Oregon Lawmakers Seek to Open Up Affordable Housing Records Following ProPublica’s Reporting by Rob Davis Co-published with Oregon Public Broadcasting and The Oregonian/OregonLive

Oregon Lawmakers Seek to Open Up Affordable Housing Records Following ProPublica’s Reporting Leaders of the state’s House and Senate housing committees said they want to eliminate a law that exempts the detailed financials of subsidized housing projects from public disclosure requirements. by Rob Davis Co-published with Oregon Public Broadcasting and The Oregonian/OregonLive https://www.propublica.org/article/oregon-lawmakers-seek-to-open-housing-records?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=secondary Two Oregon lawmakers want to end an unusual exemption in the state’s records law that has kept the public from learning how hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money is spent on subsidized housing — and the effort has already landed key industry support. Rep. Pam Marsh, chair of Oregon’s House Committee on Housing and Homelessness, told us she plans to introduce legislation next year to eliminate a law that shields key details of state spending on low-income housing. The southern Oregon Democrat said she didn’t realize the documents were being kept secret until reading about it in our story about the carve-out, which was co-published with Oregon Public Broadcasting and The Oregonian/OregonLive. A lobbying group for low-income housing developers, lenders and related businesses said it strongly supports repealing the secrecy provision. Oregon Housing and Community Services, the state agency that persuaded lawmakers to create the records exemption in 1997, cited the law in redacting major sections of developers’ cost reports we requested in May. The agency’s current executive director, Andrea Bell, told us in July that she’s committed to transparency but that the agency is following the law as it stands today. Asked to comment about whether the agency would support efforts to change the law, a spokesperson said by email that state agencies don’t take positions on bills. “OHCS appreciates the opportunity to review the legislation” that’s introduced in 2027, the spokesperson wrote. https://www.propublica.org/article/oregon-lawmakers-seek-to-open-housing-records?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=secondary