Oregon Democrats plan 2027 bill to open affordable housing financial records

Housing Oregon lobbying group backs ending 1997 secrecy provision

The campaign to open Oregon’s affordable-housing books began this month in the Legislature’s housing committees, after ProPublica, Oregon Public Broadcasting and The Oregonian/OregonLive jointly reported in August on how the state has spent billions of dollars on subsidized apartments while shielding key cost documents from public review.

Rep. Pam Marsh, a southern Oregon Democrat who chairs the House Committee on Housing and Homelessness, told ProPublica she plans to introduce legislation in 2027 to eliminate the law that allows state officials to redact the financial details of low-income housing developments. Marsh said she did not realize the documents were being kept secret until reading ProPublica’s story, and that 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.

In the Senate, Khanh Pham, a Portland Democrat and chair of the Senate Committee on Housing and Development, said in a written statement that she also wants the Legislature to address the issue in its next session. “It’s imperative that Oregonians can trust that our state government is investing in affordable housing as cost-effectively as possible,” Pham said. “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.”

Since 2021, Oregon has given developers an unprecedented $1.4 billion in affordable-housing subsidies, and the cost of developing each low-income apartment has nearly doubled to $540,000, according to ProPublica’s August reporting. Dozens of projects are lined up for another $850 million in future state funding, and costs are expected to continue rising. 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.

“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.”

Marsh said she “pretty much immediately” looked up the records-law provision that officials cite for keeping cost details secret after reading the ProPublica story. She said financial documents showing where a project’s money comes from and what it goes to should be public and easily accessed, and proposed posting them online as part of the materials the state’s Housing Stability Council receives before awarding subsidies.

A major industry lobbying group has aligned with the transparency push. Housing Oregon, which represents low-income housing developers, lenders and related businesses, said it strongly supports repealing the secrecy provision and has asked the state to disclose more about the projects 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.

Cronin said Oregon can increase transparency around development costs “while still protecting genuinely proprietary or competitively sensitive information,” and added that “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.”

Oregon’s Sunshine Committee, which reviews public-records exemptions and recommends ones that could be rolled back, is also examining the housing-financials exemption in the wake of ProPublica’s coverage, co-chair Charlie Fisher said.

The state’s experience stands in contrast to that of Washington and California, where comparable financial records on subsidized housing are available to the public. Officials in both states have said the disclosure has not interfered with low-income housing efforts, according to ProPublica.

The state agency that persuaded lawmakers to create the exemption in 1997 — Oregon Housing and Community Services — cited the law earlier this year when redacting major sections of developers’ cost reports that ProPublica requested in May. OHCS’s 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 this week whether the agency would support efforts to change the law, an OHCS spokesperson said state agencies do not take positions on bills. “OHCS appreciates the opportunity to review the legislation” introduced in 2027, the spokesperson wrote by email.

It is not yet clear where opposition to repeal efforts, if any, might arise, according to ProPublica.