14:04:23 as possible by using the raise hand feature in order to

14:04:26 not interrupt the flow of the meeting.

Staff will

14:04:29 continue to answer questions

14:04:32 posed in the chat to the best of our ability, and please limit any side

14:04:36 conversations in the chat at this

14:04:39 time.

And so without further ado, we'll go ahead and get

14:04:44 into roll call and accessibility

14:04:48 check-in.

So Laura Golino de

14:04:51 Lovato.

>> LAURA: I'm here, thank

14:04:54 you.

>> JUSTIN: And pronouns and accessibility check-in as well,

14:04:57 please.

>> LAURA: Thank you very much.

My pronouns are she and her and all

14:05:01 my accessibility needs are met.

Thank you.

>> JUSTIN: Thank you,

14:05:05 Laura.

Ian Davie.

>> IAN:

14:05:08 Hey, Justin.

Here,

14:05:13 he/him.

Thanks.

>> JUSTIN:

14:05:17 Christian Bryant.

>> CHRISTIAN: I'm here and needs are met.

14:05:20

>> JUSTIN: Thank you,

14:05:25 Christian.

Allen

14:05:29 Hines.

>> ALLEN: I am here, I

14:05:33 use he/him pronouns.

All my accessibility

14:05:36 needs are met.

Thank you.

>> JUSTIN: Awesome.

14:05:39

Thank you,

14:05:42 Allen.

Matthew Maline.

14:05:48

No Matthew

14:05:51 today.

Vivien Lyon.

14:06:02

Regina Amodeo.

>> REGINA: Hello, she/her pronouns

14:06:05 and my accessibility needs are met.

>> JUSTIN: Awesome.

Thank you,

14:06:14 Regina.

Kristina

14:06:17 goodman.

>> KRISTINA:

14:06:21 Thank you.

Kristina

14:06:25 Goodlow, and my expect needs have

14:06:29 been met.

>> JUSTIN: Pippa

14:06:32 Arend.

>> PIPPA: Present.

She/her,

14:06:35 needs met.

>> JUSTIN: Awesome.

Thank you,

14:06:40 Pippa.

14:06:46

Moriah McSharry McGrath.

>> Hi, my pronouns are she/they.

14:06:49

I wanted to let people know I have a schedule conflict so I might be coming

14:06:53 and going and I'll definitely be leaving a little

14:06:56 bit before 4:00, so I apologize for that.

14:06:59

Thanks.

>> JUSTIN: Thank you for letting us

14:07:05 know that,

14:07:09 Moriah.

Amber Cook.

>> AMBER:

14:07:12 My pronouns are she/her.

I would

14:07:16 request that the fonts are as readable as possible in terms of what's

14:07:19 presented on the screen.

>> JUSTIN: Awesome.

Thank you,

14:07:22 Amber.

Is the agenda big enough for you right now?

14:07:25 Should we zoom in a little bit?

>> AMBER: If you could, that would be

14:07:28 great.

>> JUSTIN: Thank you,

14:07:32 Tawnya.

Angelito

14:07:36 Morillo.

>> ANGELITO: Present.

I use she/her pronouns and I

14:07:39 don't have any accessibility needs at this moment.

>> JUSTIN: Awesome.

14:07:43 Welcome, Angelito.

And

14:07:46 Stephanie Phillips Bridges.

>> STEPHANIE: Present.

I

14:07:49 use Stephanie Phillips Bridges Steph, she/her

14:07:51 pronouns.

All of my accessibility needs are met.

14:07:55 I do have to step away for an hour from

14:07:58 2:30 to 3:30, but then I will be back.

>> JUSTIN: Sounds

14:08:01 good.

Thank you for letting us know.

Welcome.

14:08:03

Awesome.

Well, welcome, everybody.

14:08:06 Let's go ahead and jump right in to staff updates, then, shall

14:08:11 we?

At this point, I had individual

14:08:14 conversations with many of the commissioners here, so I wanted to spend some time and

14:08:18 say thank you to everyone and take the time to speak with

14:08:21 me.

It's great to get it know you all a little better, do

14:08:24 a little temperature check and, you know, learn more about your experience on the body

14:08:27 itself.

So that was very helpful.

So I wanted to take

14:08:31 and make some space for that.

I think it's going to

14:08:34 help inform everything going

14:08:38 forward.

And so I appreciate you taking the time to have the conversation

14:08:43 with me.

Next on the agenda is some

14:08:46 advisory body updates.

I'll go ahead and hand

14:08:49 it over to Brianne who will be

14:08:55 spearheading this

14:09:01 section.

>>

14:09:05 BRONNE: As I'm sure you're away,

14:09:08 the office is managed by the

14:09:11 office of sig life.

Due to the pending change,

14:09:14 they have required that each bureau we view the number of

14:09:17 committees and advisory bodies we have and review their charters and purposes.

14:09:20

We've discussed this request with

14:09:23 Commissioner Rubio and we've

14:09:27 enlisted Sheri Dunn who is a contractor, I think many of you

14:09:30 had conversations with her, we engaged

14:09:36 her around the PHB

14:09:39 director discussion a couple of months ago.

She's going to be undertaking this

14:09:43 review.

She will be working over the summer with

14:09:46 PHAC, the Portland housing Advisory Committee,

14:09:50 the fair housing Advisory Committee, anda

14:09:53 the RSC.

Mostly, though, we're going to be working with those because those are

14:09:56 the policy and budget committees.

Her scope of work

14:09:59 in this review is looking over the

14:10:03 charters, interviewing leadership and other

14:10:05 members of these bodies, researching

14:10:10 other cities and their advisory body structures, focusing really on the

14:10:14 Pacific Northwest and similarly-sized cities.

And her

14:10:18 deliverables are going to be potential revised

14:10:23 structures for the bodies, any suggested revisions to the charter I know

14:10:26 we just did bylaws and charter updates.

But

14:10:31 we might be

14:10:35 in for some more.

And suggested flowchart describing

14:10:39 any new committee structures.

I know that's a lot.

We're in the

14:10:43 beginning stages of this project.

You can ask me questions, I might

14:10:47 not have the answer to them, but I can provide you with

14:10:50 Leslie Goodlow's email and contact information if I'm unable to

14:10:53 answer any questions today and she

14:10:56 can potentially answer questions on

14:10:59 my

14:11:09 behalf.

>> JUSTIN: Any questions or comments at

14:11:12 this point?

>> CHRISTIAN: The only question I have, it sounds like it would

14:11:15 probably be potentially through the end of this year, something

14:11:19 like that.

Do you have an idea

14:11:22 of how long she anticipates before coming out

14:11:26 with whatever recommendation she comes

14:11:29 out with?

>>

14:11:33 BREONNE: I don't.

I know they said originally

14:11:36 they be the weighed timeline of three to six months.

But we've all been

14:11:40 engaged in government processes for a long time, so that's the timeline that

14:11:43 we have been initially given.

14:11:55

>> JUSTIN: Any other comments

14:11:58 or

14:12:03 thoughts?

We'll move on.

Thank you.

14:12:07 I do need to back up.

I forgot do a chat

14:12:11 moderator even after I announced it.

Is

14:12:14 anyone on the Executive Committee willing to be the chat

14:12:20 moderator?

14:12:34

>> I was going to say I would do it but I'm doing too

14:12:38 much already.

>> IAN: I was going to offer after the

14:12:41 presentation, but if Amber can jump in, that's

14:12:45 lovely.

>> JUSTIN: Amber, thank you for

14:12:48 volunteering, that's lovely.

We appreciate it and it's all you,

14:12:53 so thanks.

>> AMBER: Could you just review real

14:12:56 quickly so I know what I'm supposed to be doing?

>> JUSTIN: Of

14:13:00 course.

During long discussion periods, PHB

14:13:03 staff will check in with you to get a recap of any comments or discussions

14:13:07 in the chat.

So people are adding stuff

14:13:10 in there that's relevant to the discussion, we'll just check in every ten to

14:13:13 15 minutes to make sure we're reporting everything.

14:13:16

>> AMBER: Sounds doable.

>> JUSTIN: Awesome.

14:13:20 Thanks, Amber.

All righty.

Next on the agenda is just some

14:13:24 updates around the 2023 listening session which is right around

14:13:28 the corner.

June 7th from 6:00 to

14:13:31 8:00.

It is hybrid

14:13:35 with the in-person event being held on the second floor

14:13:38 of the

14:13:42 1900 southwest fourth avenue building.

We'll go through brief

14:13:45 updates today.

I will be sending an email out tomorrow

14:13:48 with more specific details around the event and for

14:13:51 those who are attending trying to gauge who will

14:13:54 be attending in person and who will be attending

14:13:58 virtually.

Something to flag is that we don't have access to the parking

14:14:01 lot, unfortunately, below the building

14:14:04 because it is after hours.

So all parking will

14:14:08 have to be done on the street

14:14:11 or the University Place hotel

14:14:14 which is a block away and charges $3 per hour.

It's all

14:14:17 being communicated.

It's on

14:14:22 the event page, which I'll place in the chat right

14:14:26 now.

And we'll be starting outreach this week for the

14:14:30 event.

And actually recently just got all of our

14:14:33 translated flyers back from our

14:14:37 translator.

14:14:42

We had them

14:14:49 translated into several

14:14:54 different clang wages uages.

Please feel free to share and

14:14:57 repost those.

We'll be doing social media posts

14:15:00 flying around town and some eBlasts.

But the

14:15:03 more coverage, the better.

So I will make sure you all have those in

14:15:07 your inbox tomorrow with a detailed description of the event and what we're

14:15:10 locking at

14:15:14 here.

Any questions

14:15:18 on

14:15:22 that?

14:15:26

Amber.

>> AMBER: I have a question about the

14:15:29 listening session.

>> JUSTIN: Yeah.

>> AMBER: So whenever that's

14:15:32 appropriate, you can let me know.

This isn't specifically about the hybrid or

14:15:35 the, you know --

this

14:15:38 is an okay time to ask?

>> JUSTIN: This is a great time for

14:15:42 it, yeah.

>> AMBER: I think I'd like

14:15:45 to ask, how does a listening session translate into

14:15:48 action or changes?

You know, generally my understanding has been,

14:15:52 you know, we can't go by lived

14:15:55 experience in terms of making decisions on rental

14:16:00 services commission, and I was

14:16:03 somebody who gave testimony on the last listening session and there was

14:16:06 no -- I'm just saying, you know, in all honesty, there

14:16:10 was no sense of, you know, the testimony that we gave had any impact.

14:16:13 So I'm not saying that it didn't, right, I'm just saying that as, you

14:16:17 know, as somebody who gave testimony, I didn't have any sense

14:16:20 of, you know, what it did or what it

14:16:24 accomplished.

So I guess you could almost say those were to

14:16:27 things.

>> JUSTIN: Yeah.

You know, I wasn't -- of

14:16:30 course I wasn't here for it last year, but I was -- you know,

14:16:33 I'll go ahead and let Laura talk.

Go ahead,

14:16:37 Laura.

>> LAURA: Well, Justin, I think you'd

14:16:40 like to add too, Amber, those are great questions.

I think

14:16:43 that the listening sessions are

14:16:47 specifically, my understanding of the listening sessions, are

14:16:51 specifically designed to provide an opportunity

14:16:54 for the community

14:16:57 to highlight issues that are of

14:17:01 concern.

And I think that

14:17:04 because the Rental Services Commission

14:17:08 cannot address or respond in

14:17:11 an action way either to public testimony at these

14:17:15 meetings or in a listening session, we have to be

14:17:18 really clear about setting expectations about what's going to

14:17:21 happen at the listening session.

We're listening.

I

14:17:24 think that we could do a better job coming back from the

14:17:29 listening session to gather --

to look at the feedback that we got

14:17:32 and say, what are the

14:17:36 priority issues that people are raising that we should

14:17:39 be paying attention to?

But I still

14:17:42 think we need to be really clear about

14:17:47 what is our ability to respond

14:17:50 individually to any one person?

Which I think we have to think

14:17:54 really carefully about.

But I'm

14:17:57 glad you brought that up, because as we -- as we go into

14:18:00 the listening session, I think we could plan for

14:18:03 the meeting after the listening session to review

14:18:08 what happened.

>> CHRISTIAN: I would also say, I

14:18:12 mean, it was -- you know, it definitely doesn't fall on

14:18:15 deaf ears.

But now that you're part of the committee and have seen, you

14:18:18 know, the number of meetings we have and the number of

14:18:22 topics that are considered in the action plan and stuff,

14:18:25 that is one area where a lot of that stuff, it gets

14:18:29 considered, it gets --

14:18:32 it definitely gets our -- most importantly gets

14:18:35 all of the RSC members brains kind of going on possible issues to

14:18:38 bring up when we start talking about the next action plan and

14:18:41 everything.

So it may not have -- there definitely are

14:18:44 a lot of issues that don't make it to

14:18:48 being on

14:18:51 our agenda.

A lot of

14:18:55 the reasons, quite honestly,

14:18:58 will end up not being under our area or, you

14:19:02 know, not jurisdiction is the wrong word, but you kind of get what I'm saying.

14:19:05 But also it's a matter of we have so much time, so that's one thing that

14:19:08 we do have to, you know, understand

14:19:12 and balance.

And I don't know if there is a good way to go about

14:19:15 it.

I wouldn't be opposed to looking into something like this.

14:19:19

But it's hard to be able to show

14:19:23 the community that shows up and gives their -- their -- what

14:19:26 they shared there, it's hard to show them, oh, hey, this

14:19:29 led to this topic on this meeting because,

14:19:34 unfortunately, they don't, you know, not all of them get that

14:19:37 far.

So it is definitely taken into consideration, that's

14:19:41 really where it comes is we try to take that information and hopefully,

14:19:44 you know, help it shape our priorities on the

14:19:47 upcoming action plan, if there is anything we

14:19:51 can weigh in on and give recommendations on.

>> AMBER: If I could just

14:19:55 add one more thing and then I'll move on.

Then, you

14:19:58 know, I guess a question is, is it fair to

14:20:01 ask people to talk on any subject

14:20:04 when -- when a lot of those subjects don't fall under our

14:20:08 purview?

Like would it be more respectful

14:20:11 to, you know, have a listening session on specific

14:20:16 topics?

So that mostly I'm just

14:20:19 posing that question.

>> JUSTIN: Thank you, Amber.

Go

14:20:27 ahead, Vivien.

>> VIVIEN: I'm still muted,

14:20:30 okay.

So I want to -- I want to amplify

14:20:34 what Amber is asking in terms of the

14:20:37 fairness of letting people talk on whatever housing

14:20:40 topic they are most affected by or impacted

14:20:43 by without understanding what topics

14:20:47 we're able to consider.

I do think that there could be a lot more

14:20:50 clarity provided to folks in advance so that they can determine whether

14:20:53 they want to spend their time doing that.

And I

14:20:58 also

14:21:03 would love for us to know in advance and select a

14:21:06 commissioner advance to provide an address to the

14:21:10 people giving testimony giving them the overview of what

14:21:15 this testimony is useful for and what our response is

14:21:19 likely

14:21:22 to be in terms of we are not going to

14:21:25 solve your problem.

We are

14:21:33 attempting to community input so we can see what the problems are

14:21:36 that are being experienced by the community at this point in time.

Something like

14:21:39 that.

So that

14:21:42 people nope that it's not that their testimony

14:21:45 isn't being heard or valued or acted on, but they

14:21:48 need a better understanding, probably, of the scope of

14:21:54 that action.

And now I'm going to go

14:21:57 back on mute.

>> JUSTIN: Thank you,

14:22:03 Vivien.

Breonne.

14:22:06

>> BREONNE: I just want to say one thing that Justin

14:22:09 and I talked about a couple of weeks ago when he was

14:22:12 still more onboarding was I'm not sure

14:22:15 if the RSC commissioners remember the

14:22:19 document that Kristina Dirks put together last year that

14:22:22 was a compendium of all of the public testimony

14:22:25 that the RSC heard and sort of, like, showing all of

14:22:28 the, sort of, public comment that had gone into the body,

14:22:32 like, in that previous year.

And we talked about instituting doing that

14:22:35 on a regular yearly basis and

14:22:39 providing that information to the head of the

14:22:43 bureau and the commissioner in charge just so, you know, there is this,

14:22:46 like, formal transmission of documents saying that this is -- this is what

14:22:49 the community is telling

14:22:53 us.

So there's at least an ongoing to

14:23:04 continueed documentation of that.

I found that to be

14:23:08 a valuable document when she pulled that together.

14:23:11

>> JUSTIN: Speaking to the point of managing expectations

14:23:14 on what a body can and cannot do, we

14:23:19 will -- me and Laura will be giving an

14:23:23 introductory speech to kick off the event.

We'll do the RSC's role,

14:23:26 work products as well, and would be happy

14:23:30 to work in there some message

14:23:33 around what people can expect

14:23:36 from giving testimony, what -- and, you know,

14:23:39 what the steps are and that kind of process.

So absolutely hear

14:23:41 that.

Thank you for raising those concerns, everybody.

14:23:44 And I'll make note of them.

14:23:53

Any other thoughts, questions, concerns around the

14:23:57 listening

14:24:02 session?

Perfect.

Oh,

14:24:06 Kristina.

>> KRISTINA: I'm so slow with that raising of the hand,

14:24:10 sorry.

My only thought would be I think this is such a

14:24:13 great idea of, like, just some

14:24:16 transparency for folks to know what to expect and

14:24:19 what not to expect.

