NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
Page 2A
Friday, October 26, 2018
Lawmakers hope to increase home ownership for minorities
Oregon already has a
number of programs in
place to help people bor-
row for a home, but some
observers say that not
enough people know about
those opportunities.
Joseph Portillo, a home
loan officer at Umpqua
Bank, told lawmakers and
other members of the task
force that he feels educat-
ing Oregonians about what
they need to know about
credit and other qualifi-
ers for home loans, as well
as existing assistance pro-
grams, could boost home
ownership rates among peo-
ple of color.
“Sometimes I feel like
individuals come and apply
for a mortgage, they are
about to play basketball,
and they are coming in
knowing the rules for play-
ing football,” Portillo testi-
fied Monday. “It’s a totally
different game that they’re
trying to play, so they’re not
going to be able to win the
game or participate in the
game because they don’t
know the rules.”
State Rep. Mark Meek,
D-Clackamas, a real estate
broker who co-chairs the
task force, said financial
incentives don’t always
align to encourage the real
estate industry to help peo-
ple of modest means get a
By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE
Capital Bureau
SALEM — Lawmak-
ers are trying to figure out
what’s keeping Oregonians
of color from buying homes
when loans and subsidies
are available.
Overall, about 62 percent
of Oregonians own homes,
and overall the rate of home
ownership in the state is
slightly lower than in 2000.
But state data show stark
differences among ethnic
groups.
In Oregon, about 65 per-
cent of whites and 63 per-
cent of Asian Americans
own homes as of 2017.
Meanwhile, only about
35 percent of black Orego-
nians do. The lowest rate of
homeownership in the state
is among Pacific Islanders,
at 26 percent.
Earlier this year, state
lawmakers created a task
force to figure out how to
improve homeownership
rates.
In a meeting Monday,
members discussed one
possible piece of the puzzle:
lending.
Some witnesses said
buyers aren’t always aware
of the extra help they can
get to close a home pur-
chase — or what they need
to be eligible for that help.
Oregon Capital Bureau
In Oregon, about 65 percent of whites and 63 percent
of Asian Americans own homes as of 2017. Meanwhile,
only about 35 percent of black Oregonians do.
home loan.
Real estate agents may
make less money per trans-
action with the more time
they spend on a particular
buyer.
“I know that if I have to
spend six weeks, or even six
months helping somebody
find a home, my price per
square foot is going down,
and my dollar per hour is
going way down,” Meek
said.
He said that the hurdles
and time it takes a buyer to
qualify and the time it can
take loan officers or lend-
ing institutions to imple-
ment and support housing
assistance programs is “just
another way to discriminate
and eliminate and dissuade
folks being able to partici-
pate in this process.”
Rep.
Rich
Vial,
R-Scholls, said a lack of
affordable housing may be
the real problem while edu-
cating buyers is important.
“If folks can’t make the
payments on something,
Forecast for Pendleton Area
you don’t want to put them
into a house they can’t
make the payments on,”
Vial said. “These programs
that we have are great, but
until we get enough sup-
ply that would allow those
programs to really be used,
is there a solution that
is around understanding
the lending environment
better?”
State Sen. James Man-
ning Jr., D-Eugene, who
leads the task force with
Meek, said it was too early
to pinpoint the impediments.
“Inventory is scarce, it is
low, but I also would like to
say, that we’re in the early
portions of this task force,
and it’s too early for me,
from my perspective, to
make any kind of determi-
nation whether or not there
are disparities in housing,”
Manning said.
He said he learned about
some home ownership pro-
grams at Monday’s meeting.
Meek said he wants to
see what may be impeding
access to home loans.
“If there’s so many pro-
grams available, why aren’t
we utilizing them in a more
efficient manner?” he said.
Meanwhile, other advo-
cates say the task force
should consider how his-
toric discrimination has
affected home ownership in
Judge orders release of secret
legislative proposals
TODAY
SATURDAY
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MONDAY
TUESDAY
A shower this
afternoon
Pleasant with
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Mostly cloudy with
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Partly sunny
Partial sunshine
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
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A Marion County judge on Wednesday
ordered state officials by Friday to disclose
legislative proposals they have been trying
to keep secret.
The records to be released show law
changes that state agencies want drafted
ahead of the 2019 Legislature.
A Portland business attorney has been
seeking the documents to alert his clients
to changes that could affect them.
