Oregon lawmakers will head back to Salem this week to address police accountability and pandemic mitigation, including legislation on evictions and homelessness
Oregon’s moratoriums on residential and commercial evictions expire at the end of the month, and Alison McIntosh of the Oregon Housing Alliance worries what will happen if the Legislature fails to extend them.
McIntosh, the policy and communications director of the alliance, told Street Roots she’s confident legislators will extend the moratoriums when they convene in Salem for a special session Wednesday, June 24. Reasonably confident, that is.
“We’re not taking anything for granted right now,” she said. “We’re urging our members and people who are renting to call their legislators.”
After months of speculation over whether Gov. Kate Brown would call lawmakers back to the Capitol to address the COVID-19 pandemic, growing demand for police accountability in the wake of the May 25 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis prompted Brown to call a special session. She said immediate action was needed to address both issues during this “unique moment in America.”
The need for police reform “is too urgent to wait until the next regular legislative session,” Brown said in a June 16 statement announcing the special session.
Additionally, Brown enacted eviction moratoriums and other measures to mitigate the economic fallout from the pandemic through executive orders. Now, she wants lawmakers to officially sign off on them so that they will be extended and legally codified.
LEGISLATURE: Housing-insecure Oregonians left in the lurch, eager for special session
Republicans have questioned the need for a special session, pointing out that they are usually reserved for balancing the state budget rather than addressing specific policy measures.
“I fail to understand why the governor is calling the Legislature in for a special session, an expensive undertaking for taxpayers, in the middle of a pandemic, when it is not intended to address the state budget deficit,” Senate Minority Leader Fred Girod (R-Stayton) said in a statement following Brown’s announcement.
Despite possible Republican opposition, McIntosh said she remains optimistic about the economic issues. Democrats hold 18 of Oregon’s 30 Senate seats and 38 of the state’s 60 House seats.
Yet the stakes are high, she said. Four out of 10 Oregon residents rent their homes, and more than 460,000 Oregonians have filed for unemployment.
“We’re really worried about June 30, when the moratorium expires,” McIntosh said. “People do not have the income to pay rent.”
In Wisconsin, a two-month eviction moratorium imposed by Gov. Tony Evers expired May 27. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported June 15 that evictions have jumped in the Milwaukee area by 40%.
“Our top priority is an extension of the eviction moratorium currently set to expire June 30 and a repayment period of six months for tenants to be able to pay back rent or access rent assistance,” McIntosh said.
Legislators face a packed agenda when they meet for the first time face to face at the Capitol since adjourning their even-year short session in early March, right before the pandemic caused shutdowns and stay-home measures.
That session ended in gridlock over cap-and-trade legislation to limit carbon emissions, leaving a number of bills in limbo. One of them, House Bill 4001, directly concerns homelessness.
The bill would have eased restrictions on local governments on the siting of facilities for people experiencing homelessness. It also earmarked millions of dollars to create navigation centers in Salem, Eugene, Bend, Medford and McMinnville. Navigation centers are shelters that operate seven days per week and connect people with health services, permanent housing and public benefits.
Legislators might revisit House Bill 4001 during the special session. Included in the draft of the COVID-19 Response Omnibus Bill are provisions that would:
On police issues, lawmakers may:
Danny Moran, the communications director for House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland), told Street Roots he thinks the police accountability measures stand a good chance with the Democratic majority.
“The speaker considers issues taken up related to the pandemic, housing and police reform all urgent issues of significant importance,” he added.
While legislators will meet in person at the Capitol, they will be observing a wide range of safety protocols in light of the pandemic, including wearing masks on the House and Senate floors. Only legislators and their staff members will be physically inside the building.
Public health professionals from Oregon Health & Science University inspected the Capitol on June 16 to review standards put in place for the session. But the revised procedures leave some questions about what to expect from this session.
“It’s hard to say on the length of the session given the new voting structure due to the pandemic,” Moran said, “but I would anticipate at least more than one day.”
“The state needs to require counties to provide yearlong, adequate shelters — no more only being open only two nights a week.”
Street Roots asked several Oregonians experiencing homelessness what they’d like lawmakers to address with this session.
Kristin Norton recently found shelter after years of being homeless in Oregon, mainly in Washington and Yamhill counties. She said she hopes lawmakers find ways of creating more than temporary emergency shelters if they really want to give people a path to getting off the streets.
“The state needs to require counties to provide yearlong, adequate shelters — no more only being open only two nights a week,” Norton told Street Roots.
Valerie Miller, who lives in an RV in Yamhill County, wants lawmakers to stop local governments and their police from taking punitive actions against the homeless.