But I would also like to see

14:24:23 that in the listening sessions, but also

14:24:26 maybe, like, prior to public testimony in these

14:24:29 spaces, just because it seems like folks sometimes,

14:24:32 like, share what's happening

14:24:37 for them and possibly are looking for some support, which might not

14:24:40 be what we can give.

So it would be great to just be able to do

14:24:43 it in both spaces.

>> JUSTIN:

14:24:46 Thank you,

14:24:52 Kristina.

Any other questions or

14:24:55 concerns on this topic?

14:25:01

Angelito.

>> ANGELITO: I just wanted to say, as

14:25:04 someone who's done constituent services, it is quite literally

14:25:08 impossible to get someone to share something even if it's not

14:25:11 relevant to the bureau or responsibilities that you hold, people will do it.

14:25:14 But I like that we're trying to frame this in a way that people

14:25:17 are sharing things that are meaningful and actionable

14:25:22 for us.

14:25:26

Will Commissioner Rubio be attending this listening session as well as the

14:25:29 housing commissioner?

>> JUSTIN: I am not certain, actually.

14:25:32 I will find that

14:25:35 out.

>> ANGELITO: Thank you.

14:25:39

>> JUSTIN: Absolutely.

14:25:54

Any other thoughts or concerns?

The next

14:25:57 session is Executive Committee recruitment.

It's a quick one.

14:26:00

We'll be sending

14:26:06 our home mows memos of recommendation within the next week.

We

14:26:09 cannot speak to exactly when that will be

14:26:12 reviewed and

14:26:17 approved, but I will keep everyone up to date when I know more.

So just

14:26:20 a quick little update, we haven't forgotten,

14:26:25 it's moving.

Just kind of a time thing here now.

14:26:36

Any questions on that before I move on to staff

14:26:41 updates?

All righty.

Well, we have

14:26:44 a couple presentations that are

14:26:48 coming up now.

Before going into that, I just want to

14:26:51 do a chat check with our chat

14:27:00 moderator.

Amber, anything else we need to

14:27:03 share out loud with the group that I might have missed?

>> AMBER: You

14:27:06 didn't say that she loves to be able to

14:27:10 highlight the compilation of testimony for people participating in the listening

14:27:13 session, so that might be something for Vivien to expand on just a

14:27:17 little bit.

14:27:20

If Vivien would like to.

>> VIVIEN: Sure, yeah.

14:27:24 I just meant that I heard that

14:27:27 Justin and Breonne are going to be addressing the people

14:27:30 providing the testimony at the listening session, and I think it would

14:27:35 be useful for them to hear about that compilation of testimony and the use that

14:27:38 was made of that and how it really did impact

14:27:41 the way that we prioritized

14:27:46 this

14:27:51 year's yearly agenda, I

14:27:54 guess, that that would provide a concrete example

14:27:57 of what the testimony is useful for.

14:28:00

With respect to this

14:28:06 committee.

>> JUSTIN: Thank you, Vivien.

>> AMBER: Excellent.

14:28:09 I'm going to add briefly, if we have a

14:28:15 commissioner who reflects back in broad strokes what we heard,

14:28:18 that could go a

14:28:22 long way toward making the experience less

14:28:25 frustrating.

When they just talk and say thank you and

14:28:28 good-bye, you kind of wonder why you spent your

14:28:31 time.

So...

>> JUSTIN: Thank

14:28:34 you, Amber.

Thank everyone for the feedback and comments and great conversation

14:28:38 around this.

I've heard you all and I'll make sure as

14:28:41 we're planning the event to take into account all these great ideas and

14:28:45 considerations where appropriate.

14:28:48

Okey dokey, let's go ahead and jump into the

14:28:51 presentations.

I'm going to go first, I'll go ahead and share

14:28:57 my screen.

14:29:01

Okay.

Share

14:29:06 this

14:29:13 one.

Can you all see that presentation?

Give me one

14:29:16 second to get situated.

Okay.

Perfect.

14:29:19 So our first presentation today is

14:29:22 on legislative updates and landlord

14:29:26 incentives.

This is born from our request and from

14:29:30 conversations around specifically looking at

14:29:33 what policy tools or interventions we

14:29:36 can use to incentivize landlord behavior.

Specifically, this is, you

14:29:40 know, from the knowledge that, you know,

14:29:43 locally we

14:29:46 can't do anything on a local level to change the

14:29:50 state's law to, you know --

14:29:53 it's a state law that guides

14:29:56 the rent increase.

Excuse me.

And so locally we have no

14:29:59 power to change that or influence that policy or

14:30:02 legislation.

And so this presentation was

14:30:05 really born from the idea of looking at various local

14:30:09 policy solutions or implementations we can use to help

14:30:12 incentivize landlord behavior,

14:30:15 specifically for low-income tenants.

The request was

14:30:18 related to, you know, incentivize landlords to not raise

14:30:25 rent.

So in today's agenda, I'll be going over some

14:30:28 updates on key

14:30:31 legislation.

Some rent control legislation, which I just briefly

14:30:34 kind of stumbled over.

And then some landlord incentives

14:30:39 kind of going over what they are, their

14:30:41 function, their role, and some common examples.

14:30:44

This is not meant to be an exhaustive list

14:30:48 by any means of possible

14:30:52 policy interventions or incentives.

14:30:55

But it's going to start a conversation to help us

14:30:58 brainstorm when going

14:31:02 forward.

So we're first going to start with updates on key

14:31:09 legislation.

So

14:31:15 HB 2001 which was signed March 29, 2023, is the biggest piece of

14:31:18 legislation that affects the eviction process and

14:31:22 landlord-tenant interactions.

Some

14:31:25 key requirements and changes made by

14:31:29 HB 2001 include when serving a notice of termination for

14:31:33 nonpayment, HB 2001 increases the notice period from

14:31:37 72 hours to 10 days or from 144

14:31:42 hours to 13 days.

It also requires the landlord to deliver a

14:31:46 copy of a newly created notice when

14:31:49 serving a tenant with any termination notice related to

14:31:52 nonpayment.

And that's available on the website of

14:31:55 the Oregon Judicial Department.

Big one

14:31:59 here, extends the time a tenant is able to cure the

14:32:02 nonpayment cited in a termination up to the first appearance in court.

So

14:32:05 if a tenant shows up to court with the money, they are allowed to

14:32:08 cure the payment at that point.

Which you know,

14:32:11 extends that time to basically, you know, the last

14:32:16 possible moment.

And requires the landlord to reasonably

14:32:20 participate with rental assistance programs.

14:32:27

HB 2001 also defines nonpayment as nonpayment of a payment that is due

14:32:30 to a landlord, including a payment of rent,

14:32:33 late charges, utility or service charges or any

14:32:36 other charges or fees as described in the rental

14:32:42 agreement.

14:32:46

Under

14:32:50 HB 2001, nonpayment does not include payments due

14:32:54 for damages to the premises.

14:32:56

Pippa.

>> PIPPA: I have a general question

14:32:59 not related to this but it relates to politics and I didn't see it on the agenda

14:33:02 so I thought I'd just ask.

Does the measure in

14:33:05 Multnomah County that I voted on yesterday

14:33:08 measure 236 or something to that extent,

14:33:12 which read like sort of highlights of our talking points

14:33:15 of this body, did this body have anything to do with that

14:33:19 measure?

And I apologize for sort of out of

14:33:22 context, but politically related question

14:33:26 at this point.

14:33:30

>> JUSTIN: Yeah.

Breonne,

14:33:33 will you weigh in?

I just am

14:33:36 uncertain.

>> BREONNE: No, that was an independent campaign as a

14:33:39 public body, we had nothing to do with that and the

14:33:42 Housing Bureau did not engage.

>> JUSTIN:

14:33:46 Awesome.

14:33:51

Thanks, Breonne creditor and Breonne, and thank you for the

14:33:55 question, Pippa.

>> Were you talking about the question

14:33:58 about all measures, that one?

>> PIPPA:

14:34:03 Yeah, I believe so.

>> LAURA: Breonne is correct, of

14:34:05 course.

>> PIPPA: Thank you.

>> JUSTIN: Perfect.

14:34:09 Rent control legislation.

So we discussed

14:34:12 this last time, last meeting, actually, but

14:34:17 ORS 91.225 restricts the ability to establish rent control

14:34:21 measures to the role of the state.

This is a quick reminder, which is

14:34:24 why we're going through this presentation and having these conversations to look

14:34:28 at kind of local solutions to

14:34:31 this legislation when it comes to supporting

14:34:35 tenants and possibly keeping rents at more

14:34:40 affordable levels.

All righty, we'll go

14:34:44 ahead and get into landlord incentives

14:34:48 now.

So

14:34:51 landlord incentives were designed with some

14:34:56 regulatory affordability and others ensure that the

14:34:59 housing remains

14:35:04 safe.

Specific localities and jurisdictions will have very clear

14:35:08 goals in mind with incentive techniques to achieve these goals.

14:35:11

These be common functions of most public housing

14:35:14 authorities.

So function, they have various functions

14:35:18 to maintain unit affordability, of course, partner with the local

14:35:21 housing authority, which I just mentioned, rent to target

14:35:24 populations, and, you know, for maintenance and rehabilitation

14:35:27 purposes.

These are all things we'll explore in more depth later

14:35:31 on in the

14:35:34 presentation.

Some techniques, there are two main

14:35:37 categories of techniques, monetary and

14:35:40 nonmonetary incentives.

Monetary is the most common

14:35:44 and most effective, which involve, among other

14:35:47 things, direct payments to landlords, tax incentives,

14:35:51 access to

14:35:55 damage or mitigation fund.

And examples of

14:35:58 nonmonetary incentives include preinspection certification good

14:36:02 for 60 days, free online rental listing and tenant placement

14:36:05 assistance, and mediation

14:36:10 services.

So let's take a little closer

14:36:13 look at the maintain affordable housing

14:36:17 incentive.

Predominantly takes the form, you know, of

14:36:20 tax incentives, are there tax abatements which

14:36:23 reduce the total amount of tax owed or tax

14:36:27 exemptions which reduce the assessed value

14:36:30 of the

14:36:35 property.

They're often geared to new development and

14:36:38 agreed upon number of units affordable for a

14:36:42 specified amount of time or to put the property under rent

14:36:46 regulation that slows escalation of rent levels.

It can be coupled with

14:36:49 maintenance and rehabilitation incentives.

You know, the tax

14:36:52 relief allows more of the more rental income to

14:36:55 flow to the bottom line, thus

14:36:58 bringing up cash flow which can be used to improved the

14:37:02 operations of the building, increase the money spent on maintenance or fund

14:37:05 actual building rehabilitation or

14:37:10 maintenance.

An example of this, I'm sure we're all familiar

14:37:13 with, is Oregon's low income housing tax

14:37:17 program, LIHTC.

The LIHTC program provides

14:37:20 tax credits for developers to construct,

14:37:23 rehabilitate, or acquire and rehabilitate

14:37:26 qualified, low-income rental housing.

These

14:37:29 development projects include multifamily and single family

14:37:33 rental housing.

Eligible applicants

14:37:37 include both for profit, profit, and nonprofit

14:37:40 sponsors.

And Oregon housing and community services

14:37:43 issues these credits you there a competitive notice of funding availability

14:37:46 process or NOFA, for

14:37:49 those who are familiar with the acronym.

This is not the only

14:37:52 example we have even in the State of Oregon.

14:37:56

We have the Oregon affordable housing tax credit,

14:37:59 a state income tax credit that

14:38:03 produces lower rents for lower income people in affordable housing

14:38:06 projects.

And we have the agriculture workforce housing tax credit

14:38:09 which gives a state income tax credit to investors who

14:38:13 developer rehabilitate agriculture workforce

14:38:20 housing.

So that is a look at tax credits and how they can be used to

14:38:23 incentivize and maintain affordability.

Another

14:38:26 incentive, you know, we see

14:38:30 frequently are to rent to target

14:38:33 populations.

You know, oftentimes through a partnership with a

14:38:36 local housing authority.

So this is,

14:38:40 you know, when a local housing authority will use monetary

14:38:43 incentives like a rent guarantee fund, a damage mitigation fund

14:38:46 which gives the landlords access to a fund

14:38:50 for any damages to the unit.

Security

14:38:53 deposit assistance, and vacancy funds which will pay the

14:38:56 landlord if, you know, while they're waiting for

14:38:59 someone to be placed.

Populations that are targeted

14:39:02 can include the homeless or chronically

14:39:07 homeless populations, DV survivors, individuals with evictions on record

14:39:10 or who are experiencing barriers securing

14:39:15 housing, individuals and families with very low income,

14:39:19 and housing choice voucher recipients.

Which will

14:39:22 be expanded on more in the next presentation that's given by

14:39:25 Ian and

14:39:29 Laura.

Some examples of this

14:39:32 include Los Angeles County landlord

14:39:36 incentive program.

The Los Angeles County

14:39:39 development authority's homeless incentive program offers monetary

14:39:43 incentives to encourage landlords to rent their

14:39:46 available units to LACDA's homeless Section

14:39:49 8 voucher holders.

So some incentives include a sign-on

14:39:53 bonus, application fee assistance, damage

14:39:57 mitigation fund, vacancy payments, and

14:40:00 on-time payment guarantees.

These programs are something

14:40:03 we see very commonly across the U.S.

14:40:06

And another example is San Diego landlord

14:40:11 engagement and assistance fund, which provide incentives to landlords who

14:40:15 choose to rent individuals exiting homelessness.

Some incentives for

14:40:18 them include payment of $500 for the

14:40:21 first apartment rented, and 250 for each additional unit.

14:40:25

Access to a contingency fund,

14:40:28 application and credit check assistance, security deposits and

14:40:31 utility assistance, and

14:40:35 preinspection certification good for 60 days, free online rental

14:40:38 listing and tenant placement assistance.

We see a lot

14:40:42 of pairing of nonmonetary and monetary

14:40:45 incentives here to really help, you know,

14:40:48 change landlord behavior or incentivize the

14:40:51 behavior for, you know, keeping units affordable.

And

14:40:55 these are, by far, not the only examples that we see across

14:40:59 the country.

For

14:41:02 instance, New York senior citizen rent

14:41:06 increase exemption helps eligible senior citizens 62 and

14:41:09 older stay in affordable housing by

14:41:12 freezing their rent, and

14:41:16 New York's disability resident rent

14:41:20 exemption does something similar for people who are living with a disability.

14:41:23

And these are found thanks to Ian, so thank you, Ian.

14:41:27 And I'm going to go ahead and put links to these

14:41:31 in the chat.

You know,

14:41:35 and there's some --

also have

14:41:38 been some local efforts as I'm sure a lot of us know to do something very similar to this.

14:41:44

Thinking of move-in multiple Noma, the

14:41:53 Clackamas housing that I'll put in the chat here.

14:41:56

And Multnomah one I'll put in the chat.

14:42:00 I'll grab that link.

These are not PHB

14:42:04 projects, so -- PHB does not directly one these

14:42:07 programs or have influence or authority over these

14:42:11 programs.

But you know, looking at what possible,

14:42:14 you know, policy interventions we can come up with as a body to

14:42:17 help, you know, address this issue.

Just

14:42:21 wanted to give as many options as possible for what's being done, you

14:42:24 know, across the U.S., but also what's happening

14:42:27 locally so we can keep that in mind when, you

14:42:30 know, having these

14:42:35 discussions.

Any questions or

14:42:38 comments on that presentation?

Christian.

14:42:42

>> CHRISTIAN: Yeah.

A couple things.

14:42:45 One, I

14:42:48 want to say, being a landlord myself and also running

14:42:51 the Portland area rental association where about

14:42:55 90% of our members are the -- when some

14:42:58 would call the small landlords, four or less units and whatnot, I

14:43:03 can tell you that we definitely

14:43:06 -- we definitely --

they would definitely respond

14:43:09 to things like that, for sure.

14:43:12

I think if we started thinking down this road

14:43:15 as a city, I think it would

14:43:18 halt at least a good portion of them that are,

14:43:21 you know, seriously toying with the idea of, you

14:43:24 know, potentially selling their properties and stuff.

And that's

14:43:27 one thing that, you know, yeah, some of those might go

14:43:30 to people that live in them and we might lose some of those

14:43:34 units.

But also more importantly,

14:43:37 one of the other unintended consequences of that happening is the people buying the units

14:43:41 are going to be ones that pay for a layer of

14:43:44 management that just, you know, adds to overall costs

14:43:47 versus though smaller ones.

I know those landlords would definitely respond to

14:43:50 stuff like this, so I think it's very good

14:43:54 avenue to go down to see if it's something that's affordable for the city and make

14:43:58 work.

The other thing that I wanted to point out, which I

14:44:01 think is definitely a reason for us to continue down

14:44:04 this path and make some sort of recommendation, is the other

14:44:07 big piece to HB 2001 is the housing needs

14:44:12 analysis.

And the study to go along with that that will within the

14:44:15 next two years they're going to do that entire housing needs

14:44:18 analysis for every area across Oregon.

They're going to roll

14:44:21 out basically goals or set limits of certain levels of housing that every

14:44:24 area like Portland or Portland Metro will be required to meet.

14:44:27

And then if they aren't able to meet those, then they're going to

14:44:33 -- the state will mandate, basically, go through some audit process and

14:44:36 stuff, but they'll mandate that those areas start doing things like

14:44:40 incentivizing the development of units to meet a

14:44:43 certain, you know, percentage of medium-family

14:44:46 income affordability level, whether that be through things like

14:44:49 this we're talking about or

14:44:53 potentially, which could bite into some things that a lot of citizens that the

14:44:56 Portland area care about, potentially be forced to expand and open

14:45:00 up urban growth boundary areas or

14:45:03 publicly-owned property that's undeveloped, things like that.

