Portland renters feel the squeeze after deadly January freeze

Lorenzo Hendrix’s life changed in an instant during January’s winter storm when a large tree fell and sliced open his Northeast Portland rental home, leaving the 29 year old, his partner and their two young children homeless.

Three weeks later, Oregon officials are still tallying the human and economic toll from the devastating snow and ice storm that walloped Portland and other parts of the state. Also unknown is the extent of the storm’s devastation to a wide swath of renters like Hendrix who already teetered at the edge of financial peril amid a statewide shortage of affordable housing.

As of Monday, the Portland Housing Bureau did not know how many tenants were displaced due to storm damage, said Gabriel Mathews, a spokesperson for the bureau.

And the city’s Bureau of Development Services and partner offices were still “in the assessment phase” and collecting information about the storm’s impact, said Ken Ray, a spokesperson for the permitting bureau.

Meanwhile, some landlords were pressuring tenants whose homes were ravaged by the storm — by fallen trees or flooding due to burst pipes — to voluntarily agree to terminate their leases, said Troy Pickard, a Portland lawyer who specializes in tenants’ rights.

“For some tenants, that could be the right answer, but for many tenants, that could put them at a big disadvantage,” he said. “Before a tenant makes a big decision, like voluntarily terminating their own tenancy, they should definitely talk to a lawyer.”

Not every tenant may be dealing with a negative experience, of course.

Gary Fisher, executive director of Multifamily NW, a trade association that represents owners and managers of more than 275,000 rental units in Oregon, said he was aware of hundreds of association members who were working “around the clock” to fix storm damage so tenants could be safe and warm in their homes.

Homeowners’ insurance policies vary, but landlords typically are reimbursed for any loss of rent while repairs are underway at their properties, Fisher said.

So while some landlords may find themselves in a financially secure spot, some of their tenants’ lives have been upended, with fewer resources to cope.

SCRAMBLING

For Hendrix and his family, emergency assistance can’t come soon enough.

He and his partner, 33-year-old Amber Greenhagen, moved to the Hazelwood neighborhood with their 4-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son just before Thanksgiving, with the help of a Section 8 voucher.

They were home on Jan. 13 when winds battered Portland and the tree fell on the couple’s bedroom. “It completely crushed the room,” said Greenhagen.

Hendrix sustained a concussion and doctors placed 10 staples in his scalp. Falling debris also wrecked the couple’s gray Honda sedan.

Their landlord initially put them up in a motel for several days, eventually switching them to a nicer hotel for an additional week. But the reprieve ended Sunday, when the landlord stopped paying for the accommodations, forcing the family to move in with Hendrix’s brother.

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The couple hadn’t been able to salvage many of their belongings from the house because they didn’t have a storage space, and the landlord boarded and locked the three-bedroom ranch home.

“I’m homeless now,” Hendrix said Sunday. “I don’t have anything.”

Hendrix, who works as a security guard, said the family’s landlord initially told them it would take three weeks to rebuild the exterior wall and repair the roof. Then they were told it would take three to six months.

And last week, he said, the landlord tried to get them to sign a lease termination she said would take effect immediately. He pushed back and didn’t sign it. They still owed $479 for their portion of January rent when the storm struck. Home Forward, which issues Section 8 vouchers, had paid the remaining $1,145, according to correspondence the couple shared with The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Linda Sanchez, the family’s landlord, didn’t return several requests for comment from The Oregonian/OregonLive, but she did assert in an email to Home Forward that she was within her rights to eject the family on short notice.

“Due to the house being destroyed by the storm making it unsafe for occupancy there is not a 30 day or 60 day notice,” Sanchez wrote in the email to Home Forward.

In a separate written notice to the couple, Sanchez said they needed to make an appointment to get their belongings out of the property by Thursday.

Until then, she wrote in the notice, she wouldn’t return the couple’s $1,000 deposit. A spokesperson for Home Forward, Martha Calhoon, said the agency would help the family find another place, but it’s unclear how long that might take. Hendrix on Tuesday said he scrambled to find money to pay for a storage unit.

‘THE NEXT STEP’

It’s not clear, though, whether the lease termination issued to the family is legally enforceable with just 24 hours’ notice.

Generally speaking, landlords have an obligation to keep rental units habitable at all times — even after natural disasters, said attorney April Aster, who has expertise on Oregon housing laws and serves as director of student legal services at Portland State University.

They may terminate a lease within 24 hours if a property has been deemed uninhabitable by a governmental agency, Aster said, adding that landlords don’t get to make the determination themselves. Landlords must return the entire security deposit and any prepaid rent under that circumstance, she said.

“How bad the damage is to the building [or] unit really changes what the next step is for tenants,” Aster said.

