Rent assistance delays leave thousands of Oregon renters on brink of eviction
The last few months have been nerve-wracking for Callie Edwards.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the mother of four was laid off from her retail job. She struggled to find housing for a few months, eventually moving into a Tualatin townhome with her four children and driving for Uber to help pay her bills. But she has still not been able to keep up with rent and fell behind on payments over the last three months.
She applied for rent assistance from the state this summer, but her application went unreviewed for months. In recent weeks, she said, her landlord has left written notices threatening to evict her because the rent assistance hasn’t come through.