14:45:06

So I think, you know, getting on top of or ahead

14:45:10 of that curve, we kind of stumbled into some good timing on

14:45:14 really I think flushing this out and possibly turning it into a

14:45:17 recommendation at the very least that City Council

14:45:20 can look into expanding some of the opportunities or incentives that

14:45:25 they have.

>> JUSTIN: Thank you, Christian.

And I do want to, you

14:45:32 know, housing rent analysis is on our radar as well and we're

14:45:35 looking closer to the end of the year, November or December meeting to have

14:45:38 a discussion on that.

So thank you for

14:45:43 bringing that up.

Any other --

14:45:46 oh,

14:45:50 Ian.

>> IAN: Great presentation.

Do you mind just quickly sharing the

14:45:53 screen on page 4 of the presentation?

>> JUSTIN: Yeah,

14:45:59 of course.

>> IAN:

14:46:02 While you're throwing that up, I will

14:46:05 just highlight at least the third and

14:46:10 fourth bullets on what Justin's about to share were

14:46:13 pieces that this group directly advocated for.

So one is extend the

14:46:16 time a tenant is able to cure the nonpayment

14:46:19 cited in termination issued under Chapter

14:46:22 90 up to the first appearance in court.

And

14:46:26 the second was bullet 4 on here requiring the landlord to

14:46:29 reasonably participate with rental assistance programs.

And we had

14:46:32 -- this group had put out a letter

14:46:36 in June of

14:46:40 '21, just under two years ago, as we saw out of the COVID

14:46:43 era protections sort of sunsetting and

14:46:46 that letter specifically asked for these two things.

14:46:51

It reads, local code should be adopted to allow for easier use for emergency

14:46:55 rental assistance by requiring landlords to accept rent I assistance.

14:46:58 It should be adopted to allow longer period of time

14:47:01 for nonpayment notice for payment

14:47:04 of rent beyond 72 hour period to

14:47:07 allow [away from mic] and avoid eviction.

I wanted to highlight those as little

14:47:11 wins that this group should be proud of.

Because

14:47:14 while our advocacy went to council and this was at the state

14:47:17 level, I think it all has an impact in

14:47:20 adding to the advocacy.

So that's all I

14:47:24 wanted to mention.

>> JUSTIN: Thank you so much for pointing that out,

14:47:27 Ian.

It's always great to know that the efforts of this body

14:47:31 are having an impact.

And this is an

14:47:34 amazing impact that's going to benefit so

14:47:38 many tenants and so thank you so much for pointing that out.

14:47:49

Other

14:47:53 questions?

Amber.

>> AMBER: So thank you for the work

14:47:57 put into this for, you know, making this presentation

14:48:00 and laying things out nice and clearly

14:48:03 and clearly a fair amount of research was done, you

14:48:06 know, to make sure, you know, to

14:48:09 reflect, like, what's been done in other places and,

14:48:13 you know, kind of what are more standard

14:48:16 procedures.

My concern

14:48:21 with -- with this is

14:48:24 that, you know, of course I have

14:48:28 to speak as -- you know, as a renter

14:48:32 myself is that, you know,

14:48:35 this is all -- you know, in essence we

14:48:38 have an issue in which, you know,

14:48:41 some landlords are overcharging rents, they're

14:48:44 charging rents above local wages making them unaffordable to

14:48:48 people who, you know, work jobs.

And then we're saying,

14:48:51 now we're also going to give them, you know, a

14:48:54 bunch of kind of socialism -- social money,

14:48:58 right?

We're going to give them extra money.

14:49:02 And we discussed that, but I don't see anywhere in

14:49:05 here any

14:49:10 sort of, you know, on the opposite side of things,

14:49:13 how are landlords penalized when they, you know,

14:49:16 don't follow these rules or

14:49:19 are overcharging rents

14:49:22 or -- sorry for the frog in my lit to throat.

>> JUSTIN:

14:49:27 You're fine.

It up for bringing that up,

14:49:30 Amber.

This presentation was -- sorry.

>> AMBER:

14:49:33 Sorry, say that again.

>> JUSTIN: Oh, I was going

14:49:36 to say this presentation was specifically requested

14:49:40 to look at the landlord side of things.

Like how can

14:49:43 we incentivize landlords themselves to keeping this

14:49:48 affordable.

But I can absolutely do some research for the -- for what

14:49:51 your request is as well.

>> AMBER: Right.

I'm just -- you

14:49:54 know, I'm just saying that, you

14:49:57 know, that again

14:50:03 -- okay.

So is this not a time for discussion?

I'm

14:50:06 sorry.

>> JUSTIN: No, it is.

>> CHRISTIAN:

14:50:09 And one thing I would also point out,

14:50:13 Amber, is it -- the lack

14:50:17 of talking about the penalties doesn't mean they're not there.

And

14:50:20 it is -- it was just more geared toward just

14:50:23 looking at what incentives would be out there.

I think Vivien

14:50:27 actually originally brought this up one of let's see what options

14:50:30 there are.

>> VIVIEN: I knew you were going to do

14:50:33 that, Christian.

>> CHRISTIAN: At a high-level view.

I want to point out this

14:50:37 wasn't like a landlord advocate going hey, we

14:50:39 need stuff.

That was the other big point I wanted to point out.

14:50:43 One of the big main drivers of this, and Vivien, by all

14:50:46 means, do correct me if I'm wrong, but I also believe

14:50:49 it was more geared towards we would maybe come up with some creative

14:50:53 incentives in the City of Portland to

14:50:57 incentivize landlords that -- or reward landlords with

14:51:00 incentives that might keep their rents low.

Or create a

14:51:03 low-income housing that makes -- they hold at a

14:51:06 level that

14:51:10 is affordable for certain tenants and they would

14:51:14 qualify for certain tenants since we're not able at the city level to say we

14:51:17 can set a hard increase limit for things like

14:51:20 that.

I think it was to think creatively to go what if we

14:51:23 put something out there, here's a reward if you do keep your rents low

14:51:27 and you're not, you know, raising them -- just as an example.

There

14:51:32 can be rewards for other stuff, such as developing more units in the price range or

14:51:35 whatever too.

But is that at least fairly summarized kind of your

14:51:38 intention there, Vivien, I think?

>> VIVIEN:

14:51:43 It does.

It's, as you say,

14:51:47 it's a recognition of how our

14:51:50 hands are tied in various

14:51:53 ways and it is also

14:51:57 a response to concerns

14:52:00 about short-term rent assistance,

14:52:08 invent advising incentivizing landlords

14:52:11 to keep rents high.

So finding other ways to incentivize landlords that

14:52:14 may still operate in some ways as a transfer

14:52:18 of wealth to them sort of through a

14:52:21 backdoor.

But ultimately are

14:52:24 more of a carrot than a stick.

I think

14:52:27 the long -- not to show my hand, but

14:52:31 the goal there overarchingly would

14:52:34 be to help

14:52:37 landlords understand and take a softer position

14:52:40 towards government intervention that, you know, it's not just tenants

14:52:43 getting help with this difficult situation.

14:52:48

Right?

It's recognizing

14:52:51 that the fact that they're expected to jump through a

14:52:56 lot of hoops and they may not see the benefits to

14:52:59 them of doing so, this

14:53:04 would help them.

Sorry about that.

That this

14:53:07 would help them see some benefits.

14:53:11

>> JUSTIN: Thank you, Vivien.

We have about two minutes left nor

14:53:13 discussion.

I want to give it back over to Amber.

14:53:16 You had your hand up,

14:53:22 Amber.

>> AMBER: It's -- sorry,

14:53:25 yeah, it sounds like the points that I'm interested in

14:53:29 making are not right for this point in time.

14:53:34

So...

>> JUSTIN: And, you know, to your

14:53:37 point, Amber, I -- you know, this presentation was

14:53:40 geared more towards landlord incentives.

But

14:53:44 I can do some

14:53:47 research for landlord penalization and make sure we have

14:53:50 research around that as well for our next meeting.

>> AMBER:

14:53:54 Okay, yeah.

I had, you know, just some

14:53:57 suggestions from the, you know, Pasadena work on rent

14:54:00 control that, you know, have been

14:54:04 passed and been working successfully.

>> JUSTIN: I'll

14:54:07 take whatever leads you can give me, honestly, so thank you.

14:54:12

Ian.

>> IAN: I think I'm going to hold if

14:54:15 we're going to follow up on the

14:54:18 discussion a little bit later.

Thanks, Justin.

>> JUSTIN: Absolutely.

14:54:22

Amber, wanted to check in with you on the chat before I move on to the next

14:54:30 presentation.

>> AMBER: Sorry, it

14:54:33 looks like -- yeah, the only comment we had was

14:54:36 Laura agreeing to bring this up during discussion

14:54:39 time later in the meeting.

>> JUSTIN:

14:54:43 Awesome.

Thank you, Amber.

All

14:54:46 righty.

Well, I'll go ahead and turn the floor over to Ian

14:54:49 and Laura.

I think you should have

14:54:52 access to share your screen.

>> IAN: That sounds

14:54:56 great.

Thanks, Justin.

14:54:59

Can folks see what Laura and I are

14:55:04 sharing?

Awesome.

Well, just by way of introduction,

14:55:07 you all know us but we also have other roles beyond individual members of

14:55:11 the rental services commission, so I'm a chief operating

14:55:14 office for Home Forward, the housing authority that

14:55:17 covers Multnomah County, and we

14:55:20 administer a lot of the bulk of the rent assistance for

14:55:23 Multnomah County.

That informs my role here.

Laura, do

14:55:27 you want to say hi real quick?

>> LAURA: Hi, everyone.

Yes, you

14:55:30 all know us but good to do an introduction.

I'm the executive

14:55:33 director of northwest pilot project.

We are

14:55:36 a nonprofit service provider organization.

We don't

14:55:39 own or operate housing, we help low

14:55:43 income and very low income older adults to

14:55:46 find rental housing that they can

14:55:49 afford in Multnomah County.

And we

14:55:53 utilize rent assistance from Section

14:55:57 8, from the straw program short-term rent

14:56:00 assistance program.

We also piloted a locally funded

14:56:03 rent assistance program, you'll hear about that a little bit more.

And we're

14:56:06 big advocates for rent assistance

14:56:09 as a vehicle for stabilizing

14:56:12 renters who are low income.

14:56:16

So thank you.

14:56:19

>> IAN: That's so lovely, Laura.

What I like about what

14:56:23 Laura high lighted there,

14:56:27 we are a large organization and

14:56:30 Laura has that beautiful linkage around access,

14:56:33 supports, and the advocacy piece that Laura mentioned.

14:56:36

So hopefully it's well rounded in that regard.

14:56:39 Our goals to discuss long-term rent assistance and its role

14:56:42 in increasing housing access, affordability, and stability to members of

14:56:45 our community.

A little bit of context.

We discuss emergency

14:56:49 rent assistance for a very long time, I think earlier

14:56:52 in -- actually I guess last year.

14:56:55

And so as part of that conversation, a lot came up about

14:56:58 long-term rent assistance and what it looks like in our

14:57:01 community.

And this presentation was trying to be responsive to

14:57:05 those desires.

So

14:57:08 that's a good segue to what is rent

14:57:11 assistance?

There are three-ish types.

You're going

14:57:14 to always see this in different colors

14:57:17 and flavors, but the first is emergency rent assistance.

That's

14:57:21 usually one time to -- to address some

14:57:25 sort of emergency, including usually a pending

14:57:28 eviction.

And sometimes we

14:57:31 see that --

that alignment of financial resources with services

14:57:34 as well.

Right?

So either help substantialize

14:57:37 that household or make sure that they're still housed in

14:57:41 12 months, 24 months.

We learned a lot about that, like I

14:57:44 said, last year.

There is short-term

14:57:48 rent assistance in our community, we usually call

14:57:52 short-term rent assistance emergency rent assistance.

14:57:55

They're kind of interchangeable.

Again, with different flavors,

14:57:58 right?

So short-term in our community, the

14:58:02 straw program tends to have those retention services

14:58:05 aligned.

What we also see, though, in terms of

14:58:10 short-term rent assistance is that program that might last six

14:58:13 months, maybe a year, might not be such a deep

14:58:17 subsidy, maybe a shallow subsidy, let's

14:58:20 say a fixed amount, $500, you would often see those

14:58:23 aligned way services or maybe

14:58:26 Catholic charities, et cetera.

And that is also existing

14:58:29 within a continuum.

And then sort of the other end of that

14:58:33 continuum is long-term rent

14:58:36 assistance.

This tends to be permanent for as long as a household

14:58:39 needs, at least in our community.

We don't really have time

14:58:43 restrictions.

A lot of counties and states do.

And the subsidy

14:58:46 goal there is to make the rent, use air quotes here,

14:58:51 affordable, around 30% of the household income.

And we

14:58:55 can come back to that affordability piece and what that

14:58:59 actually means to practice.

14:59:02

So what practically then is long term rent

14:59:06 assistance?

Two primary options in Multnomah County.

14:59:09 I want to talk about the first and then hand it to Laura to discuss

14:59:12 the second a bit more.

The first is one that folks are probably

14:59:15 pretty familiar with, we have the Section 8

14:59:18 housing choice voucher program.

Sect 8

14:59:23 of the 1937 housing act, later it was rebranded housing choice voucher,

14:59:27 the choice implying that folks can utilize the

14:59:31 resource to search anywhere in the community to find

14:59:34 housing.

We know that that is

14:59:37 actually fairly limited sometimes due to geography, due

14:59:40 to the private market and the discussion that we were just

14:59:44 touching on around owners or landlords

14:59:48 using rent assistance in some of their housing.

But that

14:59:51 is the emphasis of the program, at least as

14:59:55 intended by Congress over the past couple

14:59:59 decades.

Through Home Forward, we have a few

15:00:02 different types of vouchers.

By far, the

15:00:07 biggest pool is the housing choice voucher.

Many

15:00:11 thousands of those that folks can use, again, anywhere

15:00:15 in community.

Those are very broad, we'll talk a little bit about some

15:00:18 of the access points in a minute.

In addition

15:00:22 to that are special purpose

15:00:25 vouchers.

Those tend to be targeted toward a

15:00:28 certain population, and in that regard they're a lot more limited.

15:00:31

So you might

15:00:34 see VASH vouchers serving veterans.

What we call FUP

15:00:38 vouchers, family unification programs serving foster youth and

15:00:41 foster families.

Our mainstream vouchers serve

15:00:44 folks between 18

15:00:48 and 65 with disability or someone with disability in the household.

So those are going to be

15:00:51 a lot more targeted and there tend to be fewer

15:00:54 overall.

But we can often align those with a certain goal.

15:00:58 And then the third type is project-based vouchers.

So

15:01:01 this sort of takes the choice out of the equation, but

15:01:04 replace today's with some degree of certainty,

15:01:07 right?

Some elementtation we've seen

15:01:10 with

15:01:14 Housing Choice Vouchers is the implication is that they can be

15:01:18 utilized, but some folks aren't able to lease up.

Our rate of

15:01:21 success is about 80% in

15:01:26 Multnomah County.

Many communities it's closer to

15:01:30 50.

That means after people have been on a waitlist, there's another one

15:01:33 that receives a voucher and can't actually use it.

That's one of the

15:01:36 limitations.

About when you project base a voucher, that means it

15:01:39 sort of lives in a property, usually

15:01:43 with ten to 20 to sometimes as many as

15:01:46 40 other vouchers, and is more akin to sort of the old model of

15:01:49 public housing in terms of how it operates.

Bit

15:01:53 more flexible.

And we'll get some numbers on these in a

15:01:56 second.

For now, Laura, why don't

15:02:00 you talk about

15:02:07 RLRA.

15:02:11

>> LAURA: Thank you so much.

In

15:02:14 2020, the high-income earner tax was passed in the metro

15:02:17 area, the metro geographical area that covers

15:02:22 Clackamas, Multnomah, part of

15:02:26 Washington County

15:02:32 was a high-income earner tax and targeted

15:02:35 specifically for addressing housing of chronically homeless folks.

And

15:02:38 one of the goals

15:02:42 was to create a regional long-term rent

15:02:45 assistance program that would take that local funding

15:02:48 and create a

15:02:52 program that could be used locally and controlled

15:02:55 locally.

That was done.

It's called the regional long-term

15:02:58 rent assistance program.

The program itself

15:03:01 is overseen by metro.

But the money that's

15:03:06 collected goes to -- is collected in each of the three

15:03:10 counties and stays in the three counties.

And then each

15:03:14 county decides how

15:03:17 that RLRA money is going to be used.

Right now

15:03:21 the vouchers work within

15:03:25 each county.

And each county

15:03:29 determines how many vouchers, how they will

15:03:32 distribute them, and what,

15:03:36 if any, there are priority populations.

15:03:39

The idea with the vouchers was that

15:03:42 local control of the program would give us

15:03:48 the opportunity to recognize that folks

15:03:51 who need to move into housing that's more affordable, people who

15:03:55 are homeless and have an opportunity to move into housing aren't

15:03:58 really paying attention to the geographical

15:04:01 boundaries, so if we had someone in

15:04:05 Multnomah County who was willing to move to

15:04:08 Clackamas County and could get a voucher there to

15:04:11 subsidize their rent, that could

15:04:14 be done through portability.

That's actually an interesting

15:04:19 aspect of this program that's not been

15:04:22 fully addressed.

But it has

15:04:26 the potential to make the vouchers more

15:04:30 accessible to people by looking at how

15:04:33 voucher allocation can

15:04:36 -- can work among the three

15:04:39 county areas.