In some cases, landlords may be obligated to provide substitute housing while repairs are made, Aster said, depending on the extent of the damage. Portland’s rules typically require landlords pay tenants’ relocation costs if they have to leave but they’ve done nothing wrong. Yet those rules don’t apply if a unit is “immediately uninhabitable” by virtue of a natural disaster, the city’s rules say.

A spokesperson for the Bureau of Development Services, the city agency that inspects housing, said Tuesday that the city had issued what it called a “yellow tag” to the Hendrix home, meaning it was subject to restricted access because the city deemed its safety “questionable.” That’s less severe than a “red tag,” which means the house has been deemed “unsafe.”

Pickard, the attorney representing tenants, said he was “doubtful” that a yellow tag would give a landlord the right to use a 24-hour termination the way a red tag more likely would. In Portland, cases require 90 days’ notice if the tenant has done nothing wrong.

If landlords don’t provide short-term housing while renovations are taking place, and tenants must find substitute housing on their own, the landlord is expected to reimburse tenants for those costs, Pickard said. That includes costs for staying at a hotel or renting an Airbnb.

When landlords refuse to help tenants find alternative housing, Pickard said residents should contact an attorney.

“It’s just a question of whether the landlord is going to do it voluntarily or if the tenant is going to have to sue,” he said.

Pickard also has been hearing about landlords pushing tenants to go through their renters insurance to pay for hotels and other short-term stays. Yet those expenses are the landlord’s responsibility, he said.

“You don’t need to go through your rental insurance,” he said. “This is not something that the tenant has to rely on.”

‘HIGH AND DRY’

Some families were already forced to go that route after they said their landlords failed to provide assistance, including Allison Neighbor and her partner, John McLain.

“I wasn’t aware of who was supposed to help us,” said Neighbor. “We are left kind of high and dry.”

The couple and their boys, 7 and 15, fled to an Airbnb this month after a tree crashed through the roof of their two-story rental home at the Gresham border on Jan. 13. The tree crushed the exterior wall of a bathroom, leaving the home exposed to the elements.

Their rental insurance reimbursed the couple for their hotel and Airbnb stay. The couple also had to pay for two storage units for their belongings.

“It’s been a horrific nightmare,” Neighbor said. “It’s been hell trying to navigate this.”

The couple said they had to push their landlord to return their money for the time in January when they couldn’t live in the house. “That was a battle,” Neighbor said.

Their biggest problem, McLain said, was that the landlord didn’t remove the tree that went through the home’s roof for 12 days. Now, much of the house has water damage and will take longer to repair, he said.

“We wouldn’t have to be looking for another place if she had done what she should have done to get the tree out of the house,” McLain said. “There wouldn’t be all this damage. People should be held accountable.”

Cassie Fan of Smile Property Management disputed the couple’s claims and provided a timeline of their landlord’s response.

But the property management’s documents corroborate the delay. The hole in the roof wasn’t covered until Jan. 25, in part due to the slow response of contractors.

Because the damage to the house was caused by a natural disaster, Fan said, the landlord or property management company is not responsible for providing short-term housing for residents.

That’s not true, Pickard said. “That is not consistent with Oregon law at all.”

Fan said the home had not been inspected by a governmental agency since the damage happened. She didn’t answer questions when she was provided with information that short-term housing may be required under state law.

Neighbor, who was scheduled to speak to an attorney next week, on Wednesday said the landlord had encouraged the family to break their lease by saying they wouldn’t be penalized. Fan echoed that message to The Oregonian/OregonLive. “We totally understand and won’t charge any lease breakage fee,” she wrote in an email.

Fan also said the couple denied an offer to use a vacant home. But Neighbor said the home was in Beaverton and would cost $750 more per month – increasing their total rent from $2,450 to $3,200. Fan didn’t answer questions about the rent for the home her company offered as an alternative.

Neighbor said she feels for other tenants like her who now find themselves in financial hardship.

“It’s not only disrupting somebody’s money,” Neighbor said, “these are people’s lives.”

Resources for tenants:

Renters can find resources and recommendations on dealing with property damage at the Bureau of Development Services website.

City officials are also collecting information from property owners and tenants to assess the extent of property damage from the storm. You can share your information online.

The Red Cross provides support and shelter for renters with no other recourse. Call the Red Cross duty officer line at 1-888-680-1455, or visit www.redcross.org.

For other rental services, families can call the Portland Rental Service hotline at 503-823-1303 or email RentalServices@portlandoregon.gov.

— Yesenia Amaro | yamaro@oregonian.com | 503-221-4395 | @YeseniaAmaro

Oregonian journalist Noelle Crombie contributed to this report.

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