When Cumberland announced in August it would pay newcomers $20,000 to settle in the Western Maryland mountains, local officials anticipated a modest response — maybe a few dozen applications.

But thanks to media attention, including in The Baltimore Banner and later in The Washington Post and The New York Post, word of the offer spread. Now, more than 1,000 applicants are vying for 10 spots offered by the small Appalachian town.

“Nobody expected this. Nobody,” said Laurie Marchini, a councilmember since 2019.

“Lord, I was getting interviewed by the DMV channel and Fox,” Cumberland Mayor Ray Morriss said. “It was going viral.”

The ripple effects of Cumberland’s moment in the national spotlight can be felt throughout the town.

Local real estate agents are scrambling to keep up with inquiries from potential newcomers, while one city employee’s computer crashed under the weight of incoming applications. The city has since assembled a task force of staff and local leaders to sift through the paperwork and hopes to select the winning households by year’s end.

But not everyone in Cumberland is thrilled.

On local Facebook pages, some residents have voiced frustration, worrying that the program is coming at the expense of long-established locals. “Why not invest in the people already here and work on bringing JOBS?” one person wrote. Another added: “Help the people in this town before you bring in new people.”

Morriss acknowledged the criticism but said it stems from a misunderstanding.

“Quite frankly, the public has a tendency to read the headline and not get into the nuts and bolts,” Morriss said.

The $200,000 program isn’t funded through city coffers but rather by a grant from the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development.

To qualify, households must move to Cumberland within six months if selected and commit to staying for five years. In return, they’ll receive $10,000 for relocation costs and up to an additional $10,000 as a match for a down payment on a home or renovation expenses.

If a grantee decides to leave before hitting the five-year mark, they’ll be required to repay the funds.

There’s also money available for those already in Cumberland, Morriss added. The city has secured nearly $900,000 in federal and state funding to support longtime residents with property upgrades, roof repairs and home-accessibility improvements over the last few years, he said.

For some locals, however, the skepticism runs deeper. It is rooted in Cumberland’s decades of decline.

Once a thriving industrial center known as Maryland’s “Queen City” and second in size only to Baltimore, Cumberland’s prosperity has waned since the 1970s as manufacturing plants moved to cheaper locations, often in Southern states. Today, the city’s population hovers around 19,000.

The tide may be turning. Since the pandemic, Cumberland has seen an unexpected revival as remote workers move in. The National Association of Realtors ranked Cumberland among the fastest-growing housing markets in the country for 2024, and Realtor.com listed it as one of the top metro areas where Gen Z is purchasing homes.

Local realtor and Cumberland native Ally Litten has watched this surge closely, but nothing prepared her for the deluge of interest following the relocation program’s announcement.

Typically, Litten said, prospective buyers have ties to Western Maryland, but in recent weeks, she said, she has fielded calls from California, New Hampshire and Tennessee.

“I’ve always known this was a hidden gem, but now it finally feels like we’re getting recognized for how beautiful this place really is to live,” Litten said.