For more information, contact:
Alison McIntosh, Neighborhood Partnerships
(503) 816-2882, amcintosh@neighborhoodpartnerships.org
Salem, Ore.—Today community leaders in Eugene, Medford and Portland held press conferences Wednesday calling for the lawmakers to pass HB 2004 before ending the 2017 legislative session.
"HB 2004 would help protect a broad spectrum of Ashland’s residents who are vulnerable to no-cause evictions and displacement," said Ashland Mayor John Stromberg. "I encourage our legislators to support this bill - which is amenable to both landlords and tenants - and allow it to be brought to a vote on the floor of the Senate.”
HB 2004 will limit no-cause evictions and provide basic fairness and stability to the forty percent of Oregon’s residents who rent their homes. The events today come one day after 41 local county commissioners, mayors, city council members, school board members and others also called for passage of the bill.
“As state and local elected officials, the most urgent issue we continually hear about from constituents -- at town hall meetings, in letters and phone calls, and in everyday conversations -- is that our families need relief in their struggle to keep a safe, stable place to call home,” said the letter the local officials sent to lawmakers.
HB 2004 has passed the Oregon House, and both the Senate Human Services Committee and Senate Rules Committee with a do-pass recommendation. So far, however, Senate President Peter Courtney has not allowed the bill to be voted on. If it does not pass the Senate, the bill will die in the 2017 legislative session.