Housing advocates warn Oregon legislative cuts to housing and eviction prevention program will add to homeless population

Think Out Loud

In the last two weeks of the Oregon legislative session, which ended late Friday night, housing advocates including the Community Alliance of Tenants, the Oregon Housing Alliance and the Urban League of Portland sounded the alarm and protested in Salem over funding cuts. They said the programs for emergency rent assistance and programs to prevent eviction must remain funded to prevent thousands of individuals and families with children from being evicted and becoming homeless. Lisa Bates is a professor of Black Studies at Portland State University and helps run a research program studying evictions across Oregon.

We talk with Bates about the lack of legislative funding for homelessness and housing programs and what’s needed in her view to address the ongoing homeless and housing crisis.