These regional long-term rent assistance

15:04:43 vouchers are both housing choice, just as Ian

15:04:47 described, with the federal vouchers.

And we use the

15:04:51 same language because it's easy.

So recipient can choose their

15:04:56 housing.

And they're also project based.

So some of the regional

15:05:00 long-term rent assistance vouchers have already been used in some

15:05:04 of the projects, the housing construction projects

15:05:07 funded by either the City of Portland

15:05:10 housing construction bond or the metro housing construction

15:05:13 bond, which was also something that was identified as

15:05:17 a goal for these

15:05:20 vouchers.

The vouchers are administered either

15:05:23 by the housing authority in each of the three

15:05:26 counties, or in this

15:05:30 case in Multnomah County, the option

15:05:33 was given to service providers to

15:05:37 do their own administration of the vouchers.

And so that

15:05:40 was something that was new and some service

15:05:43 providers opted for

15:05:47 that.

And that, apparently, is working

15:05:51 pretty well.

The housing authorities are

15:05:54 the first natural choice for administration of these vouchers

15:05:57 because that's what housing authorities are

15:06:00 already doing.

Currently, the focus of the

15:06:04 vouchers is to pair them with support services for

15:06:09 chronically homeless households through the development of permanent supportive

15:06:12 housing program or program modeled after this.

15:06:16

That's because the supportive housing services measure identifies

15:06:20 that 75% of the tax money raised should be

15:06:23 spent on

15:06:26 chronically homeless folks.

This made

15:06:29 a natural connection, chronically

15:06:32 homeless individuals, households, usually are in need of rent

15:06:35 assistance to support their move into housing.

So this

15:06:38 voucher pairs really, really

15:06:41 well with those households who also need permanent supportive

15:06:46 housing.

Ian, I'll hand it back to you.

>> IAN: Thanks,

15:06:49 Laura.

I'll just say that last part is unique.

15:06:53 That does not exist in the federal program where there's

15:06:56 a direct alignment of services.

Frankly, it doesn't exist

15:06:59 in most of the country, right?

When I'm talking to

15:07:02 other housing authority folks about,

15:07:05 you know, the troubles of some of the

15:07:09 voucher types, they do not have the resources that we have in

15:07:12 our community.

And yet we see even those might not be enough,

15:07:15 right, for some of the need that we're seeing.

Let's

15:07:19 talk a little bit about

15:07:22 numbers.

So in Multnomah County, this is

15:07:25 pretty much the universe of

15:07:28 Section 8 or housing choice

15:07:32 or long term rent-assistance vouchers.

I mentioned the

15:07:35 primary federal resource, the housing choice voucher program.

15:07:38

Within that -- so we're currently administering a little

15:07:41 over 7,000 of those, and I

15:07:44 highlighted that those can be the

15:07:51 Housing Choice Vouchers or pro

15:08:03 project-based vouchers.

You can see it

15:08:06 there.

In 2016 we packaged the number of

15:08:12 vouchers into Portland Housing Bureau notice of funding availabilities

15:08:16 with capital dollars, so then, you know, there

15:08:19 was capital construction that happened

15:08:22 along with the deep affordability of a voucher.

We did that also with

15:08:25 the Portland housing bond and with the metro bond.

We have

15:08:29 probably put upwards of 1500 vouchers into the

15:08:32 system of the almost 2,400 that you

15:08:36 see on this slide in the past five to

15:08:40 ten years.

We have all those special purpose vouchers I

15:08:44 mentioned, VASH, FUP, mainstream

15:08:47 vouchers, and emergency housing

15:08:51 vouchers.

And we have had a lot of success in our

15:08:55 community because when HUD says -- when the

15:08:58 federal department of housing and urban development says we have this opportunity, show us that you can

15:09:01 do this work and you have supports for it, we're able to

15:09:04 say, wow, look at this great service alignment that exists

15:09:08 locally.

Look at this collaboration we've

15:09:12 done with our systems of care within the community, that helps us out.

And then

15:09:16 Laura talked about the regional

15:09:19 long term assistance vouchers.

We're currently budgeted at

15:09:24 838.

It was hard to you will.

15:09:27

Data on how many are being used right now because

15:09:31 Multnomah County does administer all of those.

Some of

15:09:34 them service providers administer and some of

15:09:37 those are directly administered on

15:09:40 sites in sort of project-based context.

>> LAURA: I'll just add to

15:09:43 that, that because

15:09:47 the SHS funded programs including the vouchers and

15:09:50 the pairing with the permanent

15:09:53 supportive housing programs, because that first year took

15:09:56 a little while to launch, I think we're

15:09:59 behind the target number that we would have liked to

15:10:04 see with the RLRA vouchers, as well as knowing

15:10:08 that there are more voucher opportunities coming soon.

So I

15:10:11 think we should see that number

15:10:16 increase.

>> IAN: Yeah, I

15:10:19 agree.

If folks have any questions or anything, just reminder, please hands

15:10:22 up or just unmute and chime in.

Let's talk

15:10:25 about access for a second.

So I'll

15:10:28 talk a little bit about some of the Home Forward aligned

15:10:32 access points.

Everybody is familiar with the wait list if the is not

15:10:35 a perfect access point.

15:10:38

First of all, there is just way too much

15:10:42 need.

So generally we open a waitlist of 2000

15:10:46 to 3,000.

In 2016, you can see from

15:10:49 the slide

15:10:53 16,797 households applied.

And then a

15:10:57 randomized process occurred to choose 3,000 folks

15:11:02 to be on the waitlist.

We will probably exhaust that

15:11:05 waitlist, meaningfully pull all the households from that

15:11:09 waitlist in the fall of this year.

So seven years

15:11:12 for 3,000 households is a very long wait, and that didn't even meet

15:11:15 --

there's more than five times that amount of need for that

15:11:20 waitlist.

We also have set asides where we sort of align vouchers

15:11:23 with a specific effort.

So for

15:11:26 example, number of years ago we aligned 200 vouchers with the

15:11:29 homeless family system of care, seeing there were some gaps

15:11:33 in terms of the ability to house folks.

We've also done that with veterans

15:11:36 that are not eligible for the VASH voucher

15:11:40 because of discharge status or another VA-related issue.

We

15:11:44 had a great collaboration with northwest pilot

15:11:49 project to house seniors in place that we maintained

15:11:52 over time.

We also have a statutory requirement.

15:11:56 Sometimes there's a legal requirement to

15:11:59 use a certain referral mechanism for the

15:12:02 vouchers.

And then we also have one that is fairly new

15:12:05 where folks can transfer from what used to be public

15:12:08 housing into a voucher resource.

15:12:11

So that of allows folks to go from

15:12:15 housing that might have a deeper level of care

15:12:18 in terms of service

15:12:25 alignments or on-site presence for something

15:12:28 that might work better for them.

That might include a

15:12:32 tenant-based option in private market.

15:12:35

Laura, I'll pass to you for the

15:12:39 next slide.

>> LAURA: Great.

Justin, I see

15:12:42 that Lisa has

15:12:45 a question.

Do you want to --

15:12:48 how do you want to do

15:12:52 that?

>> JUSTIN: Sorry, I was logging back on.

15:12:55 Give me one second here.

I believe this

15:13:00 is only time for Commissioners to speak, so unfortunately

15:13:03 we can't take questions or comments from the public until

15:13:06 it's time for public testimony.

>> LAURA: Okay, thank you.

All

15:13:10 right.

So thanks,

15:13:14 Ian.

And on the

15:13:17 local -- local landscape access in

15:13:20 Multnomah County, I'm going to talk about

15:13:23 Multnomah County because that's what I know best, but I'll also highlight a

15:13:27 little bit about what Clackamas and

15:13:30 Washington County do.

So in Multnomah

15:13:33 County, if you are looking for

15:13:37 rent assistance,

15:13:40 it

15:13:43 starts by

15:13:48 who -- the priority population, population A in the supporting

15:13:50 housing services program, not to get too granular, but

15:13:54 you'll hear that a lot and it's worth knowing.

15:13:57

Population A is the

15:14:00 population of chronically homeless

15:14:04 households or individuals who are in need

15:14:08 of permanent supportive housing.

They also have one

15:14:13 or more zalg ally

15:14:18 disabling conditions.

And they meet the HUD

15:14:21 qualifications the also within any HUD-funded area or

15:14:25 continuum of care, there is a coordinated access list that is

15:14:32 created to prioritize individuals who are homeless, chronically homeless,

15:14:36 based on a scoring criteria.

And we won't get

15:14:39 into that, but that

15:14:42 identifies a priority population.

The joint office is

15:14:46 like the

15:14:49 funnel for the -- both the SHS

15:14:53 funding and the creation and management of the

15:14:56 coordinated access list.

And they

15:14:59 fund organizations like pilot

15:15:03 project and many others in the county to

15:15:06 provide supportive housing services

15:15:11 programs.

So organizations will get

15:15:14 funded to

15:15:17 administer permanent supportive housing program that

15:15:21 offers those support services in partnership with a

15:15:24 voucher.

So you can't just call

15:15:28 211 and say, I want a voucher.

You can't walk

15:15:31 in to TPI or pilot project and say, I would like

15:15:34 a long-term rent assistance voucher.

You actually

15:15:37 need to be participating through a

15:15:41 prioritization process in a permanent supportive housing

15:15:44 program.

We think that's going to change

15:15:47 soon because there is additional

15:15:52 money that may be available for vouchers.

But right now that is the way

15:15:55 that it works.

So if you are an

15:15:58 older adult, age 55 and over, you may

15:16:02 be referred to pilot project to be enrolled in our permanent

15:16:05 supportive housing program for adults.

You may be referred to

15:16:08 TPI or Central City concern

15:16:11 or another organization that has a supportive housing

15:16:15 program.

And with those services, you

15:16:18 will also get a

15:16:21 voucher.

There are -- and again, this

15:16:26 focus is on permanent supportive housing,

15:16:29 chronically homeless individuals and

15:16:33 households.

There are also referrals

15:16:36 that the department of Multnomah County department

15:16:39 of county human services does

15:16:43 for vouchers, because they act as Multnomah

15:16:47 County's community action agency.

And

15:16:50 the community action agencies are also

15:16:53 funded with SHS funding, supportive

15:16:57 housing services funding, that provides

15:17:00 long-term vouchers for

15:17:05 families.

In Clackamas

15:17:09 and Washington Countys, the

15:17:12 rental

15:17:16 vouchers, RLRA program are also administered either through

15:17:19 the county housing authority, or

15:17:22 through service providers directly, also using a

15:17:26 prioritization process.

15:17:31

Ian, back to you.

15:17:37

>> IAN: Thanks, Laura.

Laura sort of highlighted -- I guess

15:17:40 we both sort of highlighted that access is limited, right?

This is going to be the

15:17:43 case, it's sort of a function of a shortage

15:17:47 in the resource.

So what that currently looks like

15:17:50 is a big waitlist for project-based vouchers

15:17:53 maybe a property-based waitlist.

15:17:57

And for coordinated entry, a need to demonstrate a

15:18:01 high level of vulnerability, acuity or

15:18:04 need.

And what is our indicator of who is accessing

15:18:07 housing

15:18:11 and these

resource there's is what I'm often looking

15:18:14 at are these demographics.

So what you see here is

15:18:17 two primary columns.

The column on the left is what

15:18:22 most of the resources and

15:18:29 vouch vouchers in Home Forward

15:18:34 look like.

On the left it's the household until poverty in

15:18:36 Multnomah County.

It's an indicator for us of where the need might be.

15:18:40 I like this a lot more than just the overall population in

15:18:43 Multnomah County, because you know, that only demonstrates

15:18:46 what need might be include

15:18:49 very wealthy people or other folks who don't need access to this.

So

15:18:53 when we look at this, the three populations

15:18:57 I tend to cue in on are the populations that are experiencing homelessness at

15:19:02 higher rates.

For Black and African-American

15:19:07 households, we serve --

15:19:11 they comprise

15:19:16 about 37% of the voucher program.

For Hispanic and

15:19:19 Latinx households, we have 9% and they appear on

15:19:23 poverty at 20%.

You see a negative disparity in

15:19:26 terms of our ability to serve that population.

And then if you

15:19:30 look at Native American population for Indigenous folks we serve at

15:19:33 about 6% to the

15:19:37 voucher program and that group appears in the population at about 2%.

So we are

15:19:40 overserving that

15:19:45 population.

We also take a look at the split between

15:19:49 households with children and folks with

15:19:52 disabilities.

These are sort of two

15:19:55 imperfect buckets of populations that we

15:19:58 are often giving thought to.

And I will say you can see from

15:20:01 this that we serve folks with disabilities at

15:20:04 about 59%.

And then either households with kids or

15:20:09 households that are, quote, work focused are

15:20:12 closer to 40%, right?

So that is

15:20:17 about two-thirds --

well, I guess about

15:20:21 60% folks with needs often living in certain type of housing versus

15:20:25 40% of folks that might be more self-sufficient or not

15:20:28 be on a fixed income.

And I will say that

15:20:31 is a trend that has shifted in our community, right?

It

15:20:34 probably used to be closer to 50/50.

As we

15:20:37 have seen the need and more of the resources shift

15:20:40 toward an aging population,

15:20:46 we have seen construction matching that.

More

15:20:49 studios, more SROs, more one bedroom.

When we

15:20:53 allocate efforts to those, we see

15:20:56 that shift.

That is something that I don't have a deep commentary on, but I'm

15:20:59 always mindful of as something to keep our eye on

15:21:03 over long term.

And then down below you can

15:21:07 see gender.

Not surprising that

15:21:11 we overserve a population where the head of household is headed by women.

15:21:14 That is also a function of how our

15:21:18 poverty and child care systems, unfortunately, work in this

15:21:21 country.

You will see we have a nonbinary gender

15:21:25 marker X option.

Which is not captured in federal census

15:21:29 data that we implemented I think in 2015 after the state law

15:21:32 passage, and you can see that's at about 1% at least in terms

15:21:35 of who's identifying.

>> JUSTIN:

15:21:38 Ian, just real quick, we have about four minutes more the presentation, to keep

15:21:42 us on track.

>> IAN: Thanks, Justin.

I'll be

15:21:46 quick here.

This is just what folks do when they receive a

15:21:50 voucher, pulled from that waitlist.

15:21:53

A household receives an actual physical

15:21:56 voucher, and that indicates based on your household

15:22:00 composition, here's what you are able to

15:22:03 rent.

Like here's the payment standard that

15:22:06 indicates what your owner or the landlord should charge in

15:22:09 rent.

Family does a housing search, finds a

15:22:12 unit, we do an inspection, and

15:22:15 then the household pays their portion of the rent that

15:22:18 is approximately 30% of their

15:22:22 income.

And then the

15:22:25 housing authority pays the rest of the

15:22:28 rent.

Now, I will say that this affordability, this is why

15:22:31 I put in air quotes earlier, is not

15:22:35 guaranteed.

If a landlord charges

15:22:38 above the payment standard, the household has to pay

15:22:42 this difference in addition to 30% of their income.

This is sort

15:22:45 of a problem in some ports of the voucher program.

15:22:48

I will say when we built the regional long term assistance

15:22:51 program that Laura was talking about, we removed that

15:22:54 expectation because we knew that it just rent burdened

15:22:57 families and households.

That is still a function of the

15:23:01 federal program for reasons we can get into the weeds about

15:23:04 some other time.

Okay.

So then what is the cost of a

15:23:07 voucher in our

15:23:10 community?

Some pretty high-level numbers

15:23:12 here.

This sort of shows a trend over time.

15:23:17 The blue line is households with children.

Those tend to be more expensive.

15:23:22 Those are bigger households

15:23:25 that need more bedroom sizes.

You see this is

15:23:28 only the cost of the subsidy that we pay, right?

Not the full

15:23:31 cost of the rent.

So the cost of the subsidy that the housing

15:23:34 authority pays is about $1,300 for families with

15:23:37 kids.

For work focused households that don't have

15:23:41 kids in the household that are earning substantial

15:23:44 income, you'll see a lower amount because their

15:23:47 income is contributing to the rent a lot more.

So the

15:23:50 subsidy is lower for housing authority.

And then certainly

15:23:54 for the orange line for seniors, folks with disabilities,

15:23:57 we also see that being lower generally because

15:24:00 there's both fixed income, so a source of income that the

15:24:03 household is contributing, but

15:24:07 also those tend to be smaller units.

The studios and the one

15:24:11 bedrooms.

And you see those trend lines are all up over time,

15:24:14 which shouldn't be surprising.

I wasn't able to

15:24:17 pull in '14, '15, and

15:24:20 '16.

I think if you see that you'll see we've

15:24:24 stabilized a bit.

It was more of a

15:24:27 steep climb and climbed up less dramatically in the past few years.

15:24:30

This is the part

15:24:33 where I start

15:24:36 sprinting through.

Policy considerations.

Rent burden.

15:24:41 Laura talked about the supports renters may or may not

15:24:45 have.

We talked about landlord supports.

We have an owner

15:24:48 services team that's trying to respond to owner need, and often that is what

15:24:51 can restabilize a household within a

15:24:56 tenancy.

We've talked about service where they

15:25:00 do or don't exist a bit.

That choice

15:25:03 versus certainty dichotomy that I highlighted up front between the

15:25:08 tenant-base program and

15:25:12 project-based program.

And then are households able to use the voucher.

15:25:15

Over the past five years or so, we've implemented a lot of

15:25:18 reforms given those policy areas.

So

15:25:22 we are reducing the

15:25:25 reasons that a voucher can be

15:25:29 terminated so that there are fewer terminations and less racial

15:25:32 disparities in terms of those terminations.

