OPINION | House Bill 2001 expands on Gov. Kotek's homelessness state of emergency
People across the state are struggling with homelessness, and it’s not always easy to see. Not only are people in tents, but also in RVs and campers without access to water or electricity, doubled and tripled up in over-burdened spaces and lined up on shelter mats.
Housing precarity is widespread. It’s clearly on the minds of Oregon lawmakers working on a wide number of bills that Street Roots’ freelance legislative reporter, Tom Henderson, has covered over the last few weeks.
Now, many bills have been packaged into a mega-bill of sorts — Oregon House Bill 2001 — which, as of press time, The House Committee on Housing and Homelessness was reviewing in public hearing.
Originally designed to study housing needs across the state, House Bill 2001 is now loaded with amendments originating from other bills. These amendments include a statewide state of emergency, alleviating student homelessness, housing for farmworkers, affordable housing development and tenant protections.
Homelessness emergency
House Bill 2001 expands an executive order Gov. Tina Kotek introduced on her first day in office. She ordered a state of emergency for all regions that experienced a rise in homelessness by 50% since 2017, as measured by the annual statewide Point-in-Time Count mandated by the federal government (always, by its design, an undercount). Look beneath the surface, and this approach fell short.
The Point-in-Time Count is led by federally designated “continua of care.” For those in Multnomah County, the continuum of care is the Joint Office of Homeless Services, for example. However, many areas of the state — the Oregon Coast, Albany, Corvallis, Eastern Oregon, the Columbia River Gorge and Southern Oregon, except Medford and Ashland — lack their own continuum of care. Instead, the state lumps together these 26 counties into what’s described as a “Rural Oregon Continuum of Care.” Really, they were left out of the first emergency order because, added up and averaged, the rise of homelessness was lower than 50% since 2017. Yet these 26 counties are incredibly varied, and any needs disappeared among such crude mathematics.
House Bill 2001 seeks to fix that original shortcoming, covering the entire state with this state of homelessness emergency.
That’s a good thing.
Youth homelessness
It’s too easy for the public to miss the extent of youth homelessness. As Ellen Clarke reports on page 4, the federal McKinney-Vento Act seeks to shine more focus on the extent of this widespread instability for kids. Otherwise, the needs of these families might be missed.
House Bill 2001 includes amendments to direct funds to families of kids who are homeless by setting up an “Emergency Housing Account” through The Housing and Community Services Department to direct housing funds to these families.
Yes, to more funds that get directly to these families.
Modular housing funding
This package provides $20 million in funding for modular housing in areas where wildfires spread, as well as statewide for low- and middle-income families.
Modular housing can be faster to put up, as well as cheaper to produce. It’s an important path to creating more housing.
Farmworker housing
The package also provides grants to improve the health and safety of farmworker housing. Farmworkers suffer substandard housing far from the eyes of the consumer grabbing the produce they picked in the grocery store. It’s important that House Bill 2001 includes this funding.
Affordable housing predevelopment grants
The production of housing is slow. These grants get that process going so that local governments and housing providers can purchase land and do all the planning ahead of building housing.
Tenant protections
These tenant protections require communications to tenants who fall behind on rent, so they can, ideally, access rent assistance and stay in housing. It also creates a longer runway between when they are served eviction notice to when they are evicted (changing from 72 hours to 10 days).
Too much homelessness is created by eviction, and as Piper McDaniel has covered in the past, it’s too easy to push people into eviction. Once the eviction is on their record, they are hard-pressed to get back inside, so these amendments also streamline the expungement process so more people can clear their records. That would certainly help many people on the streets.
A lot can happen to this bill before it hits the House and Senate floors. It’s good that House Bill 2001 tackles many vantage points, including keeping people housed and making sure there’s more housing ahead. Let’s keep our eye on what happens as it moves to the Ways and Means Committee — and get ready to testify!
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