Director's Message
July 24, 2009

To: Employees and Partners of Oregon Housing and Community Services

From: Victor Merced

Re: Director’s Bulletin –

• Maggie LaMont, New Housing Council Chair
• Recording Fee Planning
• Homelessness Trends
  

	The State Housing Council, meeting this morning, named longtime member Maggie LaMont as its chair.
LaMont of La Grande has been a member of the council since July 2003 and replaces Larry Medinger of Ashland as chair. Medinger, who retired from the council last month, will be replaced on the council later in the year.

Clerks and collections. The long-sought-after document recording fee is reality, and implementation has begun.

Oregon Housing and Community Services is planning with county clerks and the Oregon Department of Revenue to ensure a smooth transition to gathering the fee.

It establishes a dedicated source of revenue to help fund affordable housing. Deputy Director Rick Crager is working out details with our partners who collect the money.

Many prefer to call this the Housing Opportunity Bill, and it certainly is that. The legislation’s increased fee on real estate transactions could bring in around $15 million this biennium for affordable multifamily housing, homeownership enhancement, homelessness prevention and partner capacity building.

The bill goes into effect October 1, this year, and funds will begin flowing to OHCS in January 2010.

Please recall, two weeks ago, I reported to you that OHCS is forming a policy group to tap our partners’ best thinking in implementing the Housing Opportunity Bill. This Statewide Policy Advisory Committee will be called upon “to craft strategic measures to deliver on our gains in serving the best interests of Oregonians.”

I am repeating this message because OHCS leadership is determined to enhance its dialogue with partners. The aim is to gather the best policy advice possible relating to revenues from the Housing Opportunity Act in the face of declining dollars on other fronts, the result of the devastated housing market.

We expect the Statewide Policy Advisory Committee to be operational at the beginning of September. Its work is vital to the ongoing success of OHCS and our agency’s support for low-income Oregonians.

The committee will be small enough to give clear advice quickly and large enough to reflect the wisdom of all geographic and demographic regions.

Homelessness rising. Local community leaders, grappling with increasing homelessness, are seeking solutions in concert with Oregon’s Ending Homelessness Advisory Council.

EHAC is committed to working with local cities and towns to find solutions for families turned out of their homes by the greatest financial disaster America has faced since the Great Depression.

Oregon’s numbers are disturbingly high – the highest per capita in the nation. More than one-half of 1 percent of Oregonians were homeless in the 2008 nationwide survey.

Oregon’s own January 2009 count put the number at 17,122. This was 36 percent greater than the year before.

EHAC, chaired by OHCS Deputy Director Crager, met last week with the Human Services Commission of Lane County and various local homeless program providers and advocates. The commission is the local
inter-jurisdictional body implementing the Lane County 10-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness.

The groups came together to explore possible solutions:

• To assist homeless and runaway youth affected by intergenerational poverty, abuse and abandonment, by mental illness and addictions, and by the justice, the child welfare and mental health care systems.
• And to help families in transition due to homelessness, job loss or health issues.

The local advocates and service providers urged EHAC to seek state intervention and policies to break barriers in serving youth and families better. Among those recommendations:

• Require a transitional housing plan for each child leaving systems of care and intervention.
• Extend the Oregon Health Plan to homeless youth through age 21.
• Provide incentives to landlords to house homeless youth and families.
• Provide financial assistance that pays for background and credit checks associated with rental housing, and for move-in costs.
• Assist homeless persons in navigating government systems to secure identification, vital for renting, employment and accessing benefits.
• Promote flexible housing requirements that allow homeless persons to keep their housing if they choose to become full-time students.

The advisory council has been able to incorporate some of these recommendations in the state’s 10-year plan, A Home for Hope, starting its second year of implementation.

EHAC recognizes that solutions must be found not only at the state level but at the local level too. Accomplishments of Lane County’s 10-year plan to end homelessness are fueled by the leadership of the Eugene’s mayor and the county commissioners.

Statewide, the council is seeking the patience, understanding and magnanimity of elected officials in helping respond to the needs of the growing homeless population.

Do your little bit of good where you are. It’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.

Victor Merced, Director
Phone 503.986.2005
Email: victor.merced@hcs.state.or.us
www.ohcs.oregon.gov

–30–