Oregon’s housing agency will stop accepting new applications for emergency rent assistance beginning Thursday, two weeks before lawmakers are scheduled to hold a special session to address shortfalls in funding and eviction protections for renters in need.
Oregon Housing and Community Services announced last month that it would stop accepting rent assistance applications for at least six weeks because of a lack of federal funding.
Agency Director Margaret Salazar said Wednesday that the application process could reopen sooner if state lawmakers allocate additional funding to the program during this month’s special session, which is set to begin Dec. 13. Gov. Kate Brown has called for lawmakers to provide up to $90 million in additional rental assistance and $100 million for local agencies to deliver more robust long-term renter protections.
Salazar said Wednesday that the agency has also requested an additional $198 million from the federal government, but doesn’t expect to know until the spring if it will be granted the additional funding.
Without additional money from the state or federal government, Salazar said her agency believes it will still have enough funds to help renters who already applied to the Oregon Emergency Rental Assistance Program. But, she said, there wouldn’t be available funding for future applicants.
The agency has paid out $157 million to support more than 23,000 renters through the program so far and has $132 million in additional funds to distribute. About 32,000 renters have submitted applications that are in the review process or still need to be reviewed.
But the move to temporarily close the program to new applications could have severe consequences for struggling renters who have not yet applied for rent assistance, especially those in rural parts of the state.
Oregon renters are currently protected from eviction for 60 days after they apply for rent assistance and notify their landlords. Multnomah County extended the window to 90 days, as did Washington County for unincorporated communities.
Salazar urged renters who have not yet applied to call 211 or apply for help through local agencies to get access to the eviction protections after the state program closes its portal Thursday. Multnomah, Clackamas, Washington, Marion and Lane counties all received direct funding from the federal government for their own rent assistance programs and are continuing to accept applications.
However, renters in counties that didn’t receive direct funding from the federal government may not have access to rent assistance with the program’s closure, leaving them without options to access help or eviction protections.
“That’s why we’re so pleased that the governor has made this call for additional rental assistance resources from the state because right now, there are not a lot of great options for those folks in rural communities to be able to access rental assistance,” Salazar said.
Renters across the state are also continuing to face evictions because Oregon has been unable to process applications within the 60- and 90-day windows. As of mid-November, roughly 13,000 Oregon Emergency Rental Assistance applications had been sitting for more than 60 days or 90 days in Multnomah County, putting those renters in danger of eviction.
Lawmakers are expected to change eviction protection rules during the special session to ensure that renters who have applied for assistance won’t see their protections time out because of the state’s inability to process applications quickly enough.
There were 1,719 eviction filings for nonpayment across the state between July and October and 465 from Nov. 1-28, according to data compiled by the Oregon Law Center. Those numbers don’t include renters who moved out before their landlords could take them to court.
“Any eviction while tenants are waiting on rent assistance processing is unnecessary and preventable,” said Becky Straus, a lawyer for the Oregon Law Center. “Lawmakers made this promise to Oregonians when they set up the safe harbor protections in the first place. We are asking lawmakers to keep this promise by passing legislation that keeps individuals and families in their homes while they’re waiting on help.”
Deborah Imse, executive director of Multifamily NW, a rental industry group whose members include a mix of large and small landlords and property managers, said extending eviction protections through a special session won’t fix the core problem that the state can’t cut checks in a timely fashion.
“The state has refused to accept any accountability for the mismanagement of this program and we simply cannot support a special session that will delay disbursement of promised funds yet again,” Imse said in an emailed statement. “The state needs to uphold their end of the deal and cut the checks to Oregonians in need.”
— Jamie Goldberg; jgoldberg@oregonian.com; @jamiebgoldberg
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