Whether the Legislature will convene to provide relief remains uncertain, and the Employment Department's director has been replaced in response to a massive backlog
Kelsi Morrison’s livelihood abruptly ended when she closed the doors of Hair Bar 47, the salon she owns on Southeast Belmont Street, 11 weeks ago.
She hoped she could weather the coronavirus pandemic with money from unemployment insurance. But her bills keep mounting, and she has yet to receive any money from the state.
“It’s inhumane to make so many suffer, struggle with bills to pay, keep a roof over our families’ heads and food available when the government required us not to work,” Morrison said in written testimony May 30 to Oregon legislators on the House Business and Labor Committee.
“You promised help,” she said. “Where is it now?”
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As Oregon begins reopening after widespread stay-home measures, people find themselves buffeted by basic — and competing — fears, state Rep. Ron Noble (R-Yamhill County) told Street Roots.
“People are motivated by fear of health issues, which is real, but there is also food and shelter insecurity,” Noble said. “Some people don’t know if they’ll have housing in three months. Their fear is real, too.”
In terms of the virus, he said, little has changed since much of Oregon shut down three months ago. There are fewer cases of COVID-19 due to isolation efforts, but the state still lacks widespread testing and contact tracing. An effective treatment and vaccine remain months in the offing.
Reopening could result in returning to where Oregon was in mid-March.
“We’re concerned we’re going to see another resurgence of COVID,” said Noble, who co-chairs the House Interim Committee on Human Services.
Yet with 1 in 8 Oregonians out of work, many of them are increasingly willing to take the health risk.
“We are now going on nine to 12 weeks that many of us have had no money coming in,” said Kristin Weber, a Corvallis massage therapist, in written testimony to the Business and Labor Committee.
“Yet we still have to pay rent, utilities, health insurance, food,” she said.
What hand the Legislature will play in the immediate future remains in doubt. Unless Gov. Kate Brown calls an emergency session of the Legislature, lawmakers are not scheduled to meet again until their regular session early next year.
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A lot depends on the Oregon Supreme Court, Noble said.
Circuit Court Judge Matthew Shirtcliff of Baker County in Eastern Oregon issued an injunction May 18 against Brown’s various executive orders limiting social gatherings and business activities.
The executive orders remain in place while Shirtcliff’s ruling is reviewed by the Oregon Supreme Court.
If Supreme Court justices uphold Shirtcliff’s injunction, Noble said, Brown will likely call an emergency session for legislators to reinstate the provisions of her executive orders.
On the other hand, if the justices uphold Brown’s decisions, she may decide she may not need the Legislature to convene. Noble said he would like legislators to meet for the sake of having a broader discussion.
Danny Moran, the communications director for Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek, told Street Roots the speaker supports a number of legislative initiatives to help people struggling to maintain shelter.
Specifically, Kotek supports prohibiting all foreclosure processes during Brown’s existing emergency declaration and 90 days after the declaration terminates.
“This would be a statutory adoption of the protections in Gov. Brown’s previous executive order,” Moran said.
Kotek also supports:
• Continuing a moratorium on evictions for 90 days after Brown’s existing executive order expires, provided a tenant’s inability to pay is related to the pandemic.
• Prohibiting landlords from reporting or threatening to report non-payment as “negative” to credit reporting bureaus. This expands Multnomah County’s six-month grace period to the entire state.
* Extending a moratorium on commercial tenant evictions for 90 days beyond the existing executive order. This would apply only to cases directly related to the pandemic.
* Requiring forbearance in foreclosure cases if a borrower notifies the lender 30 days in advance of the first missed payment and if inability to pay is related to coronavirus (unless the borrower and lender have independently agreed on a longer period of time).
“Also, the speaker supports allocating more statewide rent assistance using dollars from the Coronavirus Relief Fund in the CARES Act,” Moran said, referring to the federal law designed to address the economic fallout of the pandemic.
Kotek told Street Roots that how Oregon reopens and when should be determined by science.
“The data is clear that the work Oregonians did under ‘Stay Home, Save Lives’ dramatically flattened the curve and prevented the spread of coronavirus,” she said in an email to Street Roots.
Kotek said Multnomah County officials demonstrate a method for reopening. “I was particularly impressed with the additional parameters they have placed on their metrics for reopening, including the emphasis on equity in contact tracing,” she said.
“There’s a voice people want to have with the governor that the Legislature can provide,” Noble said.
Brown finds herself in a no-win situation, Noble acknowledged. So does everyone else in the state. As people struggle between economic and health concerns, Noble urged compassion.
