Oregon lawmakers say they want renters to stay in their homes, but advocates on both sides of the threshold — landlords and renters — say what’s on the table today in Salem doesn’t go far enough.
Members of the House Interim Committee on Housing discussed proposed legislation on Nov. 23 that would allow landlords to apply for state grants to reimburse them for 80% of unpaid rent accrued since April 1. Landlords would forgive the remaining 20%.
If awarded the grants, landlords couldn’t evict tenants for nonpayment of rent until July 1, 2021, provided tenants signed a legal document declaring financial hardship.
Katrina Holland, the executive director of the Portland housing advocacy group JOIN, was more than unimpressed with the proposal. She was angry.
“If I’m 100% honest, I’m currently fighting every fiber of my being in my body to avoid anger, expressing anger due to exhaustion and exasperation with my fellow human beings,” Holland said.
“This legislative concept isn’t bold,” she said. “I believe we do have a long way to go to rise to the unprecedented occasion that contextualizes us in unprecedented circumstance.”
The proposed legislation would set aside $100 million for grants to landlords. “The reality is we need hundreds of millions,” Holland told committee members.
Many tenants will still face eviction and homelessness, she said, “once the moratorium expires, when the grace period to repay is over, when this money runs out, or when a tenant realizes they’ve missed the time frame to let their landlord know that they qualified for the moratorium.”
Holland raised one of the few voices of dissent during the Zoom meeting where state Rep. Julie Fahey (D-Eugene) called the draft of the legislation a necessary action to protect renters economically staggered by the pandemic.
In early August, Fahey convened a stakeholder work group to look at ideas.
“Those conversations have been going on for several months, and we landed on this idea of a fund where landlords could apply on behalf of all of their tenants at once, which is what we are calling the Landlord Compensation Fund,” Fahey said.
The proposal was developed out of a stakeholder work group including legislators, tenant advocates and landlord groups charged with finding ways to keep Oregonians housed even as the pandemic rages on.
“The work group worked along the shared objective of wanting to prevent evictions and long-term homelessness while also stabilizing the rental housing market,” she said.
“Both aspects of this proposal, the eviction moratorium and the landlord fund, work together to make sure we can keep people housed during the pandemic, and that tenants aren’t carrying unsustainable amounts of rental debt and landlords can be compensated for their unpaid debt,” she said.
Lawmakers could pass the legislation in December if Gov. Kate Brown calls a special session of the Legislature to address housing in advance of next year’s regular session.
In a Nov. 18 statement, House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland) called on Brown to convene such a session since Congress is unlikely to pass another COVID-19 relief package this year.
“We need to use some portion of the state’s reserves as soon as possible to help struggling Oregonians and small businesses through the winter months,” Kotek said. “I am particularly interested in seeing the state spend $100 million to keep Oregonians housed and stabilize the rental market as the pandemic continues into 2021.”
For landlords to apply for grants for all of their financially beleaguered renters at the same time, each tenant would have to file a statement of financial hardship.
“This bill,” Holland said, “mandates that a tenant attest to the person that they owe thousands of dollars to — that also has the power to make them homeless, by the way — that they can’t continue to pay rent anymore, and that they qualify for the moratorium.
“Many times, these types of conversations escalate into harassment and invite unwanted targeting,” she said. “At the beginning of the pandemic, we heard many stories of notices being sent to tenants that were threatening in nature with language that was like, ‘Pay your rent or live on the street.’
“Under this bill, landlords could still get their money and still evict their tenants — potentially making them homeless after the state has spent millions of dollars stabilizing the financial situation of landlords, but only relieving time-limited rent debts for tenants,” Holland said.
Loren Naldoza, the legislative and communications manager of the Oregon Housing Alliance, told committee members it’s nonetheless important for the Legislature to extend the eviction moratorium — originally set to expire at the end of the year.
“Certainly this is not the time to let fundamental protections expire as things are getting worse, not better,” Naldoza told lawmakers.
“Along with the conjoined economic depression and the colder weather coming in, a continuation of an eviction moratorium — especially for Oregonians most impacted by this pandemic — is needed now more than ever,” he said.
The U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey found that 12% of Oregon renters were behind on rent and 30% had trouble covering their usual household expenses within a seven-day period, according to Oct. 14-Nov. 9 data compiled by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
“Families of color have been particularly hit by COVID, both impacts of job loss and the virus due to systemic racism, which has kept many in precarious or low-wage jobs,” Naldoza said, citing the survey.
“Renters who owe back rent owe an average of about $2,700, which could be solved through rent assistance,” he said.
“For someone who has lost their job, this may feel like an insurmountable task,” he said. “As COVID cases rise and more Oregonians opt to stay home rather than go out or lose work again for those who are in service sector jobs, it is not unreasonable to assume that more Oregonians will begin to fall behind.”
Exactly, Holland said.
“These thousands of people I’m referencing have rent debt that for the vast majority will doom their chances of housing stability after losing where they’re at now, or send folks who have never dealt with rent instability into the tailspin that it is, even with this bill in place,” she said.
As proposed, the legislation is far too weak to have any significant effect, said Holland.
“Instead, it feels like I’m walking into a scenario where we’re trying to keep together this attempt at a solution that will still wind up with thousands of people in the street nearly homeless,” she said.
