Multnomah County briefs board on emergency rent assistance: funding gaps, eviction trends and the new Medicaid 1115 benefit

Multnomah County Department of County Human Services told the Board of Commissioners that emergency rent assistance remains a critical homelessness‑prevention tool but that FY25 funding is heavily weighted toward one‑time sources, leaving uncertainty about program continuity.

DCHS Deputy Director Rachel Pearl said the county launched emergency rent assistance in 2020 in response to the pandemic and has since worked to “right size the staffing model” and improve outcomes. She noted evidence that prevention is cost‑effective, citing national research presented in the briefing: “for every dollar invested in rental assistance for families with children, saves $7 in other public spending,” a finding staff attributed to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Pearl and YFS program staff summarized the FY25 funding mix and capacity, saying the county’s eviction‑prevention budget for FY25 is roughly $23.8 million made up of multiple federal, state and local sources (the briefing lists OREDP funding and one‑time allocations, ARPA dollars, county general fund and supportive housing service funds). Staff also reported approximately $16.3 million currently available to distribute through emergency rent assistance and estimated that amount could reach on the order of 35,100 households this year (presentation text and slides varied in exact phrasing).

Becky Strauss, managing attorney of the Oregon Law Center’s Eviction Defense Project, presented eviction‑court data and legal context. Strauss said state protections that took effect after House Bill 2001 in early 2023 slowed court timelines and increased the share of cases that end in dismissal: “we're seeing dismissal rates in Multnomah County in the 60 percent,” she told the board. At the same time, Strauss said roughly 25–30 percent of tenants in nonpayment cases still do not see a dismissal and estimated more than 3,000 households per year in eviction court may have unmet need for rent assistance; she emphasized that additional households self‑evict before reaching court.

Staff described how the county measures need and outcomes. YFS survey results presented to the board reported that 92 percent of households were in the same or more stable housing 12 months after receiving assistance; presenters also said 79 percent of assisted households had arrived with an eviction notice and 86 percent avoided having an eviction on their records after help.

On operations and safeguards, YFS manager Nabil Zagloul summarized intake and approval steps intended to reduce fraud and error: in‑person contact, ID verification, landlord verification (including business registration and tax forms), supervisor review and accounts‑payable checks before payment. Zagloul also described staffing ratios used by programs—one‑time imminent‑risk assistance was presented using a workload measure that the team characterized as roughly 300 client appointments per case manager, while deeper “economic recovery” wraparound services use a roughly 1:30 case‑manager ratio.

Commissioners pressed staff on several program risks and tradeoffs: how to balance funding between legal representation and direct payments, longer‑term retention tracking beyond 12 months, how the Medicaid 1115 waiver (launched Nov. 1) will interact with county programs, and the scale of unmet need upstream of court filings. Staff said Multnomah County will act as a hub to support providers implementing the 1115 waiver, and that 211 is the centralized front door for people to learn about the waiver and other rent‑related benefits.

The briefing closed with staff offering to provide follow‑up details in writing, including deeper breakdowns of administrative costs, historic totals spent since the program’s start, and disaggregated retention and provider comparisons.

What’s next: commissioners requested additional data on fraud measurement and administrative overhead, long‑term retention monitoring and a tutorial on how the Medicaid 1115 benefit will operate and interface with county and community providers.