“We need to give each other a little bit of grace and realize the fear is real on both the health side and the food insecurity side,” he said. “We’re going to see a whole lot more people needing assistance.”
For the most part, he said, he supports Kotek’s proposals regarding housing. His concerns focus mainly on the long-term consequences for the housing market. If landlords are ultimately hobbled by legislative actions, he said, no one’s long-term interests will be served.
“The details are pretty important, but generally from a philosophical standpoint, I think we need to keep people in housing,” Noble said. “From a logistical standpoint, why would we create more homelessness?”
Brown announced May 31 that she had fired Kay Erickson, the executive director of the Oregon Employment Department. Delays at the department, not only in providing benefits but also answering citizens’ basic questions, have become infamous in recent weeks.
Erickson told lawmakers her department was blindsided by the pandemic the week of March 15. The number of claims was steady up to that point, she said.
“It was about 4,000 or 4,500, somewhere in that range,” Erickson said. “We went from one week of thousands of claims to the next week of 75,000 claims and then the following week with an additional 86,000 claims. Then the following week was in that 70 to 80,000 range.”
Brown issued an executive order March 17 prohibiting gatherings of 25 or more people and banning people from going to restaurants and bars. On March 23, she issued a stay-at-home order shuttering all but essential commercial businesses.
State Rep. Shelly Boshart-Davis (R-Albany) said none of this should have taken Erickson and her department by surprise. The coronavirus and its possible consequences were well known before Brown’s first executive order, she said.
“The blame belongs in the priorities and decision-making leading up to the overwhelming of the Employment Department and the fact that there was notice and the fact that there were audits,” she said.
State Rep. Greg Barretto (R-Medford) said he understands Erickson’s dilemma — to a point.
“Certainly any of us in business, if our orders suddenly went 2,200% higher than what we’re used to, we would have a tough time managing that,” he said. “However, if we couldn’t satisfy our customers in business, we would be on the phone contacting them, being in touch them, and having that communication with them so they knew we cared about them and they had someone to talk to on the other end.”
Erickson responded that the call volume is simply overwhelming.
“We simply don’t have enough people to answer the phones in the way you’re describing, and that is a failure on our part,” she said.
“We’re probably at the point now with staffing that would have been adequate for that first week, that deluge of claims,” she said.
Holvey said phone calls must be answered, regardless of what must be done to find enough personnel. “If it takes the National Guard, that’s what needs to happen,” he said.
State Rep. Margaret Doherty (D-Portland) said people at least deserve answers to their questions. One of her constituents made a single mistake and has now gone without any income for nine weeks, she said.
“How can he get an answer, how can I get an answer, how can anybody get an answer if we can’t get through to anybody?” Doherty said. “I mean, anybody — whether it’s through fax, whether it’s through text, whether it’s through email or whether it’s through phone call.”
David Gerstenfeld, the paid family and medical leave insurance division director at the Employment Department, said he can empathize. “We completely understand how frustrating it is and, under normal times, understand the system can be complicated,” he said.
Not good enough, said state Rep. Jeff Barker (D-Aloha).
“People are really suffering out there, people who lost their jobs through no fault of their own and no fault of yours, but it just seems to me, and I’m sorry to say it, but if you’ve been overwhelmed, maybe someone else needs to take over the leadership of that department and try to get it up and running,” Barker said.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden was already calling for Erickson’s resignation ahead of Brown’s decision.
“In the middle of this pandemic, the continued delays from the Oregon Employment Department in delivering unemployment insurance benefits to thousands of out-of-work Oregonians are unacceptable,” Brown said in a press release the day after the committee meeting.
“This is an unprecedented crisis, and the problems at the department demand an urgent response,” she said. “I’d like to thank Director Erickson for her years of service to the State of Oregon, but it is clear that new leadership is needed.”
Gerstenfeld will lead the agency on an interim basis.
Meanwhile, Lynn Albright, of Salem, is angry.
“Many are facing starvation and homelessness, solely due to the incompetence of the Oregon Employment Department,” she said in written testimony to the Business and Labor Committee. “They are so bad they can’t even let us know they have received an application or give us a time frame.”
Time is running out for Portland resident Leona Olson and her family.
A mother of two with a disabled husband, Olson said in her written testimony she worries about how much longer her family can go on without a paycheck.
“Thank goodness we have enough food in our cupboards, but our electricity is past due, our internet as well, which we have to have for the children’s school,” Olson said. “I don’t have money to get gas to get to the grocery store.”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misattributed House Speaker Tina Kotek's quote — “I was particularly impressed with the additional parameters (Multnomah County) have placed on their metrics for reopening, including the emphasis on equity in contact tracing” — to her spokesperson, Danny Moran.
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