City staff summarize 2025 legislative session: shelter funding, housing investments and contested surveillance bill

City state‑relations staff and Public Safety Service Area leaders briefed the Community and Public Safety Committee on key outcomes from the 2025 Oregon Legislative Session that affect Portland, highlighting new shelter funding, housing and behavioral health provisions, police academy funding and a contentious surveillance bill that failed in the House.

Evan Mitchell, the city’s state relations manager, said the session produced a new statewide funding framework for shelter and temporary alternative shelter sites and safe‑rest villages; Mitchell said the city expects to work with the state housing agency (OHS) to draw down $26 million for temporary alternative shelter sites in the coming biennium. He also said the legislature allocated about $135 million statewide for short‑ and long‑term rent assistance—a reduction from prior years—and roughly a half‑billion dollars for affordable rental housing and home‑ownership programs.

On behavioral health, Mitchell summarized HB 2005 (the transcript references it as the behavioral health omnibus) as a package that removed an “imminent danger” standard from the civil‑commitment process and added procedural options intended to ease pre‑hearing diversion and other steps. He said the bill included a modest allocation—$5 million—to a grant program for new residential treatment workforce capacity and that the legislature allocated $65 million for new residential treatment facilities statewide.

Mitchell and Director Chase also described outcomes tied to public safety operations: the city advocated to preserve funding for a set of deflection programs established under prior ballot‑measure reforms, and Mitchell said the state funded the full amount requested for a statewide deflection program that will flow to counties. The city supported continued funding for DPSST (the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training) after a multi‑year effort to address an academy backlog; Mitchell said the legislature maintained funding that eliminated the DPSST backlog within the current biennium.

Several committee members asked about CEI‑Hub (community emergency infrastructure) and a fuel‑terminal study that had been proposed as HB 2949; Mitchell said CEI bills moved through committee but were not funded in ways and means, and he described HB 2949 as originally a study that was expanded to include possible insurance or risk‑bond requirements for fuel terminal operators but that the measures did not secure final funding.

Committee members expressed concern about priorities: one councilor noted the legislature’s larger allocation to shelter funding while rent assistance was reduced, warning that fewer rent‑assistance dollars could increase evictions that shelter beds cannot absorb. Councilors also debated a bill on law‑enforcement use of drones: Mitchell said a drone bill passed the Senate but failed in the House; several councilors who spoke said they opposed the measure on civil‑liberties grounds and raised examples of existing local surveillance uses they consider problematic.

On gun violence prevention, staff said the legislature gave local governments new authority to regulate firearms in places where “official meetings take place,” a change that requires a municipal ordinance to take effect. Staff also described progress toward a state gun‑dealer licensing proposal that advanced far into the session but lacked funding to establish the program.

Staff concluded by noting the governor had called a special session for Aug. 29 and that city relations staff would return to council with more detailed briefings and implementation items for ordinances and program rules requiring local action.