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 ProPublica that 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 a ProPublica story. She said previous leaders of her committee told her they were also unaware.
“I think this is an issue that will have very broad interest,” Marsh said.
State Sen. Khanh Pham, a Portland Democrat and chair of the Senate Committee on Housing and Development, said she also wants the Legislature to tackle the issue in its next session.
Meanwhile, a lobbying group for low-income housing developers, lenders and related businesses, Housing Oregon, said it strongly supports repealing the secrecy provision; the organization has asked the state to disclose more about projects that it funds in the meantime.
“Oregon’s affordable housing providers share the public’s interest in ensuring that public investments in housing are used effectively, responsibly, and with visibility,” said Kevin Cronin, a spokesperson for the group. “The questions raised in your recent ProPublica article regarding development costs deserve serious attention.”
Cronin said Oregon can increase transparency around development costs “while still protecting genuinely proprietary or competitively sensitive information.”
“More consistent reporting of costs and outcomes will help policymakers, providers, researchers, and the public understand where the system is working and where it needs improvement,” Cronin said.
ProPublica highlighted Oregon’s secrecy around low-income housing in August. Since 2021, our story noted, Oregon has given developers an unprecedented $1.4 billion, and the cost of developing each low-income apartment has nearly doubled, to $540,000. Dozens of projects are lined up for another $850 million in future state funding, and costs are expected to continue rising.
“We are spending, as you said, a lot of money on the development of affordable housing,” Marsh said. “We really need to understand what it is that we’re funding, how much it costs, why it costs that much, and be able to justify the investments that we’re making.”
In other states, researchers and journalists have used the financial records from subsidized housing projects to investigate their spiraling costs and the drivers behind the growing price tag.
Marsh said after reading the ProPublica story that she “pretty much immediately” looked up the provision in Oregon public records law that officials cite for keeping cost details secret. She said financial documents that show where a project’s money is coming from and what it’s going to should be public and easily accessed. She said she would like to see them posted online as part of the public materials that Oregon’s Housing Stability Council receives for each project before awarding subsidies.
Pham, in a written statement, said: “It’s imperative that Oregonians can trust that our state government is investing in affordable housing as cost-effectively as possible. I appreciated ProPublica’s reporting on Oregon’s inadequate public records law that hinders our ability to monitor how affordable housing funds are being spent, and I’m hopeful legislators can address this next year.”
Oregon’s Sunshine Committee, which reviews public records exemptions and recommends ones that could be rolled back, is also examining the exemption for housing financials as a result of ProPublica’s coverage, co-chair Charlie Fisher said.
It’s not clear where opposition to repeal efforts, if any, might arise. Officials in Washington and California, where the details of state spending on subsidized housing are available to the public, have said it hasn’t interfered with low-income housing efforts.
Oregon Housing and Community Services, the state housing agency that persuaded lawmakers to create the records exemption in 1997, cited the law in redacting major sections of developers’ cost reports that ProPublica requested in May.
The agency’s current executive director, Andrea Bell, told ProPublica in July that she is committed to transparency but that the agency is following the law as it stands today.
Asked to comment this week 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.