There is an

15:25:37 icky federal requirement that for ineligible noncitizens they pay

15:25:40 an additional fee.

15:25:44

We reduced that down to $1.

And then removed it from the rent

15:25:48 assistance program when we built that one out.

Also saw that there

15:25:51 were minimum rent floors that existed in our

15:25:54 program that were problematic.

We removed

15:25:58 those.

And during 2021, due to the pandemic, we actually paused

15:26:01 rent increases in the voucher program because we saw that the disparities in

15:26:04 terms of who had rent increases and the amount of

15:26:07 rent increases broke down along race, gender,

15:26:10 and existence of kids in the household, and that was

15:26:14 problematic.

And then we're also always trying to do work

15:26:18 around keeping the rent affordable, so we have a built-in program that looks

15:26:23 at the rent stabilization increase amounts and makes sure that those

15:26:27 are being complied with.

And then we're always trying to reduce barriers to

15:26:30 access.

We want tend to on an advocacy piece.

15:26:33 I'm going to hand to to Laura how long

15:26:36 term rent assistance came to be and why it's such

15:26:39 a potent tool in our local

15:26:42 arsenal.

>> LAURA: Thanks, Ian.

I think I

15:26:46 mentioned that we had utilized

15:26:49 rent vouchers, and they're very important.

15:26:53

My light colleague

15:26:56 Bobi Winestock who was a long time advocate for

15:26:59 homeless folks, I worked for pilot project for almost 35

15:27:04 years, he worked for Burnside project way, way, back in the

15:27:07 day, and he was a genuinely

15:27:10 compassionate person who really felt that rent

15:27:14 vouchers locally controlled,

15:27:17 locally funded were incredibly

15:27:20 important.

In 2017 and '18, he and I

15:27:24 advocated with the office of homeless services to fund a teeny

15:27:27 tiny pilot with 45 vouchers.

We launched

15:27:30 that pilot

15:27:33 in

15:27:37 2019.

In 2019/2020, we

15:27:41 advocated for expansion, and increasing the

15:27:44 pilot.

It did so, it increased

15:27:47 up to about 72 vouchers.

Then when the

15:27:50 supportive housing

15:27:53 services measure passed, we knew that that was

15:27:57 the opportunity to take our long-term rent assistance model

15:28:00 that we had piloted

15:28:03 and turn that into a long-term

15:28:07 funded program that would reach a broader

15:28:11 audience.

And as I said earlier, the long-term rent

15:28:15 assistance program served for -- as a model

15:28:18 for the regional long-term rent assistance

15:28:21 program.

As Ian referenced, part of why it was

15:28:24 so powerful is it really demonstrated that it

15:28:28 could be done, it could be done well, it could be scaled

15:28:31 up, it could eliminate a lot of

15:28:34 the red tape and discriminatory rules

15:28:37 that exist in the federal voucher

15:28:40 program, and we are learning

15:28:44 more every day about how to

15:28:48 improve our RLRA program, including with the portability.

15:28:51

And we need to

15:28:54 continue to push the envelope

15:28:57 around that advocacy and we have

15:29:01 the opportunity to work with our new

15:29:04 Governor to look at a

15:29:08 potential statewide rent assistance program

15:29:13 modeled on our RLRA and

15:29:16 LRA program and a state assistance project that's providing

15:29:20 long-term rent vouchers for youth.

Ian, you want to wrap

15:29:23 us up?

>> IAN: That sounds great.

I think that's such a lovely

15:29:26 demonstration of even in the past five years how we've

15:29:29 looked at the need and responded and

15:29:32 expanded.

And yet, we know there's so much more, right, for every

15:29:36 household that gets a voucher, there are at least four that do

15:29:39 not.

But that have that need.

And that's why, you know,

15:29:42 wee need to make sure we're doing all the sort process and

15:29:45 program improvement we've talked about here, but frankly just increase the

15:29:48 access overall.

That's our

15:29:51 presentation.

Laura, I think you're going to help us out

15:29:55 with some facilitation.

Justin, let us know if there's

15:29:58 anything else we should insert at this

15:30:00 point.

>> JUSTIN: Thank you both.

That was amazing.

15:30:07 Very informative.

And, you know, it is time for some conversation

15:30:10 and discussion.

So Laura,

15:30:15 it looks like you're doing that,

15:30:18 so I can turn it over to you.

>> LAURA: I want to say thanks for

15:30:21 Ian for doing the big lift on putting that

15:30:25 presentation together.

And it really just scratches the surface

15:30:28 of long term rent assistance.

So thanks,

15:30:32 Ian.

And I also want to encourage all of you,

15:30:35 because it's 3:30 and we're going till

15:30:38 5:00 p.m., please take care of yourselves, take

15:30:41 a break, bio

15:30:44 break, coffee break, beverage break, walk around,

15:30:47 stretch, all of that.

I think we can multitask and do

15:30:51 that, but please don't forget to take care of

15:30:54 yourselves.

So I just wanted to bring us

15:30:57 back, our agenda item is

15:31:01 really about

15:31:04 coming back to our

15:31:07 paired work plan topic of the

15:31:13 14.6% rent increase and long-term rent -- long-term

15:31:16 rent assistance continued.

And --

15:31:19 and where we go with that specifically as

15:31:23 a work plan item on

15:31:26 what recommendation and Christian referenced this a

15:31:30 little bit earlier, but what recommendations do we

15:31:33 want to bring

15:31:37 to City Council and/or

15:31:41 additional information to present

15:31:44 to them about actions that can be

15:31:48 taken within the parameters of what Justin shared with

15:31:54 us around the rent

15:31:57 limit --

rent increase limitations that we have and also

15:32:00 what we heard long-term rent assistance.

And

15:32:03 Matthew, I see that your hand is up, so I'll just

15:32:07 start with

15:32:13 you.

>> MATTHEW: Is

15:32:17 it appropriate to ask a question now?

I don't know if this was a time or

15:32:19 I should ask you offline.

>> LAURA: Go for it, because I think that

15:32:23 will inform our

15:32:27 conversation.

Thank you.

>> MATTHEW: It struck me, and I'm sure

15:32:30 everyone else there is well known how the need far outstrips the

15:32:33 ability to provide vouchers by a factor of more than 10

15:32:37 to 1, at least, you know.

And so I was wondering if

15:32:40 in your experience administering this you've

15:32:43 seen people move off of the vouchers and kind of give them up for other

15:32:47 people to use.

That's one of the -- when

15:32:50 I was working for the housing authority, once people were in the

15:32:53 housing authority system, they didn't leave.

15:32:56

Like, they were there for life,

15:33:00 which meant that in most cases, so that meant

15:33:03 that you were

15:33:07 never freeing

15:33:10 up that space

15:33:15 for someone else to use at that

15:33:17 point.

You would be there until you were old and your kids would get it, they would

15:33:20 inherit it.

I was wondering if you see people move off or if they stay there for life

15:33:23 in the time that you've been administering this.

>> IAN: Really

15:33:25 good question.

I'm going to think about how best to answer that.

15:33:29 The first thing I'll say is we see correlations between length of tenancy

15:33:32 with the voucher and overall housing

15:33:36 stability.

So in that regard, right, the length of

15:33:40 time that someone, a household's on a voucher we view as a

15:33:43 good thing the longer that is, because it generally means longer

15:33:47 affordability and stability for that

15:33:50 household.

We

15:33:53 also see that some of the

15:33:56 communities where there have been term limits or time

15:33:59 limits put in place

15:34:02 that folks are not just sort of

15:34:05 naturally able to -- to jump to

15:34:08 sustainability and afford the rent, right?

And so folks often

15:34:12 fall back into homelessness or

15:34:15 housing instability.

And we actually see linkages

15:34:18 with other systems of care, right, the

15:34:21 rehousing system of care, the homelessness system

15:34:24 of care.

So the short answer is, no, not in

15:34:28 terms of our programs in Multnomah County.

We

15:34:31 do take a close look at the data.

We know

15:34:34 that about two-thirds of departures from the program are positive

15:34:37 exits, which includes death.

So

15:34:40 in this regard, someone dying with

15:34:43 stable housing is a positive outcome rather than that person

15:34:47 dying on the street or otherwise losing that

15:34:50 affordability while they're still alive.

15:34:54

I always just try to reframe it as sort of a

15:34:57 quality over quantity.

We are always going to be limited in terms of the

15:35:00 resource, so what can we do to build the resource and

15:35:03 give folks the resource to the best of their ability or

15:35:06 need to use it?

And then over here

15:35:10 do the push for more of that resource.

The

15:35:14 money -- I mean, this may not be political for me to say, but the money is out

15:35:17 there, it's just a question of whether we have the political will to use

15:35:22 it for the right outcomes.

>> LAURA: And I'll just

15:35:25 add, thank you, Ian, that last point was really good.

I'll just

15:35:28 add, Matthew, that in our initial

15:35:31 long-term rent assistance pilot that we launched,

15:35:35 was very small.

And because of the population

15:35:38 of older adults that we -- that we deal

15:35:41 with, we specifically when we reached out to Home Forward

15:35:44 and the joint

15:35:49 office to dejoin join

15:35:54 that program, it was not specifically for

15:35:57 seniors, it was anyone.

But when a voucher

15:36:00 was no longer being utilized, when a client passed away, they had

15:36:05 gotten a job or moved out of the area, that the voucher remained available for

15:36:10 reallocation.

And that's been how that -- so the LRA

15:36:15 program, this little tiny program just in Multnomah County, it still exists sort of over

15:36:18 here.

And now we've got the RLRA program and then the HUD

15:36:23 program.

But the RLRA program

15:36:27 is modeled in that same way so that, yes,

15:36:30 we want to use that resource to keep people in housing for as

15:36:33 long as they need it.

And some people will need it

15:36:37 forever.

But with the paired case

15:36:40 management, whether or not the person is

15:36:43 a permanent supportive

15:36:46 housing recipient or just getting case management in

15:36:49 a voucher, if there's the opportunity for

15:36:53 them to move away from utilization of that

15:36:56 voucher, that's certainly

15:37:00 something that is

15:37:03 addressed.

But the idea was to both

15:37:06 grow the pool and grow

15:37:09 access as people, you know, passed away or didn't need the voucher

15:37:15 anymore.

>> MATTHEW: Thank you.

>> LAURA: Yeah.

15:37:44

Allen.

>> ALLEN: Ian was talking about the

15:37:47 longer someone was in the rent assistance program the more successful

15:37:52 they

15:37:57 are.

Made me think

15:38:00 about the short-term rental assistance

15:38:25 program.

That there wasn't any data --

oh, sorry.

15:38:28

I'm wondering if there's any data

15:38:31 about the outcomes --

sorry.

15:38:37

For those people after they've --

15:38:41 after a few

15:38:46 years.

And what that means for your

15:38:52 program.

>> IAN: Wow, what a beautiful

15:38:56 question.

The short answer is yes and no.

Let's go

15:38:59 along the continuum.

The rent assistance

15:39:02 program we saw in the last three years, most of it,

15:39:06 no.

That was give people money during a pandemic in

15:39:09 a triage situation.

15:39:13

Short-term assistance we administered with now

15:39:16 upwards of 40 community-based providers, yes.

For half of

15:39:19 those we do have an expectation of tracking

15:39:23 retention over a year and longer.

And we know that that retention

15:39:26 rate is about 90%.

So in that regard,

15:39:30 we know, gosh, that emergency assistance is

15:39:33 working to keep households stabilized.

In terms of

15:39:36 that resource I talked about that's sort of in the middle, right,

15:39:39 for six months for some sort of rapid rehousing

15:39:42 or for 12 months, we don't have great data

15:39:45 there.

But I will say the housing authority had some pretty

15:39:49 anecdotal data in that, you know, we have

15:39:54 many buildings that are aligned with

15:39:58 some of the access systems that

15:40:02 Laura and I talked about.

So we see folks coming into the housing with

15:40:05 that limited-term rent assistance that then ends after a year

15:40:08 or so.

This is not subsidized housing, so

15:40:11 folks then suddenly have to pay the full amount of rent.

And

15:40:16 combine that, Allen, with the ways that we have

15:40:20 prioritized access throughout our entire system for

15:40:23 particularly vulnerable folks,

15:40:26 means you have incredibly vulnerable households

15:40:30 that suddenly have no more assistance to pay the rent.

And

15:40:33 what we're seeing is that there are tough

15:40:36 outcomes based on that, right?

15:40:40

At communities that we own and operate and

15:40:44 other providers and others that you can imagine.

So

15:40:47 that limited duration rent assistance is solving a short to

15:40:50 mid-term problem, and then potentially resulting in some

15:40:54 other down-the-road problems that we're struggling to

15:40:57 consider right now.

Really good question and

15:41:01 overall the data is super

15:41:05 mixed on our ability to assess it.

>> ALLEN:

15:41:08 Great.

Thank you.

>> LAURA:

15:41:14 Thanks, Allen.

Kristina.

You're

15:41:17 muted.

>> KRISTINA: I always do that.

Thank you so much.

15:41:20 I just had some, I guess some information to share with Matthew

15:41:24 around his question.

I

15:41:27 also wanted to just add a little bit of information, and then

15:41:30 I had some ideas to your question, Laura, about

15:41:34 how to tie that back to the work plan.

So bear

15:41:39 with me.

15:41:42

I work for the

15:41:46 Joint Office of Homeless Services and we're seeing the need that you're describing, Matthew, like folks being

15:41:49 ready to move on from those permanent placements.

There is some work

15:41:52 happening right now to create programs to support folks

15:41:55 in doing that successfully.

So there will be some

15:41:58 programs rolling out here in the next month or so that will be

15:42:02 targeted to exactly what you're talking about.

And

15:42:06 then that will, in theory, free up those vouchers for other

15:42:09 folks to use

15:42:14 them.

I also just wanted to share it that each county in the try

15:42:23 tri-county created a plan so if anyone wanted to dive

15:42:26 in and get more information, that's easily accessible

15:42:30 for how each county plans to roll out those

15:42:33 vouchers.

I really appreciated the

15:42:37 disaggregated data, because one of the goals of the SHS

15:42:41 measure was to reduce the racial disparities

15:42:45 that exist in folks that are experiencing

15:42:49 homelessness.

So a lot of the programs or the vouchers that we roll out will

15:42:52 often be for priority

15:42:58 populations.

And then the other thing, I was thinking

15:43:02 about the landlord incentive piece of the presentation, something

15:43:06 that comes with the RLRA vouchers is a program called risk

15:43:09 mitigation.

So if, for example, like damage happens

15:43:12 to a unit, there is, like, a pot of

15:43:16 funding that landlords can access to, like, take care

15:43:20 of that need.

So kind of taking this back

15:43:23 to the work plan, I guess, that feels like the best path.

15:43:26

I know like regional long-term rent assistance doesn't always

15:43:29 come with -- like doesn't come with security deposit

15:43:32 funding.

So maybe there are ways to make some recommendations on some of

15:43:36 those landlord incentives for the community

15:43:39 to just sort of help, you know, bring more

15:43:42 opportunities into the

15:43:45 mix.

So that was a lot.

Thank you for the space.

15:43:49 Just wanted to share those thoughts.

>> LAURA: Awesome, Kristina.

15:43:53

And I think really, really good points to add into our

15:43:57 discussion.

I will say too that in

15:44:00 addition to

15:44:06 the -- the risk mitigation pool, the joint

15:44:09 office also provides client assistance funds, which are very flexible

15:44:13 which can also be paired with the rent assistance

15:44:16 dollars to cover application fees,

15:44:20 moving costs, and security

15:44:23 deposit.

So I think stream -- I think that's a really good

15:44:27 point that you made, though, because as we look at

15:44:30 how can we use all of those

15:44:34 funds better to really sort of leverage

15:44:37 the rent

15:44:41 assistance.

So

15:44:44 really great questions, everyone,

15:44:47 and we'll dive back in to the specific ways

15:44:51 that we want, you know,

15:44:54 focusing and my -- I'm looking at my role here

15:44:57 to help us stay focused on

15:45:00 our work plan deliverable is some sort of work

15:45:07 product with a report or

15:45:10 a letter or something to

15:45:15 City Council to say these shall the things that the city needs

15:45:18 to take action on to address

15:45:21 increasing rents or putting' rent cap or some

15:45:24 sort of incentive for landlords to not

15:45:27 raise the rent and leveraging rent assistance

15:45:30 to stabilize folks.

So

15:45:35 what other thoughts do people have about

15:45:38 the actions that we could take based on

15:45:41 the presentations that Ian

15:45:46 Andy and -- and I did and also the one that

15:45:49 Justin did in any other

15:45:55

15:46:01 thoughts specific "SNL" thankthoughts specific "SNL" thank specifically.

Anybody have any suggestions about

15:46:05 how we might

15:46:08 recommend to the City Council things that they could do?

Like

15:46:13 perhaps the city could create a local landlord

15:46:16 incentive

15:46:21 program.

How do we leverage the housing needs

15:46:24 analysis that's going to come out of

15:46:27 HB 2,100?

How do we

15:46:32 advocate with the city to advocate with the county to

15:46:36 get the joint

15:46:44 office to release more RLRA

15:46:49 funding or with metro to release more RLRA

15:46:52 funding.

Regina.

>> REGINA: Sorry, my Internet keeps

15:46:55 going in and out, I got disconnected once --

hopefully --

15:46:59 if I

15:47:02 disappear, I apologize.

It's --

15:47:05 I don't really have, like this -- I

15:47:09 didn't just -- I think

15:47:13 just more -- more -- I hold the city with any

15:47:17 kind of mitigation measures

15:47:22 like risk mitigation I think is excellent.

