Most of what a state offers after a layoff is money toward a bill. Maryland has one thing that's a different order of help entirely, and it's the reason this page starts where it does.
Eviction help in Maryland includes a free lawyer
Maryland law provides eligible renters the right to a free attorney in eviction cases, and Maryland Legal Aid may be able to represent you through its Tenant Right to Counsel Project.
Take the word eligible seriously, because it's doing real work. This is a right for renters who qualify rather than an automatic entitlement for everyone served with papers, and Legal Aid's own wording is that it may be able to represent you. So the move is to contact them and find out, not to assume it applies and not to assume it does not. The project names the kinds of filing it covers, including breach of lease, tenant holding over, and voucher or subsidy termination.
The timing advice is unglamorous and matters more than anything else here. Get in touch when the papers arrive, not the night before the hearing, because a lawyer with a week can find a defense that a lawyer with an afternoon cannot.
What a landlord in Maryland cannot do
The same source is worth reading for a second reason, which is that it lists the things landlords aren't permitted to do and that tenants are routinely told otherwise.
A landlord cannot evict you or change the locks without a court order. They cannot remove you or your belongings themselves, because an eviction has to be carried out by the Sheriff's Office, or a Constable if you're in Baltimore County. And they cannot shut off your utilities or ignore unsafe conditions in order to force you out.
That last one is worth knowing about specifically, because it is the pressure a household falling behind is most likely to be told is normal, and it is not a grey area. If it's happening to you, it's a reason to call a lawyer rather than a reason to accept that you have to leave.
One portal for the benefit applications
The rest of the state's assistance runs through myMDTHINK, the benefits programs and services portal, which is where the food supplement program and the other help the human services department administers all start.
Energy is the exception worth flagging, because assuming it is part of the same session sends you to the wrong place. It runs through the Office of Home Energy Programs, which publishes an application route and a finder for the local home energy office serving your area. That local office is the one that actually processes what you send.
Cash assistance, and the two conditions attached
Temporary Cash Assistance is Maryland's version of family cash help, for families with dependent children when available resources don't fully address the family's needs, while preparing participants for independence through work.
Two conditions come with it and both are easy to skim past. The family has to cooperate with child support, and participants take part in work activities. Neither is unusual for a program of this kind, but both are the sort of requirement that ends assistance when someone doesn't realize it applied to them. If your household has no dependent children, this isn't your route, and the sections above and below are where Maryland's help actually reaches you.
Health coverage in Maryland runs through one marketplace
Maryland Health Connection is the state's own marketplace, and its useful structural feature is that Medicaid and private plans live in the same place. You aren't deciding upfront which system you belong to and then applying to the right one; you apply, and the answer comes back.
Losing job-based coverage is a qualifying life event, which opens a special enrollment window of sixty days. That is the one hard deadline in this whole page, so it's the date to write down. The site also publishes an income estimator and guidance on who counts as part of your household, and both are worth using before deciding you cannot afford a plan, because the estimate people carry in their heads after a layoff is usually wrong in the expensive direction.
Dislocated worker help in Maryland has its own track
The state labor department's workforce division publishes a dislocated worker track specifically, which is the category a layoff puts you in. Alongside it sit an American Job Center finder, a reemployment services and eligibility assessment program, rapid response services for larger layoffs, veterans services, and an eligible training provider list.
That last item is the one to ask about before spending your own money. Federally funded training runs through approved providers, so whether a course you're considering appears on that list changes whether someone else can pay for it. Ask at an American Job Center rather than enrolling first and asking afterward.
Food, childcare, and getting to a lawyer generally
The food supplement program applies through the same portal as the rest, and the department also runs an emergency food program alongside it for the gap before a decision lands. Childcare payment help routes through the department too.
Beyond eviction work, Maryland Legal Aid provides free civil legal services to financially eligible people from offices across the state, and you can reach it by applying online, attending a clinic or visiting an office. It publishes its income guidelines, so you can check where you stand before making contact.
When you can't tell which program owns your problem, 211 Maryland is free, confidential and staffed around the clock every day of the year. Its own categories map closely to what a layoff produces: food, utility bill assistance, rental payments and eviction prevention, and free tax preparation help.
For the wider question of what retraining money can cover, that article goes further than this page does. The unemployment claim underpins the rest, with weekly amounts and the filing route on our Maryland benefits page, and the runway calculator will tell you whether the eviction timeline or the coverage deadline is the thing to work on first.