Many Oregonians still waiting for rental assistance

Published 8:42 am Thursday, April 7, 2022

The Oregon Housing and Community Services Department said that as of Wednesday, it has made $319.3 million in emergency rental assistance payments to landlords on behalf of 48,313 Oregon households since the U.S. Treasury made the first federal funds available in May 2021.

But it has received a total of 105,082 applications. (Because of duplicate applications, the actual number of households applying is closer to 100,000, state officials say. A household can get assistance only once.)

State law shields tenants from eviction proceedings while their applications for assistance are pending, if they show proof to their landlords. The shield ends when the application is approved or denied. The law also set Feb. 28 as the deadline for payment of past-due rent, going back to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic on April 1, 2020.

March 21 was the deadline, and it resulted in a final statewide surge of 13,592 applications for the month. The program paused applications on Dec. 1, reopened on Jan. 26, and was scheduled to close March 14. But Oregon got a last-minute allocation of $16 million in federal funds that went unspent in other states and communities. State officials still hope for a greater share of the additional $198 million they requested from the Treasury.

Five counties and the city of Portland got federal funds separately for their own rental assistance programs, and their totals are not reflected in the state agency figures.

The Oregon Legislature approved $200 million from the state budget for emergency rental assistance in a special session in December 2020, when prospects for federal aid appeared uncertain. That $200 million was spent by the close of the two-year state budget cycle in June 2021.

Oregon got an initial $289 million for emergency rental assistance from the U.S. Treasury, which allocated money that Congress approved as part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, President Joe Biden’s pandemic recovery plan. That $289 million has been spent or committed.

The program has continued with $100 million more that the Legislature approved from the current state budget in December 2021, plus $16 million more from the Treasury, and $13 million that the state housing agency shifted from housing stabilization programs. Oregon also got $1.1 million from the Treasury late last year.

State law shields tenants from eviction proceedings while their applications for assistance are pending, if they show proof to their landlords. The shield ends when the application is approved or denied. The law also set Feb. 28 as the deadline for payment of past-due rent, going back to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic on April 1, 2020.

Tenants can call Oregon Law Center’s Eviction Defense Project at 888-585-9638 or evictiondefense@oregonlawcenter.org.

According to an online dashboard hosted by the state Housing and Community Services Department, Oregonians applying for emergency rental assistance represent the state’s diversity. Specifically:

49% of the applicants are white

13% are Latino/Hispanic

10% are Black

4% report being of two or more races

3% are American Indian/Alaska Native

2% are Asian

1% are Hawaiian/Pacific Islander

The rest of the applicants declined to answer the question or are of an undetermined race or ethnicity (which are tracked as separate categories).