County outreach workers check in with unhoused Portlanders in December 2021. Motoya Nakamura / Multnomah County Portland City Council has voted to extend the citywide housing state of emergency for three more years, despite attempts to disengage with this emergency order in 2021. The city’s housing state of emergency, first declared in 2015 by then-mayor […]
Housing
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Oregon’s Rental Assistance Program Extended to March 22
RETROROCKET / GETTY IMAGES An eleventh-hour influx of federal funding has allowed Oregon’s emergency rental assistance program to continue accepting applications for an additional week. The Oregon Emergency Rental Assistance Program (OERAP), which was initially scheduled to shut down on midnight March 14, will now remain open to new applicants until midnight on March 22. […]
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Oregon Will Stop Taking Applications for Rent Assistance on March 14
A sign used during an anti-eviction rally in 2021. Alex Zielinski Ten months after it first began doling out financial aid to Oregonians at risk of eviction, the state’s emergency rental assistance program is shutting down its services. On Monday, the state housing department announced that the Oregon Emergency Rental Assistance Program (OERAP) will stop […]
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Portland Leaders Unveil Locations for All Six Safe Rest Villages
Tiny homes at Kenton Women’s Village, one of several alternative outdoor shelters currently operating in Portland. The planned Safe Rest Villages could have similar shelters. MEG NANNA Portland leaders announced the future locations of four Safe Rest Village sites Thursday, moving one step closer to finalizing where all six outdoor villages will be situated. “Safe […]
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Portland Campaign to Require Free Legal Representation for Tenants Facing Eviction Eyes November Ballot
A group of activists held a protest against evictions outside of Multnomah County Courthouse in June 2021. Alex Zielinski In March 2021, Greg’s landlord casually informed him that he needed to move into the duplex apartment currently occupied by Greg and his girlfriend—and that the couple had to leave immediately. For Greg, who asked the […]
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The Mercury’s Top Housing Stories of 2021
GETTY IMAGES / SCOTT HEINS [You can read all of the Mercury’s “Top Stories of 2021” here.—eds] The COVID pandemic added a heaping pile of instability on top of a local housing market already on shaky ground in 2021. The financial losses that accompanied the pandemic forced thousands to seek rental assistance—while the state scrambled […]
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At Least 126 Homeless People Died in Multnomah County in 2020
A photo of a memorial for Amber Coughtry, who died in 2020 at age 41. Motoya Nakamura / Multnomah County At least 126 people who died in Multnomah County in 2020 were homeless at the time of their death. On Wednesday, the county released its annual “Domicile Unknown” report on the number of unhoused residents […]
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“Small Gestures of Trust”: What Was Learned and Lost in Creating Portland’s Emergency Homeless Villages
An aerial shot of one of the three C3PO Villages. Multnomah County Like many programs that materialized in spring of 2020, the three city-sanctioned tent camps that appeared in central Portland in April of last year were born out of a crisis. Oregon’s COVID-19 pandemic social distancing rules had just fallen into place. The mandate […]
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City’s Response to Homelessness Questioned After Unhoused Man Killed By Drunk Driver
Photo shows tire marks where a car left I-205 Sunday morning and plowed into Terrence Tombe’s tent. Alex Zielinski No one heard the crash that killed Terrence Tombe early Sunday morning. According to those camped on the same strip of land where Tombe’s rain-soaked tent stood, the nearby roar of I-205 traffic seemed to block […]
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Auditor Suggests County’s Homeless Service Provider May Be Inflating Successes
Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury speaking at the opening of St. John’s Village, a transitional housing facility. Motoya Nakamura / Multnomah County In a memo sent Wednesday to county officials, Multnomah County Auditor Jennifer McGuirk raised concerns that the Joint Office of Homelessness (JOHS) may be misleading the public on the number of unhoused individuals […]
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Gov. Brown Announces Dec. 13 Special Session to Prevent Evictions
Oregon State Capitol Getty Images / eyecrave Governor Kate Brown has announced a special legislative session for the Oregon Legislature to address protections for renters who’ve been financially impacted by COVID-19. The session will begin on December 13, in the midst of a funding crisis within the state’s emergency rental assistance program. Oregon is poised […]
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How Will Oregon Address Its Growing Affordable Housing Crisis?
JESSE TISE In early November, Josh Lehner, an economist with the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis, delivered a simple message to the Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland: housing prices in Oregon are going to continue to rise. Lehner’s presentation noted short-term issues in housing construction like labor and supply shortages that are partially responsible […]