Marion County Circuit Court Judge
Audrey Broyles said after a hearing in
Salem on Wednesday that releasing the
records would be of “significant public
interest.”
The records, called legislative concept
forms, go to the Legislature’s attorneys to
be turned into draft legislation. The drafts
then can be filed with the Legislature for
consideration. Access to the records could
give the public insight into what Gov. Kate
Brown and her administration plan to do on
sometimes key issues, such as taxation and
education reform.
Attorneys seeking disclosure suggested
Brown’s administration was blocking
release to safeguard her in a close election
fight with state Rep. Knute Buehler.
Broyles ordered all 250 disclosed by 5
p.m. Friday, but state attorneys said they
planned to block that through an appeal.
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
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ENE 4-8
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Greg Chaimov, a former legislative
lawyer who is now with the Portland law
firm Davis Wright Tremaine, habitually
requests the forms and provides them to
business clients. One of his clients is Pri-
ority Oregon, a political action commit-
tee funding negative ads against Brown,
said John DiLorenzo, Chaimov’s attorney.
Chaimov said he has routinely obtained the
forms in past years.
Chaimov sought the internal records last
July, but the state Department of Adminis-
trative Services turned him down, saying
disclosure would breach attorney-client
privilege.
Sarah Weston, attorney for the state,
argued on Wednesday that the agency
views attorneys in the Legislative Coun-
sel’s office as their attorneys when it comes
to drafting legislation. That would mean
communications sent to those attorneys
were protected by client privilege.
But DiLorenzo argued that attorneys in
the Legislative Counsel office, by law, can
only provide legal advice to legislators.
The judge agreed.
“I cannot find that the Department
of Administrative Services could have
expected to form an attorney-client rela-
tionship,” Broyles said. “I find the state has
failed to meet its burden to establish either
that there is a public records exemption
that exists or that there is existence of an
attorney-client relationship.”
Full
NATIONAL EXTREMES
-10s
the state.
Oregon’s exclusion law
banned blacks from settling
in the state, and until 1943
the state prohibited Asian
Americans from owning
real estate, according to the
Fair Housing Council. Dis-
crimination against people
of color manifested in other
ways, including through
exclusionary zoning and
the practice of “redlining,”
or denying loans to people
who lived in lower-income
neighborhoods.
That history has com-
pounded the significant dis-
advantages for people of
color, who were largely
unable to build wealth
through property ownership
over the course of genera-
tions in the way that many
white people could, some
task force members said.
“I would strongly cau-
tion too much focus on the
consumer education piece
and focus on the systemic
pieces of how we got here,”
said Se-Ah-Dom Edmo, a
member of the task force
and the sovereignty pro-
gram director at the West-
ern States Center, a Portland
group that organizes nation-
ally for progressive causes.
The group will continue
its discussion of mortgage
loans and barriers at its next
meeting Nov. 28.
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Agents investigated for ‘lack
of candor’ in standoff case
Oregon governor bans
offshore drilling
PORTLAND (AP) — A new court fil-
ing says FBI agent W. Joseph Astarita and
several colleagues on the bureau’s elite
Hostage Rescue Team are under inves-
tigation for alleged “lack of candor” in
their statements after the shooting of ref-
uge occupation leader Robert “LaVoy”
Finicum.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reports
the agents are the subject of an ongoing
administrative investigation and review
by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office
of the Inspector General.
Astarita was among FBI agents and
state police trying to arrest leaders of the
armed takeover of the Malheur National
Wildlife Refuge as they drove to a com-
munity meeting in January 2016.
While Justice Department officials
have said the agents would be investi-
gated for alleged misconduct, the legal
brief that prosecutors wrote mentions
for the first time that the inquiry regards
alleged “lack of candor.”
SALEM (AP) — Oregon Gov. Kate
Brown has issued an executive order block-
ing offshore oil drilling.
Thursday’s order directs state agencies to
protect Oregon’s coastal economy by pre-
venting activities associated with offshore
oil and gas drilling. It comes as the Trump
administration seeks to expand offshore drill-
ing and scrapped an Obama-era policy to
protect oceans and the Great Lakes, replacing
it with one emphasizing economic growth.
Brown, a Democrat, sought an exemption
for Oregon from the administration but has
not received one. Florida’s Republican gov-
ernor did receive an exemption.
Brown said her executive order will make
it clear to oil and gas speculators that Oregon
is not for sale. States control 3 miles of ocean
closest to shore.
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