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Across Oregon, 13,097 total households are now eligible for eviction because the state failed to get rent relief checks to their landlords quickly enough.
That’s a 9% increase from last month, when the number was just under 12,000 households eligible for eviction. The number represents how many renters applied for rental assistance either 60 or 90 days ago, depending on the county they reside in, outlasting their safe harbor from eviction.
Oregon Housing & Community Service’s latest numbers on Nov. 12 show that the state continues to struggle to distribute checks to landlords, and is perhaps falling even more behind.
“We expect that number to fluctuate, because it’s not a fixed number of applications,” Margaret Salazar, director of OHCS, said in response to WW’s question about the increased number. “It moves over time based on the time folks applied. This has to just do with the fluctuation of when applications were received by the program and when we’re paying them out.”
But a different problem may put an end to the backlog of checks: The agency will stop taking applications for aid for six weeks starting on Dec. 1. That means, for 42 days, renters cannot apply for critical assistance.
OHCS reported at a Nov. 12 press conference that nearly all the $289 million available in both rounds of federal funding for the program has been requested by renters.
On Oct. 4, OHCS asked the U.S. Treasury Department for more funding, which states are eligible for if they have met initial benchmarks of spent funds. Salazar said today it’s not yet clear whether the feds will give Oregon more money for the program.
In Multnomah County, 4,562 households no longer have safe harbor protections even after applying for rent assistance. Those who apply from Multnomah County have 90 days from the date of application for the money to reach their landlords—due to a county extension of the state’s 60-day safe harbor period. But if the checks don’t make it, the tenant is eligible for eviction.
Oregon is sticking with the third-party contractor it brought on this summer, Public Partnerships LLC, or PPL. Oregon Housing & Community Services, the agency tasked with handling the federal money, said in an email on Nov. 8 that PPL is “working to dramatically increase their processing capacity over the next few weeks to get critically important funds into the hands of folks who have been waiting.”
In fact, OHCS has pledged to give the vendor more responsibility.
In the letter to the feds requesting more funds, Salazar promised a smoother process for the second round of emergency rental assistance, largely by giving PPL more authority: “OHCS will change our structure for ERA 2. We will streamline and centralize the program. Our vendor will take over the behind-the-scenes application processing and check cutting, allowing local program administrators to focus on intake. Due to staffing issues at the local level, we believe this will increase processing speeds and allow assistance to reach Oregonians more efficiently.”
But some aren’t happy with the promise that the third-party vendor is assuming more responsibility as more rounds of money flow.
MultiFamily NW, a landlord advocacy group, wrote a letter to state Rep. Julie Fahey (D-West Eugene) and Sen. Kayse Jama (D-East Portland) on Nov. 9, requesting that OHCS create a simpler application process, have the software provide more feedback to renters and housing providers during the application process about its status, and create a help line. It also requested that the state make a portal where housing providers can see the status of their tenants’ applications.
“The leadership at OHCS continues to make the argument that centralized processing and outsourcing rent assistance to a third-party vendor is the solution. The public data provided by OHCS suggest just the opposite,” wrote executive director Deborah Imse. “As leadership continues to highlight ‘obligated’ funds rather than ‘paid’ funds, and we see no visible progress towards our questions and concerns above, we grow increasingly concerned about their sense of urgency and its implications for renters and housing providers alike.”
According to OHCS, 41% of applications are still under review, 15% are in need of more information from the landlord and tenant, and 44% have been submitted for funding.
The latter category, however, does not mean dollars have necessarily reached landlords yet. It just means they’ll soon be mailed a check, or the check is currently en route.
Though landlords and tenants alike are aggrieved at the pace of the system, they’re asking for different remedies. Most tenants just want assurance they won’t become eligible for eviction. But WW reported earlier this month that some landlords don’t want legislators to extend the safe harbor protections. They just want their money.
Gov. Kate Brown announced her “goal” in a Friday statement to hold a special session in the coming weeks to potentially extend safe harbor protections and to pass new funding for rental assistance.
“Over the last several weeks, I have engaged in conversations with legislative leaders and housing advocates to find a path forward for a legislative solution that involves updates to current tenant protections in state law, including the extension of current safe harbor protections for Oregonians,” she said. Brown added that the goal is to “[bring] forward a proposal for the Legislature to consider in a special session in the upcoming weeks.”
