The Housing Authority of Portland has justly been commended for its rebuild of the Columbia Villa housing project in North Portland. The new project is called New Columbia. It opened in 2005 and it's a distinct improvement over the old one.
Where the Housing Authority has fallen short, however, is on its understanding of the landlord-tenant laws. Its property manager (an outside company, hired on contract) has been going over the books of the previous property managers and has discovered that some of the tenants paid the wrong amounts in rent during 2007. The managers have been writing the tenants to tell them to come in and pay the extra rent, or to work out a payment plan, or to be sued. The amounts are in the range of $1000 a tenant, and aren't large, unless you're a low-income tenant in a public housing project such as New Columbia, for whom $1000 may be an unattainable sum.
What's wrong with this picture? Two things. First, the arrearage stems from HAP's own mistakes, or those of its former managers. Second, although Oregon law allows plaintiffs six years to sue on most contracts, we have a quirky statute, ORS 12.125, that allows plaintiffs (such as landlords) only one year to bring suit on a residential tenancy or a residential rental agreement. What does that mean for HAP and its managers? HAP and its managers are threatening to sue their tenants on unenforceable debts. It seems to me that HAP shouldn't try to pass the cost of its own mistakes onto the people it's trying to serve. It also may not have occurred to HAP that any tenant whom it sues whose lawyer is wise enough to find ORS 12.125 is going to be able to recover his or her attorney's fees from HAP, meaning that some of HAP's money that should be going to make life better for its tenants is instead going to improve the lot of their tenants' lawyers.
