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Oregon officials review wildfire housing recovery: $150M state, $422M federal aid and lessons for future disasters
Summary
Oregon Housing and Community Services told the House Committee on Housing and Homelessness that state and federal aid helped hundreds of households recover after the 2020 wildfires, but gaps in coordination, data and local power-sharing delayed housing for many survivors.
Chair Marsh convened the House Committee on Housing and Homelessness on May 28 to hear a progress report from Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) on recovery from the 2020 wildfires, including lessons for future disasters.
Kayla Bianta, deputy director at OHCS, told the committee the Legislature provided $150,000,000 in state funding after the fires and the state later received $422,000,000 in federal Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG‑DR) funds from HUD. "We did not have a team. We didn't have resources, whether that be staff or funding for emergency response, emergency recovery, long recovery loads," Bianta said, describing how the agency and programs were created in the wake of the 2020 losses.
The state funds supported interim housing and permanent recovery: OHCS reported roughly 450 households received intermediate housing (rental assistance, travel trailers, or comparable temporary arrangements) and about 867 households permanently recovered using the state allocation; state-supported development produced…
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