“The state needs to strike down all camping tickets and crimes associated with the mere act of living,” Miller told Street Roots. “The money that goes specifically into homeless programs should be strictly monitored and not to these community action partnerships.”
Community action partnerships are local private nonprofit organizations that provide services for people experiencing poverty, but they take in public money in the form of grants and other funding.
“There also should be mandatory training on how to work with the houseless,” Miller said. “I see serious issues with people who speak in generalizations and biased judgments about homeless people based on ‘I work with the homeless.’”
Jimmy Jones, the executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Partnership in Salem, told Street Roots he sees other problems.
MID-WILLAMETTE VALLEY: Homeless residents, advocates take issue with government response
His organization helped provide 5,200 beds at area hotels for 10 weeks at a cost of a half a million dollars, he said. While that helped people through part of the pandemic, people were still packed in too tightly, he said.
“Tight spaces result in viral infections among people who are already vulnerable,” Jones said. “I think we have to do things a little smarter than we’ve done in the past. Folks are suffering from institutional trauma. A lot of them can’t be close to people for long periods of time.”
People should not be crammed together simply because they’re homeless, he added. “There’s some human rights issues at the heart of all this as well,” Jones said.
MULTNOMAH COUNTY: Why is the county sheltering houseless people en masse during COVID-19?
Travis Chulik told Street Roots he appreciated finding respite from homelessness in a hotel — if only for a short period of time. It beat a traditional shelter, he said.
“Shelter at the hotel was helpful when the program started,” Chulik said. “We were in the shelter, having to leave at 7 a.m. and couldn’t check back in until 9 p.m. With the shelter at the hotel, you don’t have to worry about getting up early and wandering the streets in the cold or the heat or the rain.”
EDITORIAL: Open hotel rooms to people on the streets
Shelter could become a hotter issue at the special session than some people might anticipate, Jones said. The situation is more complicated than signing off on a list of proposals. “There’s a lot of disagreement over what needs to be done here,” he said.
In many Oregon towns, the only shelters available to people experiencing homelessness are seasonal warming shelters that open temporarily when temperatures drop below freezing. And now, temporary emergency shelters created to give people somewhere to shelter in place during the pandemic.
MCMINNVILLE: Up against polarization and COVID-19, homeless-service providers find a way
Temporary emergency shelters are only temporary emergency solutions, Jones said. “We don’t have a product at the end of it.”
Lynelle Wilcox, who runs a shelter for women in Salem, told Street Roots that emergency needs must still be met. She said she hopes to see funding for shelters and navigation centers emerge from the Legislature.
“We’re hoping that comes through because right now we have a situation where the city of Salem has approved two parks for camping, but that’s a temporary provision,” Wilcox said. “We fully expect the city to reverse that approval.”
Warming centers stand in particular danger as the pandemic will likely last through the fall and winter months, she said.
“Last year, it was hard to get enough volunteers to open the warming centers,” Wilcox said. “This year, even if every center opens, the capacity is much lower because of the social-distancing requirements.”
Becky Straus, a staff attorney from the Oregon Law Center, submitted written testimony to the House Committee on Rules on Feb. 21 in support of House Bill 4001, saying emergency shelter is important.
“Emergency shelter is not a solution to homelessness, but it is a necessary part of addressing Oregon’s statewide housing crisis at all points on the spectrum of housing insecurity,” Straus told committee members.
RURAL OREGON: A housing crisis beyond Portland's boundaries
Mercedes Elizaide, the public policy director of Central City Concern, also submitted written testimony to the committee. In her Feb. 5 testimony, she advocated in favor for rental vouchers.
She noted that the Oregon Metro Council passed a $650 million housing bond to accelerate the development of affordable housing. “But without rental vouchers, many of these units will remain out of reach for people struggling the most, especially those who are currently experiencing homelessness,” Elizaide told lawmakers.
“Rental vouchers are both a tested and proven way to end someone’s homelessness and prevent future homelessness,” she said. “For the community we serve, a rental voucher alone is not enough, but if paired with effective supportive services, it can permanently end someone’s homelessness.”
McIntosh said she and the Oregon Housing Alliance remain focused on the immediate concerns of the upcoming special session. “We have to prevent eviction and homelessness among people who are unable to pay their rent right now,” she told Street Roots.
Eviction protection lasts longer under the federal CARES Act, but McIntosh said very few Oregonians are eligible for the national safeguards. So, she said, what happens during the upcoming legislative session is critical.
“We don’t know what will happen,” McIntosh said. “During most legislative sessions, there’s a lot of compromise and discussions beforehand. The special session itself is a very limited number of days. We don’t know what to expect this time around.”
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