SALEM, Ore. -- Facing a housing crisis from the pandemic, Oregon lawmakers are considering a measure to better protect renters.

Senate Bill 282, known as the tenant protection bill, would extend the repayment grace period for back rent to Feb. 28, 2022. It passed the Senate Housing and Development Committee last week.

The state's eviction moratorium is set to end June 30, meaning folks could owe past as well as current rent without these protections.

Erin Meechan, a Gresham resident behind on her rent by about $2,500, testified in favor of the bill. She said living with the anxiety of an uncertain housing situation is draining.

"I've been homeless," Meechan explained. "Thank goodness I didn't have to actually sleep on the street, but I mean I've been without my own home and every day is a challenge. How are you going to get your laundry done? What are you going to do for food and making dinner, getting the kids back and forth to school?"

Meechan noted the state had a housing affordability crisis before the pandemic began.

Sybil Hebb, director of legislative advocacy for the Oregon Law Center, said evictions will likely spike July 1 without protections on past-due rent.

"It's really important to make sure that we take a step forward to help ensure stability in the coming months and also to take advantage of the fact that there are hundreds of millions of dollars in federal rent assistance that are just starting to come into the state," Hebb asserted.

Hebb pointed out several rounds of assistance are coming to the state, but it's uncertain when money will fully arrive.

Senate Bill 282 protects tenants who are living together in violation of occupancy limits, either because of the pandemic hardships or due to last year's wildfires. Hebb stressed it also ensures evictions during the pandemic don't end up on renters' records.

"Those impacts, if we don't act to stop them, could have a serious negative consequence on people's abilities to get housing in the future for years to come," Hebb remarked.

Hebb added major landlord groups have come out in support, or are neutral on the bill. She credits Sen. Kayse Jama, D-Portland, for working with the groups and other stakeholders on the bill.


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As Virginia evictions rise, one group is helping low-income renters fight back.

Before the pandemic, evictions peaked at 16,000 in January 2020. An eviction moratorium kept renters housed during part of the pandemic but evictions are growing again.

Phil Storey, director of the Eviction Defense Center at the Virginia Poverty Law Center, said his office helps people navigate housing court.

"We wanted to provide not just information about things they can bring up to the judge to try and affect what happens but also some tools that'll help them do that without having to act as if they were experienced lawyers," Storey explained.

He added eviction laws are better for tenants, although they still give landlords an advantage. Affordable housing significantly declined in the state leaving many people unable to afford housing. The Eviction Defense Center operates on two websites. English speakers can use FightMyEviction.org and Spanish speakers can use NoDesalojo.org.

While the Eviction Defense Center is still relatively new, Storey is looking for ways to improve and build on it. He added they want to learn from the users taking advantage of the tools being offered.

"Obviously, we'll be able to go sort of peek behind the curtain and see which paths people are following through the information," Storey noted. "If some of them end up as dead ends or if people end up backing out of the decision tree, or things like that. We'll learn things about how to make that all better."

New York's 2025 budget takes proactive steps to address rural housing.

In the budget, $10 million was allocated for improvements to rural housing built by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Section 515 program. Rural housing organizations asked for $25 million but are grateful the state is taking action.

Mike Borges, executive director of the Rural Housing Coalition of New York, said another bill the Legislature should pass makes the Mobile and Manufactured Home Replacement Program permanent.

"Basically what that does is provide grants to low- to moderate-income people to replace their mobile homes that are dilapidated and unsafe," Borges explained.

He would also like to see administration fees increase for nonprofits taking part in the Access to Home Program, which provides accessibility modification for low- to moderate-income residents. Reports showed it got requests totaling $12 million but only got enough funding for $1 million in improvements. The Senate is poised to pass both bills, leaving the Assembly as the final hurdle.

However, the budget was not perfect for rural housing. Borges said one shortcoming of the 2025 budget were cuts to the RESTORE program, which provides emergency repairs for low-to-moderate-income seniors. He said New York should take action now to continue improving rural housing preservation and development.

"We need a comprehensive housing initiative that looks at the obstacles to building and renovating, repairing housing in rural communities," Borges contended. "The three main obstacles to that are local capacity, infrastructure and targeted programs for rural housing."

He added rural areas do not often have the same resources and capacity as urban communities. Because rural housing is in short supply because of the aging housing stock, there have been stark population declines from rural New York communities.

Orange County's Supreme Court reversed a decision letting the city of Newburgh implement state tenant protections.

The city declared a housing emergency in 2023 when a study showed a vacancy rate less than 4%. The lawsuit overturning the protections found that the study was flawed, leading the court to invalidate it.

Daniel Atonna, political coordinator for the group For the Many, said this leaves tenants in a precarious position.

"This rips away protections for tenants in over 730 apartments in the city of Newburgh," he said, "at a time when tenants all across the Hudson Valley, all across New York, are facing difficult conditions as landlords are trying to evict them and raise their rent."

The petitioner's attorney said if unchecked, the city's actions would have made drastic changes to the rental market without legal basis.

This ruling also keeps Newburgh from setting up a rent guidelines board to decide whether rent-stabilized tenants' rents should stay the same, increase or decrease. Atonna said he hopes the city redoes the survey and implements these protections.

Atonna thinks Newburgh should opt into the newly passed Good Cause Eviction protections. This could better protect tenants, although some housing advocates feel these protections are ineffective. He said many residents support having tenant protections.

"Because it's meant stabilization for the community, right? It means a strong community where their neighbors aren't getting uprooted and evicted every couple of years," he said. "So, this was something that was going to be good for everyone."

A 2021 survey found 77% of Newburgh residents would leave the city because of high rents. It also found that people spend more than 30% of their income on rent.


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