Nonprofit that combats housing discrimination will leave some Oregon cities after losing federal grants

An Oregon nonprofit that investigates and litigates allegations of housing discrimination says it will halt its work in many cities, and may lay off staff, after the Trump administration cut off nearly $1 million in grants over three years.

John Miller, executive director of the Fair Housing Council of Oregon, said his organization can no longer serve many larger cities without the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development dollars. State money pays for the work in rural communities, he said.

The housing council is also contemplating laying off up to six of its 19 staff members, Miller said.

The HUD Private Enforcement Initiative grant, of $425,000 a year for three years, allows the housing council to fight housing discrimination in Albany, Ashland, Bend, Corvallis, Grants Pass, Gresham, Medford, Redmond, Springfield, Clackamas County and Marion County.

“There’s going to be no check on the property managers and the landlords,” Miller said. “Basically, discrimination can go unchecked in these areas.”

The group is midway through the first year of the three-year round of grant funding, so it stands to lose more than $956,000 from the federal revocation.

Meantime, in Multnomah County, the council is unlikely to continue receiving grant funding because of the

county’s budget constraints

, Miller said. But the council does get funding from Portland’s city government, so it will operate within city limits, he said. Washington County, Beaverton and Hillsboro also contract directly with the housing council.

The housing council investigates complaints including when landlords fail to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities, or decline to accept Housing Choice Vouchers, commonly referred to as Section 8 vouchers, for rent payments as required under state law.

In many cases, if investigators find a problem, they notify the property manager in the hopes they’ll comply without further action. But cases sometimes rise to the level of litigation.

The housing council received a letter March 20 from HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, saying the council had fallen out of compliance with grant requirements and failed “to properly manage and/or use” the money.

Specifically, the HUD letter cited “challenges maintaining staffing capacity and technical expertise to administer testing activities and other obligations under the grant” as its reason to ax the funding. “Testing” is a term for fair housing investigations.

Miller disputed the agency’s characterization, saying that even though the organization performed poorly for six months during the pandemic because of a rocky transition to remote work, that was long ago and shouldn’t affect this grant.

While one person has left since Miller started leading the group in late 2023, he said the team has consistently met each of the grant’s requirements.

“We had had no significant turnover, and the expertise on staff was definitely at the level required to meet the requirements for the grant,” he said.

The council filed an appeal of its grant cancellation to HUD. But Miller said the agency has been largely unresponsive except at the start of May, when it informed his organization that it hadn’t decided on the matter.

“We’re assuming we’re not going to get it,” Miller said.

HUD acknowledged receipt of The Oregonian/OregonLive’s request for comment last week but did not answer the newsroom’s questions.

The Oregon appeal is separate from a lawsuit filed

by fair housing organizations from across the U.S.

that were also poised to lose their federal funding to enforce the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

A federal judge in March had blocked those cuts only to reverse its temporary restraining order in April following a Supreme Court decision. The plaintiffs, a collection of fair housing councils spanning Ohio to Texas to Massachusetts, are appealing in the First Circuit Court of Appeals, court records show.

The Oregon fair housing group entreated politicians at all levels of government to intervene or help cover the gap, but to little effect.

State lawmakers are facing a tough budget season themselves, Miller said. A

disappointing May revenue forecast

will sideline many existing legislative priorities.

Among those the council contacted was Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, who decried the grant cancellation in a statement but did not indicate whether he’d take action on the council’s behalf.

“It is both morally wrong and patently illegal to cancel congressionally approved spending on this grant for the Fair Housing Council of Oregon,” Wyden said.

—


Jonathan Bach


covers housing and real estate. Reach him by email at


jbach@oregonian.com


or by phone at 503-221-4303.

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