Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Oregon governor calls special session to prevent evictions over the winter

By Jayati Ramakrishnan Oregonian

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced Tuesday that the Legislature will hold a special session to address preventing evictions for renters.

The special session, set to begin Dec. 13, comes just after the state announced it would stop accepting rental assistance applications until at least mid-January, noting it had already spent or allocated all of the $289 million received in federal emergency rental assistance.

The governor said she met with legislators, landlord associations and housing advocates to discuss a possible session. She said she would propose extending eviction protections for those who have applied for rental assistance, ensuring landlords were paid in full for the rent they’re owed and providing up to $90 million in additional rental assistance to support low-income tenants through the winter.

Brown also said she hopes to provide $100 million to transition from large-scale pandemic-related emergency rental assistance to long-term renter protections.

Charles Boyle, Brown’s spokesperson, said those transitions could include court-based eviction diversion strategies, or assistance with legal representation and tenant outreach and education.

In the past five months, Oregon Housing and Community Services has received nearly 51,000 completed applications for rental assistance. It has paid about 22,000 of those applications, and has allocated funds for approximately another 3,400.

Reactions from local tenant and landlord groups were mixed.

About 60 local housing, health care and labor organizations and local governments announced their support for the session, including SEIU, the Coalition of Communities of Color, Habitat for Humanity Oregon and the cities of Beaverton, Bend, Gresham, Hillsboro and Portland.

The group Stable Homes for Oregon Families said the announcement was “welcome news” for renters facing the threat of eviction.

Deborah Imse, the director of Multifamily NW, which represents housing providers, said that organization didn’t support a special session because it would delay payments to landlords.

“For more than 18 months, thousands of housing providers across Oregon have gone without income,” Imse said. “The state needs to uphold their end of the deal and cut the checks to Oregonians in need.”

Donovan Smith, spokesperson for the renters rights group Community Alliance of Tenants, said the organization is pleased the governor has taken some action to prevent further evictions.

But he said the renters rights organization has been pushing not only for an extension of the evictions moratorium, but also major protections for all tenants – not just the ones who have applied for rental assistance. The organization presented its demands at a meeting with Brown earlier this month. The proposal included providing compensation to evicted tenants to cover the cost of moving and other losses and a moratorium on evictions until June 2023.

“This doesn’t change the fact that OERAP shuts down tomorrow night,” Smith said. “We want to see sweeping protections that don’t allow people to fall deeper into the evictions crisis.”