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Evictions
What do you do if you
receive an eviction notice?
Continued from Page 1A
Hebb said when a tenant receives a
10-day eviction notice for non-pay-
ment, the first thing they should do is
apply for rent assistance.
Until June 30, renters who can pro-
vide proof that they have applied for
rent assistance cannot be evicted
while the application is being proc-
essed, or until September 30.
Even after June 30, there still will be
financial assistance available, and
renters should apply for it.
Hebb says a renter who applies for
assistance after that should provide
their landlord with proof they applied
whether they are legally protected
from eviction or not.
In Oregon, housing providers can
assess late fees on rent that is past due
on the fifth day of the month. On the
eighth day, the landlord can give a 10-
day termination notice for unpaid rent.
By law, the notice must include infor-
mation about rent assistance.
At the end of the 10 days, the land-
lord can file an eviction case in court.
The summons is then served to the
tenant. The state requires the first ap-
pearance be scheduled within seven
days after the filing.
If the tenant appears in court and
files an answer, the case is scheduled
for trial. Under state law, the trial must
be scheduled within 15 days of the first
appearance.
If the tenant loses at trial, the coun-
ty sheriff ’s office will serve a notice of
restitution, which gives the tenant
four days to move or be locked out.
Marion County Sheriff ’s spokesper-
son Jeremy Landers said the depart-
ment usually schedules the eviction a
week to a week and a half later.
“The landlord is not supposed to
change the locks, it’s supposed to be
done by the sheriff ’s,” Hebb said. “Our
state law basically discourages the
parties from doing that to one another,
and that’s something that ought to be
navigated by a sheriff under order from
the court so there’s a third party and
it’s not something that is arbitrary.”
That means a tenant will have from
a month to a month and a half after the
first eviction notice before they are
locked out.
apartment.
He spent the next nine months liv-
ing in his car – but didn’t have to.
In Oregon, renters have from 32 to
53 days before they are locked out of
their rental under the law, and there
are many ways for them to get help. But
like a lot of renters, Kamis didn’t know
his rights.
“People are not evicted by the evic-
tion notice,” said Kim McCarty, execu-
tive director for the Community Alli-
ance of Tenants.
And with significant financial and
legal resources available because of
the COVID-19 pandemic, there are
more options for help than there ever
have been.
Sybil Hebb, director of legislative
and policy advocacy for the Oregon
Law Center, points to national studies
that show that about 20% of people
who receive eviction notices leave
their homes immediately, much like
Kamis did.
Advocates say that preventing evic-
tions has become preventing home-
lessness.
Between the increasing cost of rent
– the average for a two-bedroom
apartment in Salem is over $1,400 –
and a low rate of available places to
rent, there aren’t many options to get
someone back into a place once they’re
out.
“An eviction is essentially two steps
out the door to homelessness,” said
Jimmy Jones, executive director of
Mid-Willamette Valley Community
Action Agency.
Evictions are trending
up in Oregon
In the past 12 months, an increasing
number of Oregonians are getting
evicted for not paying their rent.
Before the pandemic, there were
about 1,500 eviction filings per month
in Oregon, Hebb said.
In April 2021, Gov. Kate Brown
placed a moratorium on evictions for
non-payment as thousands of people
were put out of work. That was extend-
ed to June 30, 2021 by state lawmakers.
With that long expired and other
protections going away, evictions are
creeping back up.
In July 2021, there were 361 evic-
tions in Oregon. By November that had
gone up to 566. In May 2022, there
were 1,267.
Evictions for behavioral issues have
been allowed throughout the pandem-
ic. There is a different process for those
types of evictions than for evictions
based on lack of payment.
Landlords don’t like evictions, ac-
cording to Deborah Imse, executive di-
rector of Multifamily NW.
It costs landlords money to evict a
renter. Between court costs, paying to
have a unit cleaned, screening new
tenants and little chance of recovering
back owed rent once the tenant is
gone, it’s advantageous for housing
providers to keep their tenants, she
said.
“The eviction is the last resort, and
it’s the last resort for a couple of rea-
sons,” Imse said. “The first being that
providers want to house people, or
they wouldn’t be in this industry. So
they want to house people and they
don’t want vacant units.”
Imse said landlords try to commu-
nicate with tenants who are past due
with rent, and the eviction notice is the
last resort to get the tenant to respond.
McCarty said the apartment rental
industry is not as heavily regulated as
those for home or car ownership. A
person can be renting a spare room
from a relative or living on a friend’s
property in a recreational vehicle
without any written contract. Tenants
often don’t learn their rights.
Toxin
Continued from Page 1A
ble people not to drink the contaminat-
ed water.
Dreher said scientists knew these
toxins had been produced in Detroit Lake
previously, “but now we know the precise
toxin types and the organisms making
them.”
Dreher’s research team also found mi-
crocystin in Odell Lake in the Cascades,
Lake Billy Chinook in Central Oregon and
Junipers Reservoir in Southern Oregon,
where 30 steers died in 2017 from drink-
ing toxic water.
The team found the same type of cya-
nobacteria had caused harmful algal
blooms in all four of those lakes.
Cyanobacteria are found in all kinds
of water bodies, and they can quickly
multiply into harmful algae blooms with
warm water temperatures and excess
nutrients that can come from fertilizer
runoff. Some strains of cyanobacteria
can produce neurotoxins, and most tox-
in-producing algae can cause gastroin-
testinal illness and skin rashes.
A survey by the Environmental Pro-
tection Agency in 2007 found the toxin
microcystin in one out of every three
lakes sampled across the country.
Financial help available to renters
Advocates for tenants and housing
providers agree that if someone gets
an eviction notice, the tenant should
propose a payment plan.
If they can’t come to terms, there is
financial help available.
