Bills offering millions to confront homelessness speed through the Capitol
The 2023 Oregon Legislature may well be remembered as the session when the governor and lawmakers devoted more than $200 million to confront homelessness.
Or so hopes state Rep. Mark Gamba, D-Portland.
"At sine die, we will look back at this bill as one of the seminal, the critical, bills of this session," Gamba said March 7 as House Bill 2001 passed the Joint Committee on Ways and Means subcommittee on transportation and economic development.
Subcommittee members sent the bill to the full Joint Committee on Ways and Means March 10 where it approved by a 19-4 margin. House Bill 5019, a companion bill providing funding, was approved by the committee immediately thereafter by 18-5.
The House of Representatives passed House Bill 5019 during a March 15 floor session by a vote of 49-10.
The 10 Republicans who voted against the bill were
Shelly Boshart Davis of Albany Jami Cate of Lebanon Ed Diehl of Salem Christine Goodwin of Canyonville, Rick Lewis of Silverton Emily McIntire of Klamath Falls, Lily Morgan of Grants Pass, Virgle Osborne of Roseburg, E. Werner Reschke of Crater Lake and Brian Stout of Columbia City.
The House passed HB 2001 during the same floor session. State Rep. Rick Lewis, R-Silverton (who voted against HB 5019) voted in favor of the bill.
Otherwise, the same Republicans who voted against HB 5019 voted against HB 2001.
State Rep. Khanh Pham, D-Portland, said during the March 10 committee meeting that she wants the bills presented to Gov. Tina Kotek by the end of this month.
Republicans voting against House Bill 2001 on March 10 were senators Lynn Findlley of Vale and Fred Girod of Stayton as well as representatives Jami Cate of Lebanon and E. Werner Reschke of Crater Lake.
State Rep. Rick Lewis, R-Silverton, joined the same Republicans in voting against House Bill 5019.
"That's just standing on the rooftop dumping money off in buckets," Girod said of the spending bill. "I hope we have proper accountability that goes along with that."
State Rep. Tawna Sanchez, D-Portland, who co-chairs the Ways and Means Committee, said the Legislature will balance the budget, but highlighted the importance of House Bill 2001.
"We are putting a lot of resources in the direction we feel is absolutely necessary at this moment," Sanchez said. "Just be clear, it is our job to have a balanced budget at the end of this session. We will have a balanced budget, and we will make hard decisions about what we can and cannot spend money on. That's not going to make everybody happy."
Cate was the only Republican to vote against HB 2001 in the subcommittee.
"While this bill does a lot of good and things that we need, it does not go far enough in my opinion and does not do enough," Cate said. "It really doesn't do anything to increase our ability to build houses in the immediate future.”
Nonetheless, the bill enjoyed widespread bipartisan support.
"The perfect is the enemy of the good, and this is a very good bill that does a lot of things," said state Rep. Kevin Mannix, R-Salem, one of the more conservative voices at the Capitol. "I do believe it will do a lot of things that will have an immediate impact on our capability to expand our housing and to expand housing in rural areas."
Mannix added housing efforts remain hampered by Oregon's "old, idiosyncratic" land-use laws, which he said provide too little authority to county and local governments. Those laws need to be dramatically rethought, he told his colleagues on the subcommittee.
"That's not in front of us today," Mannix said. "What is in front of us is the product of a tremendous amount of work with a very visionary approach."
Before being sent to the subcommittee, members of the House Committee on Housing and Homelessness approved HB 2001 during a Feb. 28 work session by a vote of 5-2 (with three legislators excused).
Cate serves on that committee as well and was joined in her dissenting voice by state Rep. Boomer Wright, R-Florence.
"Not that I don't believe this is a good bill," Wright said during the Feb. 28 work session. "I think it's a bill that's a work in progress."
State Rep. Court Boice, R-Gold Beach, shared his fellow Republicans' concerns but expressed his support.
