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Low-income people and their families in the greater Portland area are getting evicted or losing access to needed treatment instead of getting help from a new Oregon Health Authority program, advocates and others said Wednesday.
The new state housing assistance program is intended to help people be healthy by averting homelessness, among other things. But in its first six months it has become a bureaucratic nightmare for many people as well as the social workers trying to help them, according to a coalition of 30 groups that testified at a public meeting of the state Medicaid Advisory Committee.
When the program launched in November, providers submitted applications “hoping for a solution”, said Solara Salazar, who heads Cielo Treatment Center and West Coast Sober Housing, in testimony on behalf of the coalition. “Instead, we encountered an administrative collapse.”
The problems with the program, which had been heavily touted by health officials, affects an indeterminate number of people — many of whom lost the apartments used by them and their children.
The public outcry comes at a time when the agency, which oversees care to more than 1.4 million low-income people, is dealing with potential federal scrutiny, unexpected costs and sudden cuts in funding. It also is contemplating possibly huge additional cuts, as well as new restrictions on who can get care.
Asked for comment on the problems, an Oregon Health Authority spokesperson provided a statement that stressed the agency’s role is one of “high level” oversight, while working with the regional entities that administer the program, known as coordinated care organizations.
The temporary housing assistance is limited to low-income people “who are experiencing complex health conditions and short-term disruptions in their ability to pay their rent,” they noted, adding that the program is “not intended to be an imminent eviction prevention resource.”
CareOregon, which oversees much of the program's administration in the greater Portland area, issued its own statement. “The challenges shared at the Medicaid Advisory Committee meeting are heartbreaking—and they reflect real gaps in a program that was launched with urgency but without adequate infrastructure to meet the enormous need.” The statement added that stable housing is essential to its mission. “The fact that some members are unable to access the innovative care they deserve is unacceptable.”
An earlier health authority program supporting housing had provided crucial bed funding to treatment providers helping people in the early stages of recovery. Its sudden closure led to widespread systematic denials, Salazar said, and “we were told to wait for a new program.”
But the process for the new program has been unmanageable. Applications that used to run six pages, she said, now take hours to prepare “50 to 90 pages of documentation, sent via fax at significant cost ... only to be denied or ignored without clear justification.”
The state ombuds office, which helps members of the public with problems accessing care under the Oregon Health Plan, received 81 complaints about the housing program in just the first three months of the year. And it has investigated 65 such cases since March 1 — though those complaints likely represent only a portion of the people affected, according to a presentation Wednesday.
In 11 cases, people lost their housing despite having obtained an approval letter for state assistance, according to the office. More than two dozen adults and a dozen children — four of them considered medically fragile — have been affected.
Health authority officials, according to the agency statement, are working to clarify the rules and guidance around the program as well as bringing on more housing providers, workers and additional organizations on board to help people with the enrollment process.
