During Record Eviction Rates, Advocates Decry Possible Slashes to Eviction Prevention

Nearly 28,000 evictions have been filed in the past year in Oregon. 

Despite this record high, legislators are considering whether to slash nearly 80% of funding for eviction prevention services in an attempt to pass a budget amid a drastic revenue shortfall. These cuts were suggested despite Gov. Tina Kotek’s requested $173 million allocation for eviction prevention. 

“An 80% funding cut is not reallocation or a reorganization of funds,” Justice Rajee, director of Reimagine Oregon, said. “It’s a shift in commitment. It’s a change in focus.“ 

Rajee joined advocates from the Community Alliance of Tenants (CAT), the Urban League of Portland and others in the emergency Don’t Play with House Money press conference outside Multnomah County Courthouse on Tuesday — the venue, organizers noted, where eviction cases are held. Speakers stood before a podium flanked by stacks of moving boxes .

”An 80% funding cut will lead to more Black households being hit the hardest, already facing compounded national threats to our basic existence,” Rajee said.

‘Prevention Is Fiscally Responsible’

“Evictions lead to job loss,” Dung Ho, tenant education and support director with CAT, said. “It negatively impacts health and causes lasting trauma, and pushes people into emergency rooms, into overburdened shelters and tents on the streets. And we all pay the price.

"Evictions cost Oregon up to $4.7 billion in downstream services. Prevention is fiscally responsible.”

Ho cited court records showing that in eviction court, only 10% of renters are represented by attorneys, while 47% of landlords have legal representation. 

“We cannot afford to cut the eviction defense programs for renters when the system already puts tenants at a disadvantage, with unequal access to legal services,” she said.

Justice Rajee, director of Reimagine Oregon, speaks at the Don’t Play with House Money press conference
Advocates criticized the disconnect between such data and what they see as a stubborn funding preference for emergency shelters among state and local leadership.  

“The rate of homelessness is increasing every single month because more people are being evicted into homelessness than we are phasing out of homelessness into permanent housing,” Noddings, community engagement coordinator at CAT, said. “Only 1 in 5 adults that go into our sheltering system in Multnomah County end up in permanent housing placement. The other 4 out of 5 are ejected back onto the street, where they will stay.”

Rent increases have far outpaced stagnant wages, and tenants find themselves in an expensive rental market whose rates are increasingly driven upward in by the proliferation of private equity firms in property management.

Deadly Outcomes

“We are manufacturing a human rights crisis here in Oregon when we allow these evictions to continue,” Noddings said.

“It is far more expensive, far more inhumane, for us to cut these programs and force people onto the street where they will cost the state significantly more money in homeless prevention and placement services, where they will lose their jobs and are often separated from their children, and where some of them do not make it ot the end, because living without permanent housing is deadly.”

A ProPublica report published last week highlighted the sharp increase of fatalities among Portland’s homeless population — 450 deaths in 2023, compared to 113 deaths in 2019 — that is disproportionate to any increase in homeless populations, and makes Portland the deadliest city on the West coast for those living on the streets. The report highlights how this increase in mortality happened alongside more aggressive clearance tactics, and the addition of hundreds of shelter beds.

Critics of city policy argue that an “out of sight” approach to homelessness, including thousands of sweeps across the city in recent years, destabilize an already vulnerable population. Numerous studies have shown that such sweeps lead to an increase in overdose deaths. 

”Instead of scaling up the support (for eviction prevention), the legislature is gutting the very programs that keep people in their homes,” Ho said. “Cutting rental assistance by nearly 80% will eliminate help for more than 23,000 households.“ 

Multnomah County Commissioner Shannon Singleton said the proposed cuts would deepen the homelessness crisis and create a need for even more shelter, which she called “the least cost-effective tool we have.” 

“It is much cheaper to help someone stay in housing than to help them get back into housing once they’ve fallen into homelessness,” she said.

“And with eviction prevention, we avoid the impact of the trauma of homelessness on families.” 

Bandana Shrestha, director of the AARP Oregon, stated that more than 90% of recipients use eviction prevention services only once and are then able to maintain housing stability. 

“That’s a powerful return on investment, and a compassionate one,” she said. 

Shrestha also warned of the devastating impact evictions have on older tenants, many of whom are on fixed incomes. 

“Older Oregonians are the fastest growing segment of our unhoused neighbors,” she said. 

“Adults over 45 consistently make up more than 50% of those impacted by evictions and homelessness, and those over the age of 65 account for 20%.”

As Gov. Kotek floats the idea to allocate $160 million from the state’s reserves in order to cover costs associated with wildfires, housing advocates suggested also using rainy day funds to support housing stabilization. 

“Oregon is sitting on nearly $2 billion in reserves,” Ho said. “What we don't have is time. We cannot afford to play politics with people’s homes.”