Oregon House approves $200 million housing package

By PETER WONG
Oregon Capital Bureau

A $200 million-plus package to aid unhoused people, avert homelessness and spur housing production is halfway through the Oregon Legislature.

The House voted by bipartisan majorities on Wednesday to approve Gov. Tina Kotek’s request for emergency money and lay the groundwork for her ambitious target to build more housing units annually. The pair of bills go to the Senate, which is expected to take up-or-down votes on them next week.

In addition to Kotek’s original request for $130 million – plus $27 million more that legislators tacked on for aid to 26 rural counties – the budget bill also provides seed money for programs that Kotek and lawmakers want to increase housing. A related policy bill (House Bill 2001) would enable the state to prod cities and Metro to plan for more housing production, provide more help for homeless youths, and extend notice for evictions based on nonpayment.

The budget bill passed 49-10, and the policy bill, 50-9, with all 35 Democrats joined by a majority of Republicans. One Republican was absent.

When she learned about the death of former Bend Mayor Craig Coyner III – who died homeless, and struggled with mental illness and substance abuse – “my heart broke,” Rep. Emerson Levy of Bend said.

“We are at a crisis point and must move quickly to address our housing needs,” said Levy, a Democrat in her first term.

Kotek’s request and the extra money tacked on for rural counties call for rapid re-housing of 1,650 households experiencing homelessness, expanded shelter capacity by 700 beds, and prevention of homelessness for 8,750 households through rental assistance and other services. The Oregon Department of Housing and Community Services will funnel aid directly to multiagency coordination groups in five regions designated in Kotek’s Jan. 10 executive order, plus rural counties.

The Portland region and Central Oregon are in separate three-county regions designated in Kotek’s order. Money for rural counties will go through coordination by the Oregon Department of Emergency Management.

“Homelessness is not an urban problem. It’s an Oregon problem,” said Rep. David Gomberg, a Democrat from the central coast and House co-chair of the budget subcommittee that crafted the funding package. “We are working here today to bring support to address the scourge of homelessness to all parts of Oregon.”

According to the 2022 point-in-time counts conducted in Oregon, counts that Kotek acknowledged as “incomplete,” most of the 18,000 people counted live in 10 counties, but about 4,500 live in the other 26 counties. These counts exclude homeless youths, who are tallied in a separate count by the Oregon Department of Education.

Of the rest of the money, $25 million will go to aid for homeless youths, $20 million for production of modular homes that can reduce cost and construction time, $5 million for Oregon’s nine federally recognized tribes, $5 million for improvements in onsite housing for farmworkers – overseen by the Department of Agriculture – and $3 million for a revolving loan fund to help communities and developers jump-start construction for worker housing with advance payments for permit fees and systems development charges.

One other provision in House Bill 2001 extends the required notice for evictions based on nonpayment from 72 hours (three days) to 10 days, allowing more time for tenants to obtain help. This does not extend notice of evictions based on other reasons.

Rep. E. Werner Reschke, R-Klamath Falls, was one of only two members to speak against the bills. He said he would have preferred that lawmakers wait until after the May 17 revenue forecast, which they base their final decisions on the state’s next two-year budget that starts July 1.

“My contention is that this problem will never be solved by spending on homelessness to oblivion without also addressing root causes,” he said, arguing that he disagreed with a strategy of getting people housed first.

But Kotek has said that any plan must start with housing that enables people to get connected with services such as behavioral health and substance use treatment.

“We cannot continue to invest in medical care and education and other services without first establishing safe and affordable housing for our marginalized communities,” said Rep. Maxine Dexter, a Democrat who leads the House Committee on Housing and Homelessness. “All of these investments will not reach successful outcomes if we are unable to provide the most basic human needs of housing stability and food access.”

Though a majority of Republicans voted for both bills, some of them said that lawmakers need to go further and remove barriers to housing production.

The package does fund an effort by the state land use planning agency to help cities greater than 10,000 – plus Metro, the Portland regional government – plan for housing production goals. Kotek has set a housing production target of 36,000 annually, 80% higher than the annual average of 20,000 during the past five years. But Kotek, who announced that target in her inaugural remarks Jan. 9, conceded that is unlikely to happen immediately.

“There is much more work we need to do,” said Rep. Kevin Mannix, R-Salem. “Sometimes it takes a few bites to finish the sandwich.”