Housing Stability
Helping families remain housed, getting landlords paid, and creating a more livable community for all.
Fundamental to long-term success
Upstream services that benefit renters, housing providers, and the entire community.
Services are integrated within other programs (e.g., Second Home) to enhance community impacts
Informational video from Clackamas County Resolution Sevices
Evidence based and complimentary to other forms of justice, mediation is a key element to help renters avoid eviction and access resources; get landlords paid; and stretch the state investment in rental assistance funding.
Manufactured and Marina Communites
In partnership with Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS), mediation services are free of charge for all manufactured home community members for disputes with a neighbor and/or the park owner, aw well as large group facilitation with the entire community. Community Resolution Centers implement the mandatory mediation requirements of SB 586.
Informational video from Manufactured and Marina
Communities Resource Center
Foreclosure Avoidance
Created in 2012 during the housing crisis, the Oregon Foreclosure Avoidance Program has helped 4,000+ families retain their homes. The proven program brings together the homeowner, the bank, attorneys and support partners. The process provides home owners a facilitated process to access resources and remain housed; is considered a cost effective process by the banks; and is scalable in the event of the next housing crisis.
Integrated Service
Second Home
Mediation is an adaptable process that can increase the community partner's impacts. Second Home, a program of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon that responds to youth homelessness, parters with Community Resolution Centers to assist home providers and unaccompanied high school students negotiate home-share arrangements that lead to healthier relationships and increased school success.
Case Studies:
Housing Stability
Not Going Back to Homelessness
Voicemail from Renter
“Hello, I want to say a very heartfelt thank you to [my mediator]. I am not very good at wording things like this, but this needs to be said and acknowledged. I have needed help like this before, and I got no help. I lived in a tent, with my little blind dog, for two years. Many times I’ve needed help, many times I’ve asked for help, but 95% of the time, nobody would answer the phone. If you got someone on the phone, they just refer you to someone that doesn’t answer the phone. Then a friend gave me the phone number for a mediator. From the first call, the first time we spoke, she was professional, and very informed. She helped me more than anyone else ever has. The words “thank you” just don’t cut it here. You don’t know what it’s like to be homeless, until you experience it. Many thanks to [my mediator] and all of her coworkers. I wish that there was something I could do for you. “
Going Home After Hospital
A Community Resolution Center was alerted to an eviction filing that was scheduled for court hearing in early December. On the day of the hearing, the tenant failed to appear which typically results in an immediate eviction. Nevertheless, after discussing the matter with a mediator, the housing provider was encouraged to ask the Judge to postpone the execution of the Default Judgment and Eviction until there was an opportunity for mediation efforts. Eviction was postponed until the day after Christmas. A mediator contacted the rent support organization that had helped the tenant previously, and it was learned that the tenant missed the court hearing because she had been hospitalized with a difficult childbirth. She spoke no English and was behind in only a small amount of rent due in part to an oversight by the housing provider. Working closely with an advocate from the rent support organization, and communicating with the housing provider, the mediator helped the parties reach a resolution that kept the tenant and her new baby housed and all past due rent reconciled. Due to the mediator's quick mobilization of community resources, a family had a house to come home to, all right before the holiday season.
