PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Inside Musonda Mwango’s Portland apartment are details of his life that have transformed the property into a home. His guitars hang in the corner where he composes music, Christmas decorations adorn the walls, and pictures of his three children — who live with him — are proudly displayed.
But as days tick by and bills stack up, Mwango is part of the growing number of households at risk of eviction in Oregon, even as he awaits aid from the state.
“We are going into winter, and in a period of celebration,” the 36-year-old father said in late November. “And yet, you also have this thing at the back of your mind that this place, that we call home, might not actually be our home much longer.”
In Oregon, where a longstanding housing crisis has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, tenants on the brink of eviction are losing the safety nets that kept them housed. Despite an overwhelming need, the statewide rental assistance program stopped taking new applications after all federal funds have been requested and committed to renters.
Oregon has a higher rate of people experiencing homelessness than nearly every other state in America. A 2020 federal review found that 35 people in Oregon are experiencing homelessness per 10,000. Only three states had a higher rate: New York (47 people per 10,000), Hawaii (46 people per 10,000) and California (41 people per 10,000).
Now, an estimated 8,355 households are are at risk of eviction, as protections keeping them housed have expired after they waited for rental assistance for more than two months. More than 22,000 households are still waiting to be considered for help.
The need for help continues to grow, especially as many tenants struggle to pay months of back rent. And now — as more than 67,000 Oregon households report that they feel “not at all confident” they can cover next month’s bills, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau survey — lawmakers will be scrambling for solutions during a special session that begins Monday.
Due to the immense backlog of rental assistance applications, Gov. Kate Brown signed a law in June that grants renters a 60-day period in which they cannot be evicted due to lack of payments, as long as they provide proof that they applied for aid.
Following the expiration of the federal eviction moratorium, other states have implemented similar eviction limitations. In Connecticut and Virginia, a landlord must file for federal rental assistance before removing a tenant. In Michigan, the eviction process is paused while an application for aid is pending. In New Jersey and New York most renters can’t be evicted until January.
Mwango applied for rental assistance in July and was approved in August. As of the end of November, Mwango still had yet to receive aid from the state. He is now past the protection period and, under state law, can be evicted.
“We get calls from people every day who are in this situation,” said Sybil Hebb, the director of Legislative Advocacy for the Oregon Law Center. “The overwhelming word I would use to describe those calls is just pervasive desperation and fear.”
Since July, Hebb said there have been more than 2,200 eviction proceedings filed in Oregon for non-payment. From 1,000 to 3,000 new rental assistance applications are submitted each week.
“If we let families down we are going to be pushing people into the real threat of homelessness. It’s unconscionable not to take steps to prevent that,” Hebb said.
Officials say a significant number of people are applying for state aid to pay back rent that has accumulated since the pandemic, as well as growing late fee charges.
“Even if someone has started a new job and they’re now employed … they may still have thousands of dollars of back rent that are owed,” said Margaret Salazar, the director of Oregon Housing and Community Services.
Of the $289 million of federal rental assistance funds in Oregon, $119 million has yet to reach renters. Despite this, in November the Oregon Housing and Community Services announced nearly all the federal funds allocated to the state had been requested — as a result the state agency stopped accepting applications in December.
Halting applications also eliminates the protection period for people who apply for the Oregon Emergency Rental Assistance Program after Dec. 1, though they can still apply through local community programs. However, not every Oregon county or city has rental aid available.
“It is clear from the ongoing intake of applications and the demand that’s been demonstrated that Oregon needs additional rental assistance,” Salazar said.
Texas and New York have also committed all of their money or indicated that funds will be exhausted soon.
State officials in Oregon have asked for $198 million in additional money from the U.S. Treasury, but it’s unclear whether the state will get it. The Treasury is expected to begin reallocating money from places that have not spent it.
Following mounting calls from advocates and lawmakers, Brown announced the Legislature will return for a special session to address eviction protections.
State Sen. Kayse Jama, who is leading a legislative housing committee, says there are three solutions that “need to happen at the same time” to keep Oregonians housed — additional funding for the rental assistance program, extending the 60-day eviction safe harbor and speeding up rental assistance processing.
On Friday, Brown announced a package of bills for Monday’s special session, which includes $215 million to prevent winter evictions and transition to long-term, locally-delivered eviction prevention services. Out of the proposed funds, $100 million would be allocated for emergency rental assistance. In addition there is a proposal to extend the current 60-day eviction protection period — allowing protections to remain in place for a tenant until their application has been processed.
“This is not a crisis of numbers, it is a crisis of people,” Mwango said. “People that are actually trying to get ahead and who have been derailed by the pandemic – not by fault of their own and not because they are lazy.”