“And that’s not always been the
case,” Jones said. “It’s certainly been
the case for the past two years.”
The state paid $363 million in rent
assistance from federal and state
funds to over 55,000 people since
2021. Local municipalities have spent
millions more.
The state’s program is closed to new
applications and likely won’t reopen,
said Oregon Housing and Community
Services spokesperson Delia Hernan-
dez.
But the state is offering more money
to help people who were previously ap-
proved for it, but didn’t use the full 11
months of rent money to which they
are entitled.
“We got feedback from community
that that was one segment of the pop-
ulation that did need extra additional
help,” Hernandez said.
There is still assistance available at
the local level.
Marion County has an emergency
rental assistance program with funds
coming from the federal government.
Renters can apply for assistance at
https://www.co.marion.or.us/BOC/CD/
Pages/rentalassistance.aspx or call 1-
833-227-5161 for help.
Renters in Marion and Polk counties
can also get help from Mid-Willamette
Community Action Agency. Renters
Dreher ran a lab focused on harmful
algal blooms at OSU for more than a dec-
ade and is still working on the problem
in retirement.
“It’s an ecological dysfunction that
you can see from satellite images from
space and is causing a lot of concern
worldwide,” he said. “We’ve seen much
more of these and much bigger events,
more frequent events, longer events of
visible blooms that are stinky and that
can be toxic.”
Scientists are anticipating even more
harmful algal blooms with the warmer
water temperatures that come with cli-
mate change.
“The good news is that not every cya-
nobacterial bloom that occurs in our
lakes is toxic, although it is always wise
to follow the rule of avoiding contact
when there’s green growth in the water,”
Dreher said.
If a person or a pet comes in contact
with water that may contain harmful
cyanobacteria, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention recommends
immediately rinsing off with fresh wa-
ter. Dogs should not be allowed to lick
the contaminated water off their fur,
and a veterinarian should be called right
away.
Anyone swallowing water near a
harmful algal bloom should immediate-
ly call a doctor or poison control center.
can go to https://mwvcaa.org/ or call
503-585-6232.
“There’s still rental assistance
available in the community,” Jones
said.
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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2022
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3A
contract, it’s already implied that
you’re not equals and that your con-
tract really doesn’t give you power to
negotiate with your landlord.”
Legal help available to renters
From living in his car to
back in an apartment
Most people who receive an evic-
tion notice never go to court. By not go-
ing to court, they’ve lost.
“And I think that’s because tenants
do a lot to try to avoid having their
name cited in the court plea,” Hebb
said. “They’re worried about court and
many people leave before a filing is
ever made because they worry about
the ramifications.”
Jones said some people who receive
the notice may choose to walk away for
reasons like previous trouble with the
law or immigration status. They may
be afraid of the court system.
“And then the other thing we don’t
talk about frankly is that low income
individuals over time get system trau-
ma,” Jones said.
Hebb said people with low income
can get help through the Oregon Law
Center’s Eviction Defense Project at
https://oregonlawcenter.org/evic-
tion-
defense-project/
Those with moderate income can
get help through the Oregon State Bar’s
Modest Means program at https://
www.osbar.org/_docs/public/
diy/modestmeansapp.pdf
Jones said a staff member from
Mid-Willamette Valley Community
Action Agency is sent to courts in Mar-
ion and Polk counties when evictions
are taking place to help people, espe-
cially those who are in danger of evic-
tion due to non-payment.
Some tenants worry that if they are
evicted they will have that on their rec-
ord and it will be more difficult to rent
their next apartment or home.
Hebb said tenants have the right to
ask for expungement of eviction rec-
ords, though it is difficult to do. She
said there is an attorney in Portland,
Leni Tupper, who runs a clinic
https://www.pcc.edu/clear-clinic/
for tenants in Portland.
“People don’t know their rights be-
cause the system is set up intention-
ally so that they don’t know their
rights,” McCarty said. “The landlord
does not set you down necessarily
and explain your rights to you, neces-
sarily. The document that’s offered is
in small print.
“And the system is designed to make
you feel like you’re not co-equals in the
contract. So even when you get that
Kamis admits he was like a lot of
renters and didn’t know his rights.
He had been homeless at one point
in his life, but before the pandemic he
had gotten his life together and was
working on a cruise ship based out of
Hawaii. Then the pandemic hit, and he
was laid off. After returning to Oregon,
he lived with a family member for a few
months then moved into his own
apartment in West Salem.
But his unemployment payments
were cut off as there was a disagree-
ment whether he could claim Oregon
or Hawaii.
Kamis worked at a couple of jobs for
a few weeks at a time early in the pan-
demic, but they didn’t last. The most
steady gig he held was volunteering at
a church in East Salem, assembling
and distributing boxes of food.
“The community that got food, es-
pecially during COVID, we had like 200
families that would come through,”
Kamis said.
He did that while living in his car,
spending his few dollars to wash his
clothes so he could try to get or keep a
job.
After he left his apartment follow-
ing the eviction notice, Kamis tried to
get help by any method possible.
He talked with any group he could
think of, from non-profits to the gover-
nor’s office. It took Sen. Ron Wyden’s
office to get involved so he could get
back into an apartment in March.
He wants to help people who were in
similar situations. He learned in the
hardest way possible what to do when
a tenant receives an eviction notice.
“Communicate with the landlord,
but then immediately start seeking le-
gal advice. Immediately. Right after
you hang that damn phone up. It’s
finding the right people who will help
you. They choose who they help,” Ka-
mis aid.
“That’s where I would go. But I
would tell them to be very respectful,
but vocal and advocate for themselves
when they go to get an advocate be-
cause if they’re quiet, they’re not going
to get nowhere. They have to explain
their situation and how dire it is.”
Bill Poehler covers Marion County
for the Statesman Journal. Contact
him
at
bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com