"I look at everyone here as my teammate, and we're all here for the same reasons," he concluded. "We all have it in our hearts to make a difference and have that commitment. So I'm going to have a courtesy ‘yes.’"
HB 2001 is part of a package that includes House Bill 5019. The former provides plans for addressing homelessness while the latter ponies up the money. Both bills passed through committees by the same margin.
DIRECTOR'S DESK: Oregon HB 2001 addresses homelessness statewide
With the two bills, three committee chairs outlined a proposal Feb. 22 that provides $130 million toward Gov. Tina Kotek's Jan. 11 call for emergency funding to confront homelessness in Portland and other hard-hit communities. Lawmakers proposed $27 million in additional funding for 25 rural counties.
The committee chairs outlining the proposal last week were state Reps. Maxine Dexter and David Gomberg and state Sen. Kayse Jama.
Dexter, D-Portland, chairs the House Committee on Housing and Homelessness. Jama, D-Portland, chairs the Senate Committee on Housing and Development. Gomberg, D-Lincoln County, co-chairs the Joint Committee on Ways and Means as well as its subcommittee on transportation and economic development.
The package includes:
- $33.6 million to prevent homelessness statewide.
- $85.2 million to rehouse people and expand shelter capacity in emergency areas.
- $27.4 million to rehouse people and expand shelter capacity in the other 26 counties.
- $5 million to federally recognized tribes.
- $3.9 million for the emergency management response for agencies to provide technical assistance.
"We must not stop here," Kotek told Committee on Housing and Homelessness members Feb. 28.
"I'm urging you to make this investment now and then build upon it in the 23-24 biennium budget process," she said. "My recommended budget urges you to make significant additional investments to rehouse and prevent homelessness for more Oregonians, build and preserve more housing units statewide and increase home ownership."
Lawmakers said the bills help the state meet Kotek's goal of building 36,000 affordable housing units annually by speeding up production, breaking through barriers, financing the development of affordable homes using Oregon materials and creating jobs in Oregon.
State officials will work with local governments to:
- Create and start housing production strategies.
- Streamline urbanization processes.
- Clarify responsibilities for local governments across the state.
Because each jurisdiction has a unique set of needs, the lawmakers said each local government will create their own housing production strategy with the support of the Department of Land Conservation and Development to increase affordable housing production.
If production goals aren’t met, department officials will be able to hold local governments accountable.
"This creates a true partnership between the cities and the state, a mutual accountability and mutual assistance comes into play with this bill," Gamba said when the bills were before the Committee on Housing and Homelessness. "If we all view this as a game plan between teammates, we will realize the benefits to all it offers."
Not everyone wants to play ball.
Officials from several cities told committee members they don't appreciate the state looking over their shoulders.
"Quitely honestly, I don't see the need for this," City Manager Brian Latta of Dallas told committee members. "Cities want and need to build housing."
Housing is already too expensive to build because of state regulations, Latta said. Dealing with a state audit would only make matters worse, he said.
"It takes time away from our planner to work with our developers and contractors to produce more housing to work on an audit," Latta said.
Mayor Lucy Vinis of Eugene complained that legislators promised there would be more time for local officials to work through a housing needs analysis.
"And yet it is being packed into an emergency homeless response bill," Vinis said. "Our staff are beyond capacity and have been for quite some time. Each year, the Legislature or governor is adding more on to our plate, many times without adequate resources to support these new mandates."
Vinis added the process has been rushed.
"While we acknowledge we all have a part to play in addressing housing and homelessness crises, simply throwing responsibility onto cities without understanding the issues we're dealing with is reckless and does not build partnership in governance," she said.
State Rep. Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, bristled at Vinis' use of the word "reckless."
"The roots of the policy that is contained in this bill can be traced back to 2019 and House Bill 2003 that developed a methodology to assess our housing needs and conduct a regional housing needs analysis and developed cities to develop housing construction strategies," she said.
