When Rae Bloodgood applied for the Oregon Emergency Rental Assistance Program (OERAP) in June, she knew she wasn’t going to be able to pay July rent — and likely not August or September either. Now August, Bloodgood said her application for the three months of rent is still pending approval.
“I have a fear of being evicted in this housing market,” Bloodgood said. “It just puts a red stamp on you, where it’s going to be incredibly hard to find a place right now.”
Bloodgood moved from the east coast to Portland in January 2020 after her fiancé passed away, and due to the pandemic, found herself unable to make ends meet and living in her van through the winter. After a series of unstable and unsafe housing situations through the spring and summer, Bloodgood finally collected enough from unemployment and freelance work as a musician to secure an apartment in northeast Portland.
“My housing right now is typically last minute, but this is my little dream apartment,” Bloodgood said, adding she’s not sure how long she’ll be able to keep her dream apartment, though the OERAP may be her best chance.
Bloodgood joins more than 26,000 other renters throughout Oregon who have applied for aid through the OERAP. The application system was flooded shortly after opening May 19, according to Oregon Housing & Community Services (OHCS) representative Connor McDonnell, highlighting the high demand for those trying to avoid eviction or unmanageable debt in the form of back rent.
Bloodgood, as a resident of Portland, lives in what has been one of the slowest moving areas in the state for dispersing aid; Multnomah County.
According to the OERAP weekly report dashboard, not a single renter in Multnomah County has received aid, as of Aug. 9. In fact, the vast majority of Multnomah County applications have not been viewed at all; 6,951 of the 9,367 complete applications are still pending initial review. Stunningly, $0 has been paid out in the most populous county in the state, despite the county already approving more than $1.56 million for the 238 applicants, a small fraction of the total applications.
The aid program is funded by the U.S. Treasury and administered at the state level by Oregon Housing and Community Services. Local administrators are primarily community action agencies, which in Multnomah County is the Multnomah County Human Services.
Thus far, the countdown to the expiration of federal, state and county eviction protections has outpaced the money being distributed.
The state’s eviction moratorium, in place in different iterations since April 2020, expired June 30, but renters receive 60 days of protection if they apply for OERAP and submit documentation to their landlord. The grace period is 90 days in Multnomah County.
An extended federal eviction moratorium will end Oct. 3, though it is expected to face potential legal issues.
Additionally, tenants have until Feb. 28, 2022, to pay back rent. The average OERAP request amount is nearly $8,000, indicating many renters are significantly behind and relying on OERAP to make a dent in the back rent and utilities, even if they are able to pay their current monthly rent.
Regardless, there are little to no protections in place for renters who can’t pay their rent if they don’t receive approval — and funding — prior to the expiration of the eviction moratorium and grace periods, and many renters are still unsure of their status.
“I’m suspended in ‘Am I going to lose my home?’” Bloodgood said.
Oregon has the money to help many renters like Bloodgood, with a total of $280 million in funding approved for the OERAP, compared to the $191.89 million requested by renters by Aug. 9 — but that assistance may not come in time.
Many OERAP applicants, including those who applied as soon as they could, have yet to hear anything regarding the status of their applications.
“As far as the processing of applications, the program officially launched with the portal being open to applicants on May (19th), and we continue to hear from the local administrators their capacity constraints related to (processing) applications with the higher demand of services and resources that have been deployed during COVID,” McDonnell explained.
Nonprofits and city agencies, according to McDonnell, are not equipped to process the number of applications they received in an expedited manner.
“As an example, one local partner has highlighted that in (the) pre-COVID pandemic year they assisted 800 households with rent assistance per year,” McDonnell said. “During the last year, with new resources, they served 800 households per month, and with (OERAP) they are anticipating serving 1,500 per month. Over one year this is 18,000.”
Oregon Housing & Community Services has been “ramping up capacity” with nearly 60 staff assisting with the processing of OERAP applications, while local administrators continue to add staff to meet the strains on their systems, according to McDonnell.
Interestingly, Clark County, Washington, a county with almost half the population of Multnomah County and a fraction of the funding and local community organizations, has distributed more rental assistance than the entire state of Oregon.
Clark County distributed $10,995,017 to 1,433 households, between March and July 17. On average, 100 households are receiving assistance per week, and approximately $750,000 of utility and rent assistance are going out to the community.
As of July 19, Clark County has made funding available for 3700 households that are 50% of the Area Median Income (AMI) and who have been negatively affected by COVID-19 to receive rental and utilities financial assistance, including arrears, according to Michael A. Torres, director of Clark County Community Action, Housing and Development Program.
This assistance breaks down to 2,400 households applying directly for assistance, 1,000 applications coming from landlords on behalf of their tenants, and 300 households receiving assistance that are currently going through, or will go through, a dispute resolution process with their landlord.
“We will make additional rental and utility assistance available to the community as soon as our community service providers have the staffing and fiscal capacity to provide the assistance, which is the biggest challenge so far,” Torres said. “We continue to work with all our providers to help them increase their service capacity in as short a timeline as possible. We are currently working with 12 different organizations to provide assistance. The amount of publicly-funded rental and utility assistance put out to the community so far is unprecedented: the numbers above are approximately 6 times all the rental assistance that normally goes out in an entire year.”
So, in a county with more funding and resources, why is Multnomah’s application process so delayed?
A failure in infrastructure appears to play a significant role in OERAP delays, at least according to city agencies. Portland’s systems addressing housing assistance have not always found prioritization within the city’s governing bodies — this is not unrelated to the city’s racist history. At least, McDonnell seems to draw this connection.
“There has historically not been the rental assistance and affordable housing options to meet the needs of Oregonians and Americans, especially those of color,” he said.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, reports from advocacy organizations such as the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) have estimated that there was only enough federal rental assistance to serve approximately 20% of households that qualify.
Also prior to COVID-19, McDonnell said OHCS through its local partners provided approximately $17 million annually in rental assistance resources, compared to the more than $200 million in rental assistance under the purview of OHCS and local partners.
“We have more work to do, [such as] adding surge capacity and expediting rent payments for Oregonians who have applied for the Oregon Emergency Rental Assistance Program,” McDonnell said.
But for those fearing imminent eviction, like Bloodgood, governmental self-awareness perhaps isn’t enough.
“I’m going to be 30 next week, and I’m so grateful for the opportunities that I’ve had, but it is still taken out of my hands once it gets to that agency that isn’t operating properly,” Bloodgood said. “They’ve got to figure out what’s going on.”