Naldoza acknowledged the legislation is far from a permanent solution.
“The state eviction moratorium simply delays the requirement to pay,” he said.
“These rent bills will still come due as the moratorium ends,” he said. “While these discussions continue, the basic protection of keeping people in their homes is still critical to preventing a houselessness crisis of enormous proportions and the further spread of COVID.”
Extending the eviction moratorium is no small matter for struggling families, Naldoza said.
“Families will have a roof over their heads as weather gets colder,” he said. “Children will be able to do their homework at home, not in a parking lot, and the Legislature can limit their crises instead of creating an even larger houseleness crisis.
“As the Legislature considers other measures to curb the growth of COVID in Oregon and deliver much-needed housing assistance to Oregonians, we cannot emulate other states who have decided to lift their eviction moratoria and suffer unfortunate, predictable and preventable results,” he said.
Lawmakers initially thought they could offer more than $100 million in grants because they anticipated additional federal aid in June. When the aid failed to materialize, they looked toward August and again this fall. They continue to hope.
“Until that package arrives, we urge the state Legislature to consider spending general fund dollars to help provide rental assistance paired with an extension of the eviction moratorium,” Naldoza said.
Sybil Hebb of the Oregon Law Center said housing stability is matter of life and death for her clients.
“That is true across the state in every community,” Hebb told lawmakers.
“This is particularly true for our clients who are people of color,” she said. “We know that these communities are already at greater risk of housing instability and rent insecurity due to many policies that have contributed to systemic racism, lower rates of home ownership and higher rates of housing cost burden.”
Similar grant programs to the one proposed for Oregon have been created in Washington and Colorado.
“The basic underlying fundamental value that we heard from both of those states, and really from other states as well, is that simplicity is the key to success,” Hebb said. “Administrative barriers, the more you can reduce them, the better because you want victims’ dollars to get out to the needy folks as quickly as possible.”
No, the money won’t reach everyone, she said. But properly administered, Hebb said, it can reach as many people as possible as soon as possible.
The program would be administered by the Oregon Housing and Community Services Department with local public housing services troubleshooting any problems that arise.
“Even with more than $300 million in additional resources this year, we know we aren’t meeting the need of every Oregonian,” Caleb Yant, the acting executive director of Housing & Community Services, told committee members.
“The Oregon Statewide Housing Plan outlines that more Oregonians are living in poverty now than during the Great Recession, and at 27%, over a quarter of Oregon renters had a severe housing cost burden before that pandemic,” Yant said. “That means they spend more than half of their income on rent.”
Landlords and their representatives expressed misgivings about the proposed program. Jason Miller, the executive director of the Oregon Rental Housing Association, told committee members the legislation needs more built-in guarantees for landlords.
“Some tenants have taken advantage of the moratorium,” he said. “Legislation should include a mechanism to prevent fraud, encourage communication between residents and housing providers, allow housing providers to evict without delay those who are not in need yet refusing to pay rent, and not allow residents to provide declarations of need at the last minute but rather at the first court appearance.”
He also advocated for a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for the 20% landlords would have to forgive in unpaid rent.
Sage Coleman, the president of the association’s board, added that landlords already suffer because of the eviction moratorium Brown first declared through an executive order on April 1. That followed a March 22 executive order prohibiting police from enforcing evictions.
“Our thousands of members across the state are suffering financial hardship with the added psychological torture of having basic rights removed while being alienated from their resident clients,” Coleman said. “The executive order is causing incredible harm to the fabric of Oregon’s housing sector.”
Holland said she finds it hard to sympathize with landlords compared with people shivering in the rain and freezing temperatures for lack of housing.
“Bottom line, they have an option,” she said of landlords. “It’s still there. Renters threatened with homelessness? They have no option. On their side of the scale, they face eviction on their rental history, negative future landlord references, limited social service options for rent assistance, bankruptcy and, quite frankly, the streets.”
For every landlord that sells a rental property, Holland estimated, at least 5 to 10 people become homeless.
“Every concession that you make, every compromise you fold to, every process you put in place that can be a barrier increases the likelihood that more people on that horrible side of the impact scale will jump onto its weight,” she told lawmakers.
“That is the on-the-ground impact your decisions will have,” she added. “That is the on-the-ground impact of every concession housing providers are asking for. They may not want to say it that way, but I promise you as someone who deals with that, that is what happens.”
John VanLandingham of the Oregon Law Center said the legislation remains a work in progress.
He assured landlords that renters who lie about their economic status risk criminal charges for perjury. In addition, if the tenant does not provide that declaration of financial hardship, the landlord can start eviction proceedings on Jan. 1.
State Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer (D-Portland) serves on the interim housing committee and said she wants to see the legislation include penalties for landlords who harass their tenants or retaliate against them.
She said she also wants to see more than $100 million allocated to the program with the state’s financial reserves being better than predicted.
“I can’t think of a better way to use resources than keeping people in their homes,” Keny-Guyer said.
Fahey reiterated her call for a special session, but Holland warned about the consequences of flawed legislation.
“Passing this bill in this current state of heavy and deep compromises will result in massive numbers of people experiencing everything I just described,” she said.