Those bills were co-sponsored by Kotek when she was the speaker of the house.
"I am the only co-sponsor of that bill that is still in the Legislature," Fahey said. "The housing needs analysis sections of this (current) bill are the result of a tremendous amount of work over many years — people passing the baton to each other through this relay race — to get to this point.
"It was disappointing to me personally to hear my city come before us and use the word 'reckless' about that process and proposal — especially since I have the context of that four-year history in the relay race.”
Some city officials expressed more enthusiasm for the legislation. Mayor Melanie Kebler of Bend stated her support, as did Grants Pass City Councilor Vanessa Ogier.
"Communities like mine desperately need these types of financial investments from the state," Ogier told committee members. "Grants Pass does have a successful experience with one transitional housing village, and we are in need of more of these types of housing."
Sean Edging, the housing planner for the Land Conservation and Development Commission, said state officials are looking to help local governments through the housing production strategies rather than punish them.
"It's a requirement that the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) evaluate a city's progress on production, affordability and choice and periodically refer some folks to an audit where we look at a variety of state and local barriers that could be inhibiting the development of housing and making recommendations," Edging told lawmakers.
Dave Hunnicutt of the Oregon Property Owners Association of King City said he likes how the bill works with local governments.
"It provides a wide variety of tools for DLCD and the commission to use to ensure that cities are meeting their housing production targets," Hunnicutt said. "It's not just a top-down, punitive piece of legislation. There will be efforts and abilities of the agency to help cities meet their targets, not just punish them when they don't."
Gamba said much of the data for local housing needs analyses already exist, but local officials still need to examine the depletion of the housing stock by the proliferation of vacation rentals and Airbnbs as well as private equity groups who buy properties to quickly drive up housing prices.
"Our intention is that if a city finds some aspect of this beyond their means or capability, the state is there to offer assistance," he said. "Our plea to the cities is that we all work together to maximize the construction of new housing as quickly as possible."
Mary Kyle McCurdy of 1,000 Friends of Oregon testified that the land-use planning advocates in her organization want to hold local governments accountable through legislation.
"It ensures that every city is given a target to meet its housing needs at income levels," McCurdy said.
While incentives and technical assistance are nice, she said, "accountability is a key and critical part of that."
State Rep. Jeff Helfrich, R-Gresham, said he supports the bill but thinks more needs to be done to make it easier for developers to hit the housing targets.
"House Bill 2001 simply does not significantly reduce the red tape or overall cost of developing more housing supply," Helfrich told his fellow housing committee members. "This bill is not the end of our work, but it's a good start."
Nico Serrs of Community Vision, a Portland nonprofit organization that serves Oregonians with disabilities, urged committee members to keep accessibility issues in mind with new housing.
Lawmakers often listen to people with disabilities, Serrs said — at least at first.
"We often make an impression, but those impressions don't always turn into real change," he said. "People with serious health concerns are the biggest missing link in the homelessness strategy and understanding how we can be there for one another as a society.
"I know we can do better, and I have to believe that."
The legislation encourages modular housing as a means of cutting building costs, but Whitley Sullivan of the Oregon Manufactured Housing Association told lawmakers they don't apparently understand the difference between modular and manufactured housing.
Manufactured homes are built in factories and transported along highways according to federal Housing and Urban Development regulations. Modular homes can be built in pieces to local and state building codes, built-in pieces and constructed on site.
Last year, Oregon companies built 2,500 manufactured homes. By contrast, they built 32 modular units. Sullivan suggested lawmakers tweak the legislation to include manufactured housing.
The first person to speak at the committee's Feb. 28 public hearing and work session was the governor herself.
"We're here because the human suffering caused by the housing crisis is one of the most daunting emergencies we have ever faced in our beautiful state," Kotek told committee members. "Business as usual is simply not enough. We must work together across all levels of government and across party lines to make the immediate and long-term changes that this humanitarian crisis requires."
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