle Lavoie from 1980 through 1983.