Oregon housing chief amended ethics filings after husband's employer surfaced

Husband’s firm advised on Oregon housing projects receiving state funds

Oregon’s housing finance chief Andrea Bell filed amended ethics disclosures on Sept. 23 — the same day ProPublica asked why she had not named her husband’s employer on prior filings — formally identifying the consulting firm Oregon law requires to be disclosed. Bell leads Oregon Housing and Community Services, which has distributed more than $1.4 billion in state funding for rent-restricted apartments over the past five years, alongside federal tax credits the agency allocates. Her husband, Joshua Crites, joined JH Brawner in 2023 as a director of strategic initiatives after jobs with local housing authorities in Oregon, Washington and Ohio; he and Bell own a home together in the Portland suburbs, records show. The firm lists offices in Oregon, Washington and Arizona and says it has played a role in creating 20,000 low-income housing units that cost $3 billion to develop. It advises local housing authorities on subsidized projects that draw heavily on money allocated by Bell’s agency; the firm gets paid by the housing authorities rather than the state.

Oregon law requires officials in Bell’s position to report their household income sources on annual ethics disclosures, including naming spouses’ income sources when they could present a conflict of interest. The statute also requires any government official with a potential conflict to notify the appointing authority in writing. Bell did neither until a ProPublica reporter inquired.

The closest Bell came to a disclosure was a 2025 entry that read, with a misspelling, “Spouse serves in an advisory role for a developmen.” The entry did not name a company. Instead, it listed a misspelled street address — with no suite number — for JH Brawner’s office in Issaquah, Washington, a commercial building with multiple tenants. The amended disclosures, filed for the last three years on Sept. 23, explicitly name the consulting firm.

“I take concerns about my statement of economic interests (SEI) seriously and am committed to transparency, accountability, and compliance with state law,” Bell said in a statement. She did not respond when asked whether she had played any role in her agency’s decisions regarding projects JH Brawner worked on. Agency spokesperson LeiLani Barney said housing subsidies are approved first by an internal committee that does not include Bell, then by the Housing Stability Council, on which Bell does not serve. Barney told ProPublica to file a formal records request to learn who serves on the internal committee. Bell does, however, advise the council as it sets policy and makes funding decisions, according to the agency’s website. Neither JH Brawner nor Crites responded to messages seeking comment.

Three former officials familiar with state ethics law told ProPublica that Bell’s lack of disclosure was a problem meriting review to determine whether she influenced government decisions that benefited her husband’s company. Russell Lehman, a retired administrative law judge who served on Washington’s Public Disclosure Commission from 2019 to 2021, said Bell appeared to have violated the law, even after correcting the filings.

“Why did it take a reporter asking you about it to have you file your reports?” Lehman said. “In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need ProPublica for this kind of thing,” he added.

A spokesperson for Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat whose predecessor appointed Bell in 2022, told ProPublica the office had “not been notified of any potential or actual conflict of interest” and called for an Oregon Government Ethics Commission review. “The Governor holds all agency leadership to consistent and high ethical standards and any question on conflict of interest should be referred to the Oregon Government Ethics Commission for thorough review,” the spokesperson said. Bell, in a separate statement, said she had requested an advisory opinion from the commission at the governor’s urging and had updated her disclosures “to provide clarity.”

The underlying conflict runs through how subsidized housing gets built in Oregon. JH Brawner’s responsibilities include negotiating acquisitions, structuring deals, ensuring project appraisals are completed and collaborating with the agency Bell leads. According to the firm’s website, JH Brawner worked as a development and financial consultant on Park Place, a 200-unit project in Clackamas County being built by the local housing authority with $36 million in state funding. The firm also consults on Aloha 209th, a Washington County project awaiting a $17.5 million state subsidy.

A Clackamas County spokesperson said the housing authority “did not advocate or discuss the Park Place project or application with Andrea Bell,” and that the county had hired JH Brawner as a consultant before Crites joined the firm. JH Brawner was involved in two other state-backed Washington County projects that were deep into the financing process before Crites was hired, with both continuing as recently as last year, according to the company’s website.

In 2024, Bell’s agency adopted a new policy that effectively reduced its discretion over which projects received funding, shifting from a competitive bidding model to one that allocates money to eligible projects in the order applications were received. Even so, at least one developer has asked the agency to exercise what discretion remains. Molly Rogers, executive director of Washington County’s housing authority, said in a June public meeting that she had contacted Bell about the Aloha 209th project and the county’s desire to receive the state money sooner than its 2028 timeline. “She’s open to having a discussion, which is great,” Rogers said. Rogers did not respond when asked, via a spokesperson, to comment about her public remarks, and Bell did not respond when asked to comment on Rogers’ account.

Pat Hearn, who served as the Oregon ethics commission’s director for nearly two decades, said he advised state leaders “to stay as far away from the line as possible, not to get as close as they can without crossing it.” In Bell’s case, Hearn said, “It’s just too close, especially since we know that the agency has approved funding for these projects that the husband’s company has advised on.”

Bell’s situation is the second conflict-of-interest issue Oregon housing officials have faced in the past year. In December, a state investigation found that a Housing Stability Council appointee had violated state conflict-of-interest law by voting to award money to projects designed by the architecture firm where she worked. The appointee, who later resigned, told an investigator she believed she had followed high ethical standards and had recused herself from voting on the projects she worked on. The commission gave her a warning letter. A spokesperson for the housing agency told The Oregonian/OregonLive at the time that council members had received feedback on being “clearer and more consistent” when declaring conflicts. Four months later, Bell filed her annual ethics statement listing her own income as the household’s only income.