I think it still gets

15:47:25 underutilized all the time.

But

15:47:30 rent well and making sure that people are aware

15:47:33 of that program, that it's

15:47:37 utilized, that more nonprofits are taking advantage of it as they're

15:47:40 working with people getting into housing.

It really does

15:47:43 work.

It is kind of like

15:47:47 -- it is [broken audio] but also gives folks some tools to

15:47:50 help them stay stable in housing.

Especially

15:47:53 given that, you know, one of the other

15:47:57 things we see

15:48:00 that always needs more funding and is perpetually

15:48:03 underfunded is case management.

Just getting people in housing, I mean, I

15:48:07 see this every day at reach and when I worked at

15:48:10 Central City concern, I mean, any

15:48:14 nonprofit housing provider will tell you that people

15:48:18 in the housing we get them through all the hurdles and all the

15:48:21 paperwork, all the verifications, all the bureaucratic steps, and we

15:48:24 get them into housing, but if then don't

15:48:27 have that ongoing support from

15:48:30 someone once they get into

15:48:34 housing, that the property manager can't provide, that case

15:48:38 management support, we just see so many people

15:48:41 struggle.

Even if they have rent assistance, struggle to stay

15:48:45 housed.

And so I always

15:48:49 want to see or recommend any kind of

15:48:52 funding that we can -- anything we can

15:48:55 recommend to open up and make more

15:48:59 rent assistance available I am behind

15:49:06 100%.

But I'm equally behind funding for case management.

15:49:09

There's just, you know, we

15:49:12 know that there's high turnover, that folks aren't paid as much,

15:49:15 that we lose people all the time in that

15:49:19 field and it's just rent assistance

15:49:23 to keep.

[[Broken

15:49:27 audio]

15:49:31 recommend.

>> LAURA: Thank you, Regina.

We see that when Ian

15:49:34 referenced in the presentation that the utilization

15:49:38 rate for the Section 8

15:49:42 vouchers, I think we know that utilization rate for those

15:49:45 vouchers and even for the RLRA

15:49:48 vouchers is increased when the person --

15:49:52 the voucher recipient is

15:49:55 supported by a case manager or a

15:49:59 direct service

15:50:03 worker in navigating the housing search,

15:50:06 and just in

15:50:10 the check-in during the housing search.

15:50:13

Those case management staff are critical.

15:50:16 Matthew and then Vivien I see that you have something in the chat.

But Amber,

15:50:19 I'm not going to take your job

15:50:23 away from you, so we'll get

15:50:27 though that after Matthew goes again.

>> MATTHEW: There

15:50:30 are agencies that do things like that in addition to

15:50:33 actual social worker, type groups?

Do we know of any volunteer

15:50:36 agencies that help people through those things?

Some of those things obviously need to

15:50:40 be a trained social worker.

But some of them you'd think that they wouldn't

15:50:43 be, just need someone to check in on them, maybe visit with

15:50:46 people.

>> LAURA: There are organizations that I know of, and some of

15:50:50 you might know of this

15:50:54 too, that do both outreach.

So outreach

15:51:00 to people who may be

15:51:03 homeless or outreach to people who are

15:51:06 waiting -- they're living in short-term housing or they

15:51:09 have short-term rent assistance and they're

15:51:13 waiting for the voucher to

15:51:17 come in.

And there

15:51:20 are also organizations that work with volunteers to

15:51:24 visit, people who are in housing.

I

15:51:27 think the challenge with volunteers

15:51:30 is that the access to the

15:51:35 system is often complex and agencies have

15:51:39 sort of the in to the

15:51:42 system.

And a lot of agencies have their own

15:51:45 volunteers who help by

15:51:49 contacting organization --

clients.

Regina, I saw your

15:51:52 had your hand up.

Did you want to speak

15:51:57 to that?

Maybe

15:52:00 not.

Matthew, I think that, yes, there are

15:52:03 some volunteer services.

I think it really depends

15:52:06 on the level of

15:52:09 service that the client needs.

If it's

15:52:13 somebody for whom the --

15:52:16

or somebody who needs both the

15:52:20 rent assistance and very specific type of

15:52:27 services, it may not be enough to have a

15:52:30 volunteer.

Did anybody else want to speak

15:52:34 to that?

15:52:38

So other -- other thoughts about specific

15:52:41 actions, I think what I

15:52:44 heard Regina say, and I think what I've heard

15:52:47 that we probably all agree on

15:52:51 is that more risk mitigation

15:52:54 funds are important, but also something that Regina said that was

15:52:58 really important too is that those funds

15:53:01 are often not spent down

15:53:05 100%.

So where's,

15:53:08 you know, how do people access

15:53:11 those -- those additional

15:53:14 incentive funds either the landlord incentive funds or

15:53:18 the additional rent assistance funds

15:53:21 or support funds?

Anybody have any ideas

15:53:26 about

15:53:30 that?

I think the other thing -- I'm just going to keep throwing some

15:53:33 ideas out here.

The other

15:53:37 thing is that we want to

15:53:44 focus on an actionable item that the City Council can do

15:53:47 and whether that's allocating city funds or

15:53:52 allocating other funds or working with metro

15:53:55 or the counties

15:53:58 to advocate for

15:54:01 changes either in

15:54:04 access or in amount of funds available, that might be one way.

15:54:07

I'm sort of stuck on that.

Vivien, I'm just going

15:54:11 to read out your

15:54:14 question.

Or your comment in the chat that

15:54:17 you've had experience with eviction defense program

15:54:20 as well with property managers cannot act as case

15:54:23 managers.

And that's very true.

And people

15:54:26 in need of case management cannot access them.

And I

15:54:30 think that is sort of back to your question -- or your

15:54:34 point, Matthew, about volunteers.

I will

15:54:38 say, having -- in my experience, if you have

15:54:41 volunteers, you also need to have a staff person who's going to manage

15:54:44 the volunteers.

Whether it's a staff person at the

15:54:47 city managing volunteers or staff person

15:54:50 at different agency.

So at some point there is, you know,

15:54:54 there is some management that's needed so that everybody's on the

15:54:59 same

15:55:05 page.

I think the other idea that occurs

15:55:08 to me, please raise your hand or interrupt me, something that's called new

15:55:12 narrative is doing is standing up a client

15:55:15 centric, trauma-informed type of property management

15:55:18 that is --

is really

15:55:22 grounded in the work that case

15:55:26 managers do and lends

15:55:29 that

15:55:34 very specific client-centric,

15:55:37 trauma-informed lens to the property management

15:55:40 piece trying to

15:55:43 achieve both the need for housing

15:55:46 provider to be able to

15:55:49 maintain the housing, but also work

15:55:53 to address any challenges that a housing --

15:55:56

that a tenant may have.

And Lisa, if you sign

15:55:59 up for public testimony, you can speak when we do

15:56:02 the public testimony at 4:15.

You can ask

15:56:07 your

15:56:11 question.

Other thoughts?

How do we want to turn this

15:56:15 conversation about the rent increase and landlord incentives

15:56:18 to limit rent increases and figuring out

15:56:21 ways to get more long-term rent assistance?

How

15:56:24 do we turn that into an action for the

15:56:28 City Council?

City Council is our audience.

We get to make

15:56:31 recommendations to them.

We get their ear whether they

15:56:34 like it or not.

15:56:37

So what do we want to tell them?

15:56:41

Yeah, what do we want to tell them -- tell them

15:56:42 to do?

What do you all think?

15:56:59

More rent assistance funding?

We

15:57:02 missed the budget cycle, although there is

15:57:07 a budget hearing tomorrow afternoon from 2:00 to

15:57:10 5:00 for the

15:57:13 city budget.

And it's

15:57:17 new narrative is the name of the organization.

It

15:57:21 used to be loop Dorf, Matthew.

15:57:24

Thank you, new narratives.

Thank you.

15:57:27 Amber.

>> AMBER: This may not be the

15:57:30 really exactly the kind of maybe, you know, comment

15:57:33 you're looking for, but I do

15:57:37 want to add, you know, something that's important to my experience is

15:57:41 that I have

15:57:44 watched my landlord receive a lot of

15:57:48 assistance, you know, financial assistance to provide low-income

15:57:52 housing.

And the result has been, you

15:57:55 know, literally hundreds

15:57:58 of landlord-tenant law and

15:58:02 ORS and code violations every single day.

And so

15:58:05 I have, you know, from my experience, I have a lot

15:58:09 of concerns about -- about, you know,

15:58:13 asking for rent assistance, you know, I mean, I understand in

15:58:16 a way, like that

15:58:19 goes toward tenants and one way to think about

15:58:23 it is, it goes to help keep tenants.

15:58:26

But it does give a lot of money to landlords.

15:58:29 And it's just hard -- it's hard for me to want to

15:58:33 back anything that is, you know, giving a lot

15:58:36 of money without some further

15:58:41 restrictions on

15:58:44 actually living up to landlord

15:58:47 [away from mic].

>> LAURA: Sorry.

>> AMBER: I know this isn't exactly on

15:58:50 track with the rent assistance, but it's still something

15:58:54 that's really, you know, that's -- I don't know.

I just

15:58:57 feel like I need to keep out there.

That's all.

>> LAURA:

15:59:00 I actually think -- I appreciate you bringing that up.

I actually

15:59:03 think that's a really, really good

15:59:07 point that

15:59:12 we can't ignore the existing fair

15:59:17 housing laws, landlord-tenant laws and what they were intended to

15:59:22 do.

I think that's a really great point and there's no reason that

15:59:24 that push can't stay side by side with

15:59:28 a push for more rent assistance.

I will say that

15:59:32 I think that from the perspective

15:59:35 of an organization that works with

15:59:40 people who are

15:59:43 incredibly stressed out about losing their housing because they can no longer

15:59:47 afford the rent or moving from homelessness into

15:59:50 housing without any funds to pay the rent, the

15:59:53 rent assistance really is the difference between

15:59:58 homelessness and housing.

And

16:00:01 I think that the

16:00:05 observation about how additional rent assistance

16:00:08 impacts a housing provider's rent

16:00:12 increase is worthy of additional research.

I

16:00:17 think that there's, you know,

16:00:20 I see the benefits of rent

16:00:23 assistance on the -- the

16:00:27 hundreds, 600, 700 lower income, older

16:00:30 adults that will we

16:00:42 serve.

And so how do we align that with

16:00:47 not just feeding rent increases.

I think that's something

16:00:51 we might want the staff to take a look at to try to get

16:00:54 data around how do -- how does

16:00:59 rent assistance help long-term tenants, but how does it impact

16:01:02 rent increases overall?

So that might

16:01:05 be something.

16:01:19

Vivien.

>> VIVIEN: I raised my hand a little

16:01:24 prematurely.

I'm brainstorming an idea right now and it's pointing out

16:01:28 with Amber's problem at

16:01:31 mile marker 5 which I'm familiar with and it incorporates

16:01:34 something that I've advocated for a while

16:01:37 related to doing a better job of

16:01:40 ensuring that landlords

16:01:44 are providing dwelling units that are up

16:01:47 to code and having that be

16:01:50 even --

having the

16:01:54 RSO have a hand in that.

But leaving

16:01:57 that particular side, the enforcement mechanism of the RSO,

16:02:02 which is probably a

16:02:05 pipe dream, what if we

16:02:09 recommended something --

something

16:02:12 where landlords who need assistance bringing their properties

16:02:16 up to code, they don't have the -- they don't

16:02:19 have access to the funding that they would need.

I think

16:02:23 that's true of a number

16:02:25 of these buildings that have had a

16:02:29 lot of problems.

They could apply for funding to make the necessary

16:02:32 repairs and upgrades, and then once they're up to code,

16:02:35 they would agree to

16:02:39 some kind of -- they would agree to use

16:02:42 low-barrier application process.

They would agree

16:02:45 to basically be a project-based

16:02:49 subsidized housing.

I'm probably

16:02:55 revealing my fairly extensive

16:02:58 ignorance on how these projects get funded and how they

16:03:01 come into being.

16:03:05

But I'm trying to

16:03:08 address what I know is the case, maybe not

16:03:11 specifically in mile post

16:03:15 5 situation, but where housing

16:03:18 that is accessible to low-income people is

16:03:23 accessible because it's deficient and it's deficient because

16:03:26 the landlords don't -- either don't have or choose not to

16:03:29 spend the money bringing their properties

16:03:34 up to code in an

16:03:40 effort to -- yeah.

16:03:43

I'm just -- I'm literally just spitballing here.

16:03:46 Sorry.

>> LAURA: Vivien, all good.

I hear what you're saying.

16:03:50 Amber, before you speak again I just wanted to read your comments

16:03:53 in the chat.

One of which was you saw a lot of

16:03:56 emergency rent assistance

16:03:59 abuse by some landlords in the past two years and it

16:04:03 needs to be money not thrown out the window while

16:04:07 renters still struggle with being evicted.

And then you also added

16:04:10 that the property

16:04:14 management company at your -- at

16:04:18 mile post 5 used rent assistance

16:04:21 given to residents to cover court costs, which money was

16:04:24 not allocated for leaving

16:04:27 renter without enough money to cover rent and then evicted.

I think that

16:04:33 goes back to the idea of let's follow the laws that are in place, let's follow

16:04:37 the rules.

So something I think is important to

16:04:40 keep in mind.

Vivien, if you for your idea.

16:04:44

That's a really intriguing one.

Amber, you

16:04:47 have your hand up so I'll call on

16:04:51 your next.

16:04:56

>> AMBER: -- Internet.

I just want to make sure nobody was

16:05:00 talking or --

>> LAURA: You're good to

16:05:03 go.

>> AMBER: I apologize if my brain went a little wild.

16:05:06 That's more the concern here with the, you know, again

16:05:10 with the, you know, again, more rent assistance,

16:05:14 fantastic.

It's just it's nice to say, I don't think

16:05:17 that's what you meant, but like, you know, yes,

16:05:20 follow the laws.

But if, yes, follow the laws was so

16:05:25 obvious, then, you know, wouldn't be having these issues.

So I think

16:05:28 it's something like the TPO that we need along

16:05:31 with rent assistance is we need some additional

16:05:34 measures, you know, to make sure that the rent assistance is being used

16:05:38 appropriately.

As we know with the landlord compensation

16:05:42 fund, and you know, again, this wasn't all landlords, but some

16:05:45 percentage of landlords took that money, didn't

16:05:48 inform their clients, their renters that they'd been paid, told the

16:05:52 renters that they still needed to pay, and then the renters were, you

16:05:55 know, evicted or paid double rent.

So these are the

16:05:59 kinds of situations where rent assistance is being used

16:06:03 incorrectly by property management that there's actually some kind

16:06:06 of follow-through or system or it's not just

16:06:09 trusting that it's being done right.

>> LAURA:

16:06:12 Yeah.

And that's, I think, going to

16:06:16 Vivien's point about an enforcement body that can follow

16:06:22 up, whether it's an enforcement of fair housing,

16:06:25 an enforcement of anything.

So anything.

16:06:27

Christian.

>> CHRISTIAN: Yeah.

16:06:30 Just a couple things.

I mean, on

16:06:35 that, like with what Amber mentioned about, you know, rent

16:06:38 assistance going to court costs instead of covering rent and then

16:06:47 there not being funds to cover the rent.

I would be surprised if

16:06:50 a judge allowed that, because there are mechanisms in place that

16:06:53 actually dictate what

16:06:56 we apply funds to, to where if I was in that position and

16:07:00 I actually put those rent assistance

16:07:03 funds to my court costs to do an eviction from a

16:07:06 tenant than owes that rent, and that

16:07:10 was brought up by the tenant in front of a judge, I would be

16:07:13 really surprised if a judge allowed that to

16:07:16 move forward.

Obviously situational stuff, I

16:07:19 mean, that's the most I can comment is just high

16:07:23 level like that.

I would be -- obviously I would never do that,

16:07:26 but I would be very surprised given the laws I know are in

16:07:29 place that a judge would allow that.

As far as

16:07:32 what Vivien said, I think that's definitely

16:07:35 worth looking into, a fund like that.

16:07:38

Like I absolutely have represented

16:07:42 property owners, you know,

16:07:45 especially when -- what was it?

Like a couple years

16:07:48 ago Portland tenants united presented a report to us showing it

16:07:51 was something like 46% or 48% of all the

16:07:54 rental units in the Portland area are owned and operated

16:07:58 by what we consider the small landlords, people have four or less

16:08:00 units.

They're going to have mortgages on those things.

16:08:04 I definitely have clients like that that have been forced to

16:08:07 say, hey, because the main

16:08:11 line of the sewage

16:08:15 drainage collapsed underneath the driveway, I actually

16:08:18 had this one last year, collapsed under the driveway, it was going to be

16:08:21 upwards of 20 plus thousand dollars to actually dig all that

16:08:25 up, fix the actual problem, then fill everything back

16:08:28 in, pour a new driveway, et cetera, et cetera.

So they were

16:08:31 forced into a position, because they don't have that money,

16:08:34 to actually have that

16:08:38 tenant say hey, obviously you can break your lease, put them up in a hotel for a

16:08:41 little bit.

That's what they put their money towards,

16:08:44 putting them in an hotel and helping them

16:08:48 relocate, instead of necessarily putting a little bit of money into the

16:08:51 plumbing stuff with what they head and then they were forced to

16:08:54 sell that house, basically someone bought it that I'm

16:08:57 assuming did those repairsed on lived in it or sold

16:09:00 it or what knows what.

So I think

16:09:03 Vivien's idea of looking into something like that definitely work

16:09:07 looking into if it's something that can be made affordable.

