Portland city officials are urging Gov. Janet Mills to impose a 60-day statewide eviction moratorium in response to “fear and instability” that they are linking to federal immigration enforcement.
While the resolution is framed as an emergency measure that they are claiming is only meant to protect “vulnerable residents,” such a moratorium risks repeating a policy mistake Maine, and the nation, has already seen play out with damaging consequences. The Portland City Council may feel that such a moratorium is compassionate, but it ultimately worsens the structural problems that are already driving Maine’s housing shortage.
A Misguided Approach to Housing Policy
The Portland resolution ties eviction policy to “fear” surrounding federal immigration enforcement. Whatever one’s view of immigration policy, the basic enforcement of private contracts across the entire state should not be suspended simply because there is a threat of evictions for those too afraid of ICE to work and pay rent.
When eviction moratoriums are in place, landlords still must pay mortgages, taxes, insurance, and maintenance costs. Many rental property owners in Maine are small operators, not large corporations. They rely on monthly rent to keep their properties viable. When the government halts evictions, it effectively transfers the risk of not paying rent from tenants to landlords without compensation. That shift reshapes the incentives of the entire housing market.
With such a shift, investors become more cautious, property owners defer maintenance, some landlords will exit the rental market entirely, and new development will slow due to the raised risks of overregulation being repeated. This results in fewer rental units, a tighter supply, and upward pressure on rents, the opposite of what struggling tenants need – especially in a state like Maine that is already suffering from a housing crisis.
Short-term emergency housing policy aimed primarily at immigrants should not create long-term damage to the entire state of Maine housing ecosystem.
The Lessons of Recent History
Maine has already lived through eviction moratoriums during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those policies were implemented under extraordinary circumstances, and even then, they generated significant legal disputes, financial strain on landlords, and unintended market distortions.
The effects of pandemic-era moratoriums show that while some tenants may have temporarily benefited, the broader rental market experienced stress that contributed to greater supply constraints. According to the Pacific Legal Foundation “when these landlords cannot evict tenants who aren’t paying, they can’t pay their mortgage or stay in business and end up fleeing the housing market, thus reducing the supply of affordable housing.”
When the government signals that lease contracts can be suspended by executive action, the risk level of rental housing changes. This causes markets to respond accordingly.
In order to have a healthy housing marketplace, housing policy must be predictable. Investors and property owners need confidence that contracts will be enforced. Without that stability, the long-term supply of housing suffers. A new moratorium like the one suggested by the Portland City Council would set a precedent that emergency suspension of housing law can be invoked for a wide range of social concerns, even ones not involving US citizens. That uncertainty alone could chill future investment in Maine’s already frail housing market.
What MPI’s 2025 Housing Report Already Found
These risks are not hypothetical. In its 2025 housing report, Maine Policy Institute documented how regulatory uncertainty, rising compliance costs, and uneven enforcement of housing law have already pushed small landlords out of the rental market and discouraged new investment.
The report found that Maine’s rental supply is especially sensitive to policy shocks because a large share of units are owned by small, in-state property owners operating on thin margins. Policies that weaken contract enforcement or signal a willingness to suspend housing law—even temporarily—compound these pressures by increasing perceived risk.
An eviction moratorium imposed through emergency authority would directly contradict the report’s central conclusion: that restoring housing affordability in Maine requires predictability, stable rules, and policies that encourage supply, not episodic interventions that undermine confidence in the market.
An eviction moratorium would be Maine doubling down on housing instability and volatility, when it should be reversing course.
Emergency Powers Should Be Used Sparingly
By appealing directly to Governor Mills, the Portland City Council is seeking an eviction moratorium that relies on emergency executive authority, not ordinary legislative processes. Such use of emergency power however should be suspect. Emergency powers exist to address immediate, measurable crises such as natural disasters or public health threats. Expanding the definition of “emergency” to include broad social or economic anxiety risks weakening the already fragile guardrails against executive overreach.
Again, the long-term risk is precedent. If eviction law can be suspended through executive action in one confined context such as fear of ICE enforcement, it becomes easier to justify suspension in future contexts. Predictability is a cornerstone of housing markets. When emergency authority becomes a routine policy tool, confidence in that stability erodes.
Administrative Backlogs Create Instability
Beyond its effects on the housing market, an eviction moratorium also reshapes how disputes are handled within the legal system. Eviction moratoriums do not eliminate disputes between tenants and property owners; they merely postpone them.
When normal court processes are suspended or restricted, unresolved cases accumulate. Once protections expire, housing courts often face a surge of filings that strain administrative capacity. Princeton University research looking into the pandemic eviction moratoriums found that there were 20.4% more eviction cases filed in the three months after the CDC moratorium was struck down by the courts.
This means moratoriums create instability for everyone involved. Tenants face uncertainty about their long-term status, while landlords wait months for legal resolution. After the moratorium expires, courts must then process a compressed wave of cases, increasing strain on the judicial system and delaying outcomes that would otherwise be handled incrementally. This disrupts mediation programs and targeted rental assistance which work best when courts are functioning normally and can process disputes in real time.
Conclusion
A statewide eviction moratorium is not a housing solution; it is a suspension of the basic rules that allow the housing market to function. When the government overrides private agreements in response to political pressure or social fear, it sends a signal that contract law is conditional and subject to sudden reversal. That uncertainty discourages investment, and ultimately reduces the supply of rental housing that Maine desperately needs.
If Governor Mills took the advice of the Portland City Council and passed a statewide eviction moratorium in response to federal immigration enforcement, the entire state of Maine would pay the price by injecting uncertainty into the housing market, discouraging investment in rental housing, and shifting financial risk onto small property owners who make up a large share of Maine’s housing supply.
When rules governing contracts can be suspended statewide through emergency action, lenders, builders, and landlords respond by becoming more cautious. That caution translates into fewer rental units, slower development, and upward pressure on rents, costs which will ultimately be borne by everyday Maine residents.