Cline is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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Cry me a river!!! With all of the job openings all over the country, why aren’t these people who face eviction working? Oh, I forgot, these people who do not want to work for a living, are parasites, who live off of those that work for a living.
AND If he’s really hard up, SELL SOME OF THOSE guitars he has!!!
Yep… welcome to communist occupier Quid Pro Joe hit with a capital “S” pants Biden’s build (I mean pay donors) back better …NEW AMERICA!!
Maybe Mwango should have got a woke wakeup call earlier, that told him that turning to corrupt government gods instead of relying upon this own God given strength and will to excel and succeed in a creator imagined image, He might be owning his own home by now instead of throwing years of rent money down the drain. Trusting in leaky Socialist safety nets, ALL eventually make you end up as their socialist catch of the day, and just more food for the socialist gods to devour and later be cast aside like dead decaying fish in their socialist swamps. Relying on government programs to permanently keep away the coming winters of social discontent, is like Trusting Fauci’s masks to keep the COVID from contaminating your persons. This IS America Mwango, the land of opportunity and if you are failing you have nobody to blame but yourself for thinking you could ever walk like a man. by leaning on the crutch of temporary fleeting housing assistance that always blows away when the huff and puff big bad wolves come knocking at your door disguised as permanent government social solutions that just keep you imprisoned to serve their party objectives.. Once the votes are in and the power secured, they are off to greener pastures looking for the next sheep to shear while you get left out in the cold.
AND IF His Job prospects in Oregon are so sucky, FINE.. MOVE!
I know personally some people in Portland Oregon that deliberately do not pay their electric bill or their rent because the Liberal socialist Democrat Party that rules the State of Oregano will pay their bills and make them dependent on the Liberal socialist Democrat Party, Until the Liberal socialist Democrat Party runs out of other peoples money. But then it is to late. They are owned and are a servant/slave to the Liberal socialist Democrat Party.
AND NOTE< they don't give a rats butt, about those who OWN THE HOMES, the ones responsible for paying the property taxes and mortgage on it. When those tenants who REFUSE TO PAY THE RENT, the owner can't pay THEIR bills….
Maybe I missed it, but I don’t see Mwango talking about his efforts to get 2-3 jobs to maintain his rent. It’s all about Govvy Assistance.
My wife and i had big financial troubles in 1981, with 2 kids under 3 years old. We both worked 3 jobs, got some help from our Church and worked our way out of the situation we were in. It took 2 years, but EVERY person/vendor we owed $$ to got paid.
I don’t see that resolve in Mwango.
Oddly, we now have several properties, all F&C, and none of our residents have willfully not paid. A couple have gotten a month, or even two behind in the last 18 months, but have caught up. Even that is unusual.
Ultimately, it’s not the actual money that people are needing, but the desire to pay their bills on time.
The Monkeys have no tails in Zamboanga, Oh the Monkeys have no tails in Zamboango, Oh the monkeys have no tails, they were bitten off by whales, Oh the Monkeys have no tails in Zamboanga.
There’s No place left to live for man Mwango, Like a Monkey with no tail in Zamboango, all his money that was spent, should have gone to pay his rent, Now there’s no place left to live for man Mwango.
That’s what happens when Mwango danced the Democrat dependency Fandango,,,the dance of living off other people’s money, that ends in not just getting your tail bit off but swallowed whole like Jonah and you find your whole country inside the belly of the beast.
AND that’s what the left’s essentially brainwashed millions of americans into the mindset of.. WHY STRIVE TO GET IT YOURSELF< when you can sit on your tuckus, and Unca govt will come and take care of you…
I am a landlord in Portland, Oregon and own several hundred units. My lecture to tenants in trouble for not paying past due rent, many for over a year now, always falls on deaf ears. The prevailing attitude is that the government will take care of me and you will get what you’re owed. From my experience, that is a huge lie since nearly all of my renters that are way behind on their rent and does receive state money spends it on food, gas, liquor and cigarettes, not paying me a dime. How about mentioning the suffering landlords, many losing their properties (thankfully not myself) due to not being able to pay their mortgages, repairs, etc. to maintain their properties. The only parties profiting are the “poor downtrodden renters” and the lienholders of these defaulted mortgage loans. Like most every landlord that I know, I cannot wait until I’m allowed to evict these deadbeat renters and replace them with responsible new renters. I personally am fine, however, this situation has been a nightmare to most landlords.
I really wish there was a way that when a ‘renter’ WASTES THE MONEY THEY GET that is for rent, on other stuff, that they could be PUBLICLY PUNISHED for it…