Obviously being some

16:09:11 kind of qualifiers, you know, a landlord that has, you know, a million dollars

16:09:15 cash in the bank that needs to do a $5,000

16:09:18 repair, probably shouldn't qualify.

But you know,

16:09:21 those

16:09:24 landlords that have those lower numbers of units, got

16:09:28 mortgages and a day job, there absolutely

16:09:32 are times where a habitability repair is going to be upwards in the

16:09:35 tens of thousands of dollars and they literally can't afford it and so, you

16:09:39 know, assuming they do things right, they're

16:09:42 letting that tenant out, helping them relocate, and then who knows what happens to that unit

16:09:45 as far as the market goes afterwards.

16:09:48

And then on the rent assistance stuff, the one thing I wanted to

16:09:51 throw out there, of course, you know, there's

16:09:54 obviously a need with the how long the

16:09:57 waitlists are for additional rent

16:10:01 assistance.

With that said, I think, you

16:10:04 know, and I definitely have no solutions.

I'm not -- I'm

16:10:07 in a position to, you know, at a high level maybe

16:10:10 recognize something and have no way of knowing how realistic it is

16:10:13 to even find a possible solution.

But

16:10:17 where I see that could help is if there was a

16:10:22 way to, whether it be adding some money to certain programs or something, to help

16:10:26 those tenants transition out of needing

16:10:29 the incentive.

Obviously that would be, you know, providing for themselves

16:10:33 in some way, whether that's, you know, work training or something, like I

16:10:36 said, I don't know what the solution really is or how do it because that

16:10:39 also, you know, if you get tenants that are able to

16:10:42 better themselves transition out of needing it, that

16:10:46 frees up those vouchers for additional ones that are on the

16:10:49 waitlist that are waiting for it that

16:10:52 desperately need it as well.

Just as a general onlooker

16:10:55 and landlord, I see, you know, just general in society

16:10:58 all kinds of benefits it we can help, you know, the

16:11:01 homeless transition to being housed, and then somehow

16:11:05 along the way also help them over time

16:11:08 transition into actually providing for themselves paying their own

16:11:11 rent and, you know, making kind of some way of like

16:11:14 a through track through all the systems we have from

16:11:18 homeless to, you know, providing for yourself.

I know

16:11:21 obviously that's a pie in the sky unachievable dream

16:11:25 for 100% of cases, but anyway that we could help incentivize

16:11:28 or train or educate or, you know,

16:11:32 whatever might work in helping them actually move through

16:11:35 the program, you know, I think would benefit

16:11:40 everyone involved.

>> LAURA: Thanks, Christian.

I just want

16:11:43 to flag that we've got like three-and-a-half minutes

16:11:46 left so that we -- for this part of the discussion.

So that we can be

16:11:50 on time for public testimony.

And

16:11:54 also remind

16:11:57 our participants, attendees, if you

16:12:00 want to do public testimony, please sign up for

16:12:03 that.

Vivien and then Amber, I'm going to call

16:12:06 time at 4:15.

So keep your eyes

16:12:10 on the clock.

Vivien, go ahead.

And you're on

16:12:13 mute.

There you are.

>> VIVIEN: I'll try to make this real

16:12:16 brief.

I'm going to just,

16:12:19 Christian, I got say,

16:12:23 Amber's absolutely tracking reality.

16:12:27

I'm in court all the time,

16:12:31 I see this frequently.

And I don't want

16:12:34 to spend time explaining to you how this is

16:12:38 possible, but this is very possible.

And in

16:12:41 fact, it's a business practice employed by

16:12:44 a lot of

16:12:47 landlords both -- either it's the property

16:12:50 managers who are --

the property management companies who are instructing

16:12:54 their employees do this, or it's the owner

16:12:57 dictating from on high.

But this happens a lot.

And

16:13:00 Amber's absolutely correct, there are almost no tenant

16:13:05 litigators in town.

We have a list of tenant litigators that

16:13:08 we provide to our clients when we finish

16:13:11 preventing their eviction, but they still have claims that they

16:13:14 could and should assert against their landlords, we can't do that

16:13:18 for them.

There are -- there's

16:13:22 -- I struggle

16:13:25 to tell

16:13:28 you how much they cannot enforce those claims through our current system.

So I'll just be

16:13:34 quiet now.

>> LAURA: Thanks,

16:13:38 Vivien.

And yeah, I think maybe that is another

16:13:42 conversation that we might want to

16:13:45 look into.

So Amber, you have the

16:13:49 last word before public

16:13:52 testimony.

You have like a minute and a half.

>> AMBER: I'm going to keep this

16:13:55 very brief, but I think one thing that is

16:13:59 often missing in the equation is

16:14:03 that these decisions made with really good intentions and a strong desire to help

16:14:07 and to think.

But actual renters are not included

16:14:10 in these decisions.

And no communication is

16:14:13 actually had with the renter.

So for example, there's

16:14:17 so much of these problems that could be solved if,

16:14:20 say, whoever was dispensing rent assistance, you

16:14:23 know, actually checked in with, you know, with the renters.

Like

16:14:26 how did that go?

How is it spent?

16:14:30

Had a system or a mechanism for, you know,

16:14:33 renter response to actually track what happens rather than

16:14:36 simply kind of dispensing, you know, dispensing money and then

16:14:39 really having no idea what happens.

So that

16:14:43 would be another, like, something I would [video froze]

16:14:51 .

>> LAURA: You cut out at the very end, but I think we heard

16:14:54 what you had

16:14:57 to say and yeah, checking in with the renters.

I

16:15:01 know that many organizations who

16:15:05 provide rent assistance do that.

16:15:10

But maybe having something

16:15:13 more structured, more structured way to do it.

All right,

16:15:17 it's 4:15, I'm going to hand it back to Justin for public

16:15:20 testimony, but don't fear, my friends, after public

16:15:24 testimony we get to continue to discuss

16:15:26 this.

So Vivien, keep that hand raised, I'll come back

16:15:30 to you when we're done with public

16:15:33 testimony.

Thank you.

>> VIVIEN: Sorry, I lowered it.

16:15:36 >> LAURA: Oh, Roger that.

16:15:39

>> JUSTIN: All right.

Thank you, Laura and everyone for the

16:15:43 great discussion.

And yes, Laura, well

16:15:47 managed and great facilitating as always, I really appreciate

16:15:50 it.

We're going to pause here for public testimony.

16:15:53 We have about five people signed up already and I do

16:15:57 have one written testimony to read at the

16:16:00 end.

If there are any other members of the public that would like to

16:16:03 provide testimony, please put your name in the chat at this time and we'll circle

16:16:06 back to you.

We have about

16:16:09 30 minutes for this section.

Each person has three

16:16:13 minutes to speak, and I'll be keeping

16:16:16 time on my end.

So once you've reached that limit, I'll go

16:16:19 ahead and just kind of interject just to help

16:16:22 you finish up a little bit, because it does go by pretty

16:16:26 fast.

But without any more waiting here, and the

16:16:29 first person we have signed up

16:16:34 for testimony is

16:16:38 Tess Herman.

>> Great.

I was just getting ready to ask if I

16:16:41 was on there.

So that was a lot to sit through,

16:16:46 you guys.

I learned a

16:16:49 lot.

I feel the first thing I want to say is I feel

16:16:52 like your group is

16:16:55 definitely lopsided in terms of

16:16:59 representation for renters and not small landlords.

16:17:02

I am a small landlord.

It is the only job I

16:17:05 have.

I don't -- it's not a side hustle.

16:17:09

It is something that

16:17:12 I couldn't do without my husband's help in terms of fixing and

16:17:16 maintaining and being the property manager.

Nor could

16:17:19 we do this if we had to hire property

16:17:23 managers.

Because you just -- it's just

16:17:27 not equitable.

You can't.

16:17:32

Amber, there are so many penalties for

16:17:35 landlords for the simplest technicalities,

16:17:38 you can't even imagine.

When I have more time, I'm going to come back

16:17:41 and give public testimony to a situation that

16:17:44 we were involved

16:17:48 in that was very

16:17:51 expensive and very stressful and to be honest with

16:17:55 you, doesn't really want to make me be a landlord in Portland

16:17:58 anymore.

I think you guys, if

16:18:01 you care about small landlords

16:18:04 and maybe you don't, but I really don't want it

16:18:08 to be like Amazon for

16:18:11 tenants.

It's small people like my husband and I and

16:18:14 many of the people that I've melt in

16:18:17 small landlord groups that are the people that aren't

16:18:20 raising rents.

They are the people that

16:18:23 are not charging for things that they should be charging

16:18:27 for.

And yet they're the people that are the ones that

16:18:30 are getting hit the hardest.

We all

16:18:35 do

16:18:40 not have lawyers on retainer.

You talk about

16:18:43 tenants not having accessibility to that.

We don't.

16:18:46 You can't even get them even if you wanted to get them.

16:18:49

They're not available.

And it's a little sad for me

16:18:52 that you guys are -- it's very, very one

16:18:55 sided.

The only other meeting that I've been to was when

16:19:00 Margot Black was on the committee

16:19:03 and Allen, I recognize his face was on the committee.

16:19:06

And at the end of the meeting, I was asked

16:19:10 because I spoke a lot, if I had any interest in being

16:19:13 part of the group.

And I said I don't because it's

16:19:16 not balanced here at all.

16:19:19

And it feels too one-sided

16:19:25 for me.

So as far as funds being

16:19:28 set aside for risk mitigation, which is really

16:19:31 what it comes down to for

16:19:35 small landlords, when I first was a landlord

16:19:38 I inherited a single mom with two children who

16:19:41 was on Section 8.

And

16:19:45 I won't go into the details of how that ended, but it wasn't good.

It

16:19:48 was about $10,000, lots of drugs

16:19:51 involved, child abuse.

16:19:54

When you are on Section 8, you can get a

16:19:57 free attorney and you can say anything you want about somebody and

16:20:00 you can make up lies and

16:20:04 untruths.

And the amount of damages that

16:20:09 were left behind were immense for

16:20:13 us.

16:20:17

And I think unless the program's changed, you had to

16:20:20 have about $5,000 worth before even going to court.

We didn't really

16:20:23 want to have to go to court and see this person again to even try to

16:20:27 get our money.

>> JUSTIN: You're at time.

I'm sorry.

16:20:29 >> All right.

All right.

I've been touching on a few of the

16:20:33 things that you guys have all talked about.

So little food for thought

16:20:36 there.

>> JUSTIN: And feel free to follow up with

16:20:39 finishing with written testimony.

Of course you can signed up for the next RSC

16:20:42 meeting or come to the listening session.

>> Yeah, good idea.

16:20:48

I will do that.

16:20:51 >> JUSTIN: Thank you, Tess.

Muted myself.

Pardon me there.

16:20:54

Next we have Lisa Pfeiffer, excuse me

16:20:57 if I'm

16:21:01 mispronouncing that.

>> Hi,

16:21:04 it's Lisa Pfeiffer.

>> JUSTIN: Sorry about

16:21:07 that, Lisa.

>> You guys touched on a lot of things today.

16:21:10

My main issue is property

16:21:14 management.

We have the worst property management

16:21:18 in Portland, I believe.

I've been in my housing for 16

16:21:21 years.

I work.

I've worked since I've had my

16:21:25 housing.

And the property management that I

16:21:29 have right now, I have nothing nice to say about them.

16:21:32

But since the last meeting I was at,

16:21:36 I've been brainstorming and

16:21:39 what kills me is that I'm sure there's a whole lot

16:21:42 more tenants like me that are being

16:21:48 bullied, intimidated, and literally trying to be

16:21:51 ran out of their apartment by these property managers that don't say anything because they

16:21:55 don't want to lose their

16:21:58 housing.

We have rights too.

One of the things I was brainstorming

16:22:01 about was maybe that

16:22:04 Home Forward owns the property that I live at.

And I'm so grateful for

16:22:07 Home Forward or I wouldn't have my housing

16:22:11 for 16 years.

But I think that the Home

16:22:14 Forward, I mean, human

16:22:18 solutions should maybe screen their property managers a little

16:22:22 better before they just plop them in somebody's apartment

16:22:25 complex and give them the reins to everything.

Because

16:22:28 I've called human solutions two months ago and left my name and

16:22:31 number for somebody to call me about this situation, and I have got

16:22:34 nowhere with anybody.

I mean, I've been

16:22:38 bullied and harassed by these property managers for two years

16:22:40 now.

I have documentation like you wouldn't believe.

16:22:44 I want to file a civil suit on the company.

But nobody will take

16:22:47 my case.

I can't get anybody to help me.

16:22:50

It's very frustrating.

So I've gotten to the

16:22:53 point where maybe I'll just

16:23:00 be an advocate for people like me in the same situation that I can speak for them.

16:23:03

Because I don't think it's fair.

I mean, I work.

16:23:06 I've worked the whole time I've had my housing, and I pay my

16:23:09 bills.

My daughter's had

16:23:13 stability, thank God for human solutions, but this is getting out of

16:23:16 line.

It's really bad.

And I'm

16:23:19 so frustrated, I started seeing a therapist because I'm so

16:23:24 depressed.

What's going to happen next month, you

16:23:27 know?

I mean, they've done so much stuff to me you wouldn't believe it.

16:23:30 But anyway, yeah.

I feel that

16:23:34 people that own, like human solutions, should

16:23:37 at least screen them before just plopping them into

16:23:41 people's lives and tormenting them like this.

Like they have

16:23:46 been.

So yeah.

That's all I

16:23:51 got

16:23:59 say.

>> JUSTIN: Thank you so much for sharing.

16:24:03 Thank you for being here.

>> Thanks.

>> JUSTIN: Katy McKenzie

16:24:06 is next on my

16:24:12 list.

16:24:16

Katy, are you there?

All righty, moving on

16:24:20 to Sheri

16:24:31 Kopp.

Okay, Jessica

16:24:38 Greenly.

>> Hi, are you able to hear me?

16:24:42

>> JUSTIN: Perfect.

>> Sorry, I'm a little under the

16:24:45 weather.

I unfortunately missed

16:24:48 the first half of the meeting and

16:24:52 didn't get to hear the entire context in talking about how to ensure

16:24:55 that the rental assistance programs are serving those residents as well as possible.

16:24:59 I really think that you're looking at evaluating other

16:25:02 items and making suggestions for that, but the case management

16:25:06 services should be a top priority on the list.

In order

16:25:09 to make sure that rent assistance is effective for those

16:25:12 individuals and that they're able to

16:25:15 retain rent, it's imperative

16:25:19 for individuals who have transitioned from other

16:25:23 situations or in order to have that stability in their

16:25:26 housing.

And so I just would like to

16:25:30 encourage that Clackamas

16:25:34 County has definitely implemented that

16:25:41 strongly in the programs they've rolled out over the past few months have are

16:25:44 working effectively.

We have residents moving from transitional housing and

16:25:47 so if you want to look at a program

16:25:51 that has utilized those

16:25:54 resources and been able to effectively deploy

16:25:57 them, I think that would be a resource to model

16:26:00 after.

So thank you.

16:26:03

>> JUSTIN: Thank you,

16:26:10 Jessica.

Then we have

16:26:13 Sylvia Ho is the last individual I have signed up.

16:26:24

All righty, as I mentioned

16:26:27 before, I do have written testimony to read, so if anyone else would like to put

16:26:30 their name in the chat

16:26:34 for public testimony while I read this,

16:26:38 please feel free to do so.

But I'll go ahead and

16:26:41 get started.

This public testimony

16:26:44 is from

16:26:48 Veronica regarding the allowable 14.6 rent increase.

My unit is

16:26:53 managed by Edge Management and they're

16:26:56 notorious in using loopholes to gaslight and apply

16:26:59 plausibility deniability on their tenants and using loopholes in rental

16:27:02 laws to take advantage of renters.

If you go to their Google reviews, they

16:27:06 have a rating of 2.8 stars and

16:27:09 they are the largest property management company in

16:27:13 Portland.

Portland ordinance does have that if the landlord

16:27:17 increases above 10% they are required to pay

16:27:20 the no cause eviction payout rate.

Our

16:27:23 unit qualifies for

16:27:26 $4,200.

But I think it needs to be higher due to inflation and

16:27:29 increases in rental rates around PDX city

16:27:32 limits.

This can't be the only recourse that's available for

16:27:36 renters that make above the poverty level, since an increase

16:27:39 in rent can easily put someone like me at the

16:27:43 poverty level.

Some ideas I

16:27:48 think would Ben --

benefit rinters who don't

16:27:51 qualify for low income and make above the poverty level --

excuse

16:27:54 me.

Yet won't be able to survive these legal rent

16:27:57 increases would be the follow: One,

16:28:02 discount on rent for long-term renters after

16:28:05 renting continuously for at least two years and never

16:28:08 being late on a rent payment.

16:28:13

20% discount locked in and legally they can't remove the discount.

16:28:16

Renters need to be awarded for paying on time, receive no

16:28:19 complaints, and are good tenants and keeping the unit

16:28:23 clean.

Two, rent increases every five years

16:28:26 instead of every year.

Three, rent increases

16:28:29 are capped at 3%.

16:28:32

Four, property management companies to provide financial

16:28:36 transparency to the renters on where their rent money is

16:28:39 going.

If it's my rent money that's going to these management companies,

16:28:42 I want to know how they are using that money.

Right now,

16:28:46 they are not legally required to

16:28:49 give renters financial transparency so they can take advantage of renters

16:28:52 and continue with plausibility deniability.

16:28:55

Five, landlords cannot increase rent on renters who are over

16:28:59 65.

