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Two months after House Speaker Tina Kotek called for a special session to protect tenants who had applied but not received rental assistance, the Oregon Legislature met to pass new protections for tenants, extending a “safe harbor” from eviction until applications are processed.
Some 8,000 Oregonians who have applied for rental assistance may have lost protection from eviction because their applications were not processed within 60 days of safe harbor previously enacted by the Legislature, according to last week’s data from Oregon Housing and Community Services. (In Multnomah County and much of Washington County, that protection had been extended to 90 days.)
The new protections, passed in Senate Bill 891, will allow tenants to apply for assistance until the end of June 2022, and the protections will expire at the end of October 2022.
“I wish we had this sooner; however, we are here today to make sure we could have a bipartisan agreement to solve some very important problems, including protecting tenants,” Kotek said in an online press conference after the session.
In Senate Bill 5561, lawmakers passed $215 million for rental assistance, $100 million of which is for a landlord fund.
Republicans, starting with Rep. Christine Drazan (R-Canby), called for Brown to fire Oregon Health and Community Services director Margaret Salazar. (The governor’s office has not responded to repeated inquiries on that.) Republicans continued to criticize the rental assistance bill.
“This unnecessary special session was called because of yet another state agency failure,” said Oregon House Minority Leader Vikki Breese-Iverson (R-Prineville) in a statement. “Democrat state leaders have not addressed the numerous errors and mistakes at OHCS that are hurting Oregonians. This is a complete failure of leadership. House Republicans urge significant changes to these agencies under Democrat control. We call on the governor to dramatically increase oversight to ensure this money gets to real people in need.”
But Republicans showed up at the Capitol and voted for funding to address illegal cannabis farms and drought relief. A minority of Republicans also voted for the renter protections bill—as did Sen. Betsy Johnson, the longtime Democrat who is preparing to run for governor as an independent. She had previously opposed Kotek’s call for a special session.
Senate President Peter Courtney (D-Salem) celebrated the results, after expressing skepticism earlier.
“Two weeks ago, I said I hoped we’d be ready for today,” he said in a statement. “There was no plan. No agreement. Success was not guaranteed. Your Legislature worked hard since that day.”
Courtney also commended the bipartisan collaboration.
”Oregonians can be proud of their legislators today...Democrat and Republican,” he added in his statement. “We came together to send relief...hope...to Oregonians in crisis.”