Six,

16:29:02 50% increase to the no cause eviction payout

16:29:06 rates.

Seven, reevaluate on how properties

16:29:09 are valued.

It doesn't make sense to increase rents when

16:29:12 the quality of the units weren't built with quality

16:29:15 materials to begin with.

Or increase rents when the neighborhood

16:29:21 around you has crime increases, homelessness coming on to the

16:29:24 property to get to the recycling, et

16:29:27 cetera.

These

16:29:31 private conglomerate property rentals have an

16:29:34 entire team to take advantage of loops on the rental laws.

The renters

16:29:37 don't have the means to withstand the resources and

16:29:40 scope that these property managers have over

16:29:43 us.

We need better protections that protect the rental percentage

16:29:47 increases.

We went through hell in our last lease

16:29:50 negotiations with our landlord.

Initially increasing

16:29:54 to 14%, then we told them

16:29:57 about the no cause eviction that they would need to pay us

16:30:00 $4,200.

And then they

16:30:04 countered offer with just below 10% increase.

We would not

16:30:07 be able to afford another legal 10% increase and

16:30:10 our 2024 lease renewal, so we will be taking

16:30:14 advantage of a no-cause eviction payout.

That

16:30:17 no-cause eviction payout is the only financial recourse we have, and

16:30:20 there needs to be more financial safety nets like the suggestions

16:30:24 mentioned above to keep living here in

16:30:28 Portland.

Thank

16:30:31 you.

Excuse

16:30:34 me.

Anyone else

16:30:38 signing up for public

16:30:43 testimony before

16:30:46 we?

Lisa, unfortunately we can only do one testimony per

16:30:49 person.

But always feel free to send in

16:30:53 some rin testimony and we'll be hosting a

16:30:56 listening session at the beginning of June for more

16:31:01 opportunities of engagement as well.

But thank you for

16:31:04 being here.

All

16:31:08 righty.

We can go

16:31:13 ahead, if there's no one else signing up, close

16:31:16 public testimony at this time.

Before we jump back into the

16:31:19 discussion, I think Breonne

16:31:22 had some information she wanted to share, if she's

16:31:26 ready for that.

If not, we can pivot back to

16:31:29 Laura.

>> BREONNE: Just two quick things.

I want to

16:31:32 remind commissioners when we're doing public testimony, please respect members of the public

16:31:35 and do not go into fact checking

16:31:39 or sharing information

16:31:43 that -- please just don't do that as there's a bit of an

16:31:46 inappropriate comment made in the chat regarding one of the members of the

16:31:49 public providing testimony.

I just want to acknowledge that.

I

16:31:52 also want to circle back to some of the

16:31:56 conversation earlier regarding a potential

16:31:59 program whereby landlords would be able to tap into funding

16:32:02 to make repairs in exchange for some level

16:32:05 of affordability

16:32:09 or other programmatic, you know, designs to

16:32:13 keep tenants stably housed.

I want to say that the bureauio

16:32:16 did launch a program like that in

16:32:20 East Portland in 2016.

I was not a member of the Housing Bureau at the time,

16:32:23 neither was Justin.

My understanding is that the

16:32:28 program was not particularly

16:32:32 successful.

We do have some existing documents explaining how the

16:32:35 program was designed.

I'm happy to share that with

16:32:38 the Executive Committee if this is an area that you all are interested

16:32:42 in exploring further.

But my understanding

16:32:45 was there was a pool of money whereby small landlords would be able to access repairs,

16:32:48 habitability repairs, in exchange for

16:32:52 affordability.

And extremely few landlords

16:32:56 applied to the program to the point where the program was

16:33:01 canceled.

I just wanted to flag that and we can

16:33:05 share the program information, what we have, with the Executive Committee for further discussion

16:33:08 if you would like at the next Executive Committee

16:33:13 meeting.

>> LAURA: Thank you, Breonne.

Yes, I think that would be great to

16:33:16 see that.

Do you know whether or not

16:33:20 there was any -- aside from whatever information there

16:33:23 was throughout the program, was there any analysis done

16:33:26 about why specifically it

16:33:29 wasn't successful?

>> BREONNE: I don't

16:33:32 know.

I can try to figure that

16:33:36 out.

>> LAURA: Okay, yeah.

If --

16:33:39 if you, you and Justin have

16:33:42 capacity to dig in a little bit more, I think that would

16:33:46 be very helpful.

>> BREONNE: Yeah.

There are certainly some

16:33:49 folks at the bureau who were around when that program was

16:33:52 launched, but I mean, I just looked at the only document that I have found

16:33:56 from it and the person

16:34:01 who's listed on it is no longer at the

16:34:04 bureau.

We can do some fact finding and figure out what's going

16:34:07 on.

But I wanted to flag that that was a route we explored previously

16:34:11 and it would be good to learn the lessons of why it

16:34:14 was an unsuccessful program.

>> LAURA: Yes,

16:34:18 excellent.

I think that, thank you for

16:34:21 sharing that with all of us.

That was before my time

16:34:24 as well.

And -- but I

16:34:28 think that there definitely would be something to learn

16:34:34 from that.

>> CHRISTIAN: I would definitely like get to

16:34:37 information at our next meeting.

I put in the chat, I'd be

16:34:40 curious if there's any information on, you

16:34:45 know, pause -- because sometimes it's simply

16:34:48 outreach, the law's passed, the money's there, but there's no

16:34:52 extra step to make sure people know it exists or how to

16:34:55 apply.

You see that with tenants too.

There's rent relief

16:34:58 funds and help that's out there that some tenants don't get

16:35:01 simply because they don't have the information.

And, you know, they

16:35:04 would need help getting it.

And so I don't know if that

16:35:07 is any part of this, but I'd be curious if there is any

16:35:10 information on that to also look at, because that would help us know if,

16:35:13 maybe it's worth trying again or, no, no, they did

16:35:17 a lot of outreach and there's just not a need.

16:35:20

>> JUSTIN: I'll see what I can find.

>> LAURA:

16:35:23 Yeah.

And I'm assuming that you would have time to get that

16:35:26 to all of us prior to the next meeting.

>> JUSTIN:

16:35:29 Of course.

>> LAURA: All right.

Awesome.

16:35:32 So we're going to go back to our conversation, but

16:35:35 I see Vivien and Amber in that order have their hands

16:35:39 raised.

No, Vivien.

Yes, you're ready to

16:35:42 go.

16:35:43

No?

Yes?

16:35:46 Vivien?

>> VIVIEN: I shared a comment in the chat.

16:35:50 I want to apologize, I meant to send it only to one

16:35:53 person.

So my apologies about

16:35:56 that.

I also wanted to -- I did say in the chat that I'd

16:35:59 be interested in any reports or documentation about the

16:36:02 program that Breonne just

16:36:06 mentioned.

I do have some ideas about -- I mean,

16:36:09 I think it's obviously premature, since I don't know

16:36:14 what we could glean about why landlords didn't

16:36:17 end up accessing that program.

But I do suspect as

16:36:20 Christian says that it may have been a lack of awareness about it.

And

16:36:23 I do have

16:36:26 some ideas about ways to

16:36:30 inform tenants about it so that

16:36:33 if they are aware that there are potential code

16:36:37 violations and they're also aware that there may be an avenue for their

16:36:40 landlord to have those addressed without having to foot the entire bill, that

16:36:44 that might be a way to

16:36:47 encourage utilization of such a program like

16:36:50 that.

>> LAURA: Excellent.

And Breonne and

16:36:54 Justin, I think you're safe to send whatever documentation and

16:36:57 information that you find to all the

16:37:00 Commissioners.

I think we would -- that would be

16:37:04 fine with me to -- I don't think

16:37:08 Executive Committee exclusively needs to see it.

I think that by

16:37:11 sending it to everyone, it will get us on a

16:37:16 faster pace to keep this conversation going.

So

16:37:19 thank you.

Thank you for that.

16:37:23

Amber.

>> AMBER:

16:37:28 Yeah, I wanted to make -- you know, make a request

16:37:31 or kind of potentially bring

16:37:34 this up for discussion, that --

like for example, I would

16:37:39 love to see -- let me start.

So thank

16:37:43 you, Laura and Christian, for presentation.

It was

16:37:46 really well done, it was very informative.

My

16:37:49 gosh, you guys did a great job.

16:37:52

In addition to that, I would

16:37:56 like to suggest the idea

16:38:00 of meeting agendas going out further in advance

16:38:03 rather than a day or two before the meeting.

16:38:06

And the reason -- the reason is, for

16:38:09 example, I'll just say I --

I feel

16:38:12 that spending an entire hour of our three hours on

16:38:17 presentation and information is not necessarily the best use of our

16:38:20 meeting time.

Especially when

16:38:23 our meetings have been cut down even further.

For example, I would

16:38:27 love to see presentations like this

16:38:30 sent out in advance so that we go over them before the meeting and then we use that

16:38:34 time for discussion or, you know, like if there are things that people want to add

16:38:37 or that kind of thing rather than simply a third of the

16:38:41 meeting going to

16:38:45 information.

>> BREONNE: I would say, Amber, I love that

16:38:48 idea but also this is a public body and so the presentation is also for the public, it is

16:38:52 not just for the commissioners.

>> LAURA: Yeah.

16:38:55

And I believe that there's time

16:38:58 at which -- or the time ahead of the meeting that you have

16:39:02 to send out the

16:39:05 agenda, yeah.

Yeah.

I think the other thing

16:39:09 is this -- we have to find a

16:39:12 balance between, you know, we can't request

16:39:17 information and ask

16:39:20 PHB staff or any of us to then go back

16:39:23 and prepare a

16:39:27 presentation and then -- without thinking about

16:39:30 how that is going to dig into our time.

16:39:33

So maybe as we think

16:39:36 about the information that we request, we

16:39:39 balance that with how that information is presented.

I

16:39:42 mean, certainly it

16:39:46 could be just a more detailed

16:39:50 presentation that's not walk-through during the meeting.

And

16:39:53 then look at what we -- what we lose or

16:39:57 gain with

16:40:00 that.

So point taken on that.

Which

16:40:03 I think, Amber, what I'm hearing you really say is, how

16:40:06 do we use our limited time more effectively.

So

16:40:09 we can think about

16:40:10 that.

Yeah.

Yes.

16:40:13 And thank you, Kristina, be mindful of different learning

16:40:17 styles.

So I think

16:40:21 we can all think about that and contribute to

16:40:25 what works

16:40:28 best.

So we've got 20 minutes that

16:40:31 we can use to continue

16:40:37 talking, or -- and Justin, I'm just going to

16:40:40 call on you because I don't have my calendar open right

16:40:44 in front me of, when is our next meeting?

16:40:47

I believe it's

16:40:50 July?

>> JUSTIN: Give me one second here.

16:40:53

>> LAURA: Sorry, thank you for letting me put you on the

16:40:56 spot.

>> JUSTIN: You're fine.

July 18th from 2:00 to

16:40:59 5:00.

>> LAURA: Okay.

So we've got the listening session

16:41:02 June 7th, correct?

The next

16:41:05 meeting is July 18

16:41:09 th.

So

16:41:14 we can spent the next 20 minutes doing some more

16:41:24 brainstorming, or.

>> CHRISTIAN: I feel like wasn't maybe our

16:41:29 first topic, Ian you can probably correct me, but wasn't our first to take this

16:41:32 we kind got cut short, all the committee members had more to say

16:41:37 and we said we were going to start there during

16:41:40 this time?

I know for sure Ian had something he was going to add then because of

16:41:43 time.

He said I'll just save it since we're going to bring it back up.

16:41:47 I believe it was our first report.

16:41:50

But...

>> LAURA: So our first report

16:41:53 today about the landlord incentives?

>> CHRISTIAN: Yeah.

Do you remember,

16:41:57 Ian?

>> IAN: Yeah, I was just going to respond to one of

16:42:00 Amber's concerns, which was that, you know, we

16:42:05 sort of now come full circle-ish on it, but

16:42:08 that, you know, we have

16:42:11 an incredibly vulnerable group of tenants and folks

16:42:14 experiencing housing instability and housing --

16:42:18

houselessness in our community, and we started the

16:42:21 presentation on ways that we incentivize the owner,

16:42:25 the landlord community, right,

16:42:31 land-owning community/class to assist folks.

I want

16:42:34 to acknowledge that that feels weird sometimes and awkward,

16:42:37 Amber, maybe always that feels like that.

I

16:42:41 will just say one of the ways we felt

16:42:44 comfortable with that at the housing authority, very close to

16:42:48 embedded in the housing system, acknowledge that too, is the

16:42:51 $500 incentive to have a

16:42:54 landlord participate in the program should

16:42:58 not be necessary, right?

It is -- it is a

16:43:01 state law that -- that a doctor has

16:43:04 to be accepted, right?

And yet we see that the benefit

16:43:09 of $500 has

16:43:12 outsized a long-term impacts, right?

Even just housing that

16:43:15 one family

16:43:19 certainly often the amount of time that they're housed and

16:43:23 the lack of turn they have in finding new housing.

That is just

16:43:26 one example.

But I just wanted to

16:43:29 sort of lift up that concern you were raising and we are very mindful

16:43:33 of it.

And those incentives come with other

16:43:36 approaches that may sort of be more of that

16:43:40 stick approach than the carrot approach.

Freezing rents in 2021, some

16:43:43 of the ways we tried to limit costs in our program,

16:43:47 et cetera, which Laura didn't have as

16:43:51 much time to go into in a lot of detail,

16:43:54 but hopefully it's a little balanced there.

And

16:43:57 I'm happy to talk about that if there's questions, a bit

16:44:00 more.

>> LAURA: Thank you, Ian.

Christian, you have your hand

16:44:03 up.

>> CHRISTIAN: On the incentive side, I wanted to

16:44:29 point out I definitely, in general, I'm not never a fan

16:44:29 of, you know, just handing out money to any group just,

16:44:29 you know, without qualification.

And my

16:44:29 thought process is if it turned into

16:44:29 a recommendation of City Council, the types of things we would

16:44:29 recommend would be hey landlord, if you willingly do

16:44:29 this, you'll get this.

So an example, and don't --

16:44:29

don't quote me on the exact

16:44:32 numbers, I'm just using them to drive home my point or

16:44:35 example.

Is let's say we created

16:44:39 something where we can't in

16:44:42 Portland say landlords, you cannot raise your rent above this amount.

But what if we went

16:44:46 the other route and said hey, landlord, if you keep your yearly rent

16:44:50 increase below, you know, 3% or, you know,

16:44:53 below 5% or whatever

16:44:57 , make up a number, whatever the City Council's happy

16:45:01 with.

If you keep your rent increases below that percentage every year, then if

16:45:04 you have a vacancy, since you're making your unit, keeping it

16:45:08 affordable, maybe it has to stay

16:45:11 affordable to a certain percentage of

16:45:15 medium households, when you have a vacancy,

16:45:18 we'll cover up to two months worth of rent so you don't have lost rent during

16:45:21 a vacancy period because you are voluntarily

16:45:25 keeping your stuff -- your rents low.

And so that was

16:45:28 kind of my thought process in really

16:45:31 likening this idea is, hey, you know, maybe our hands are

16:45:34 tied and we can't just say hey, you can't

16:45:38 do this.

And maybe we go the other route and say, you know

16:45:42 what?

If you're part of the solution and you're not perceived as part

16:45:45 of the problem and you're helping us meet these goals we really want to

16:45:48 meet to help the needs of this segment of the

16:45:51 population, then awesome, you'll get this

16:45:55 benefit, whatever it is.

So just want to make that

16:45:58 clear, you know, in general I definitely don't agree with just handing money

16:46:01 out.

But if it had qualifications for it that really

16:46:04 helped us achieve these goals, I feel like this would

16:46:08 be a good way to go about it without continuing to run up against

16:46:11 the wall of, you know, state laws tying

16:46:16 our

16:46:19 hands.

>> LAURA: Thanks, Christian.

16:46:24

Kristina.

You're muted.

16:46:26

Muted.

>> KRISTINA: I did it again.

16:46:30 I'm so sorry.

>> LAURA: We're here

16:46:34 to help.

>> KRISTINA: Thank you for circling back to

16:46:37 that, Christian.

I agree.

I definitely am crossing that fingers

16:46:41 on that eviction defense program and hoping that gets funded

16:46:44 because I hear that there are some terrible, like, landlord experiences out

16:46:48 there.

And folks should be held accountable and, like, folks

16:46:51 should get representation and also I think there's some

16:46:54 really good property managers and landlords out

16:46:57 there and some folks are definitely

16:47:01 expressing or I'm hearing like some

16:47:06 struggles around, you know, just being

16:47:09 able to cover damages and, like, some of the stuff that's happening

16:47:12 in affordable properties where

16:47:15 I think that the result has been, like, having higher

16:47:19 screening barriers for folks getting housed because it's

16:47:24 causing some risk aversion

16:47:27 on the landlord or the property manager.

It would be great if we did somehow

16:47:31 tie the incentive to, for example, something Vivien

16:47:34 raised earlier, some low-barrier screening

16:47:38 criteria and ask landlords to use that.

I

16:47:41 mean, there are landlords out there that are doing a five and

16:47:44 ten-year lookback period and declining folks because they have a

16:47:47 DUI on their record, which really doesn't

16:47:51 necessarily mean they can't be a good renter or pay their rent just

16:47:54 because they had something that happened so long ago.

So it would be

16:47:57 great if we could tie them together, because we need

16:48:00 -- we need good, affordable housing

16:48:04 in our community.

And something

16:48:07 that I'm also hopeful if we can tie something

16:48:10 together, like Christian's suggesting, that maybe we can