Jean Hendron kissed Ricky Bayse's forehead Nov. 14 and said goodbye. Bayse died later that evening.
"Steam came out of one of his wounds," Hendron remembered from their final moments together. "His entire backside was so infected. He was in agony."
Bayse, 38, spent most of his last years in pain. He rarely moved from his tent at Salem's Wallace Marine Park. His lower body had been paralyzed in an accident while he was working on a vehicle in 2019.
He wanted to testify before the Oregon Legislature last year on behalf of himself and other medically vulnerable people living without basic shelter. He never got the chance. His injuries were too painful, said Hendron, his friend and frequent caretaker.
This year, Hendron vowed, Bayse is going to testify — one way or another. "I'm bringing the worst photos of Ricky's wounds to the Legislature," she told Street Roots.
Oregon lawmakers met for their regular session last year. They reconvene Monday, Feb. 5, for the 35-day short session held during even-numbered years. A packed agenda includes addressing housing, homelessness, substance abuse issues and the upcoming surplus tax kicker.
Gov. Tina Kotek has drafted a bill (Senate Bill 1537) calling for $500 million to create more housing.
Another bill, Legislative Concept 158, recommends $40 million for eviction prevention and $65 million to get people off the streets and into shelter.
LC 158 was discussed in the Senate Housing and Development Committee this month in the interim between legislative sessions. It will be introduced in the short session as one of the bills from the housing and development committee.
Connor Radnovich, the communications director for Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, said it's not a specific funding request per se. "The bill will go through a public process during session to determine how much money will be allocated to those various areas," Radnovich said.
"I'm a little worried about that one," said Jimmy Jones, executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency. His agency helped flag the $65 million needed to keep shelters operating.
"I'm a little skeptical about the numbers because the gaps we had last year might be a little different from the gaps we have in 2024-2025," Jones said. "The gap could be bigger than $65 million."
Although the results of last year's legislative session may not always be seen by individuals at street level, Jones said the money approved to help shelter people was effective.
"We've seen tremendous results," he said. "We've been able to shelter people hand over fist over the last six months. The numbers are still working against us because of the sheer need out there, but this is the most progress I've seen in the past 10 years. I'm more optimistic than I've been in a long time."
Money for eviction prevention enabled his agency to help 2,050 people in 754 households, Jones said.
He wishes it could be more, he said, especially with the state expected to return $5.6 billion to taxpayers through the "kicker." When personal income taxes and other noncorporate revenue come in at least 2% higher than economists predict when legislators build a two-year budget, the excess is kicked back to taxpayers.
Jones said he understands the reality of the situation but would like to see that money kicked toward people who really need it. "We could do a lot of good with a portion of that money in terms of social services," he said.
Despite the successes of last year's session, it was still full of disappointments for people experiencing homelessness and housing insecurities as well as their allies.
The bill Bayse wanted to address last year died in the Senate Committee on Health Care. It would have required hospitals to seek provisions for patients without shelter before discharging them.
Hospital administrators rallied against the bill, convincing committee members it imposed a costly and onerous burden on already strained hospital resources.
Lawmakers ended their regular session June 25 after approving more than $200 million in response to Gov. Tina Kotek declaring homelessness an emergency. However, none of that money found its way to Bayse or anyone else living in the park 2.4 miles from the Capitol, Hendron said.
“This is the price of homelessness," she said. "We wouldn't even treat a dog this badly. I see people all over the streets since the warming shelters have closed. It brings me to tears."
Adam Ranch lives in a tent on Marsh Lane in McMinnville next to the sign for McMinnville Water and Light — two basic utilities he and more than a dozen other people living along the street haven't had in years.
Ranch, who’s been living on the streets for the last five years, told Street Roots he would like to see at least a dime or two of that state money, but nothing has changed for people literally living on the edge of the community.
"None of that money has made its way down here," he said. "Everyone talks about helping the homeless, but nothing ever changes."
Some state money to alleviate homelessness might have been directed to Ranch and other McMinnville residents, but county officials rejected it.
Kotek left Yamhill County and several other rural Oregon counties off her original executive orders allocating emergency money to address homelessness. That ticked off Yamhill County commissioners Mary Starrett and Lindsay Berschauer.
They said in March they were angry that they now had to apply for state funds and worried that Kotek would wield her executive power over counties. The conservative commissioners were already upset with gubernatorial efforts to control the spread of COVID through mask mandates and other measures.
As a result, the county punted some $1 million in state money to address homelessness.
"I'm not fully up on all the legislation that's going on," Ranch said. He's too busy trying to survive one day to the next, he added, and keeping ahead of local police who force people off the street every three days. "They've tightened down on getting everyone off the street,” he said. "It only lasts a day or two. Then we move back from wherever we could find a place to be. We go wherever. Someplace. Any place."
State Rep. Farrah Chaichi, D-Beaverton, began her freshman session last year intent on passing legislation that acknowledges people's right to remain undisturbed on public property.
Her Oregon Right to Rest Act (House Bill 3501) died in committee — for the fourth legislative session in a row. Chaichi said she doesn't expect a round five.
"I want to see the Right to Rest enacted, but I don't know if there's the political will in the building," she told Street Roots. "We couldn't even have a discussion about it. I know that people outside the building also want to see it. We had people who supported it. We're going to need the people to counter the money that people from Portland threw at the bill."
Chaichi said she would at least like to see legislation to allow local jurisdictions to implement rent control. "It doesn't cost the state any money, and it's local control," she said. "I think people across the aisle really like local control, so that should be doable, but they have a problem with rent control. So I don't know."
Another casualty last year was Senate Bill 611, which sought to cap annual rent increases. While it passed, landlords successfully lobbied for a higher cap.
State Sen. Wlnsvey Campos, D-Aloha, introduced the bill a year ago with an annual rent cap of no more than 8% — or 3% plus inflation, whichever was lower.
When the bill emerged from the Senate Rules Committee in May, the annual cap was 10% — or 7% plus inflation. And the cap doesn't apply at all to buildings more than 15 years old.
Chaichi said she doesn't see lawmakers revisiting the bill in their short session. "If we couldn't do it in a long session, I don't know what happens with that, but we definitely need it — especially in my district," she said. "Some of those monumental rent increases were in buildings that were outside of that 15-year mark."
Still, she said lawmakers are unlikely to revisit last year's bills in general.
"I know the short session is going be less ambitious stuff," Chaichi said. "The stuff that got left behind on the table during the long session I don't expect to come back in the short session, at least not in some of the full ways that it was before."
Eviction prevention still remains one of her biggest priorities, she added.
"We really need to address that because you're never going to fix our homeless crisis if we can't keep people housed," she said. "We're just going to keep creating new problems. We need to stop the churn."
Chaichi is one, if not the only, self-proclaimed socialist at the Capitol.
"I think a lot of people thought I would be less radical once I got there because I'm a socialist in office, and no one wants to see socialism enacted in the Legislature, but I'm not going to back down from that," she said.
Salem needs a socialist perspective, she added, given attitudes she sees toward poverty and homelessness even in many of her fellow Democrats.
"There's this acceptance that homelessness is a punishment for not making the right choices," she said. "We have been brought up in this society that treats housing like a luxury and something that you invest in and make money off of instead of a basic human right. We've been brainwashed to believe this.
"You really have to work to get over that, or see someone in your life experience homelessness, to have that empathy," she added. "It shouldn't be like that."
From his perspective, Jones said attitudes toward homelessness are improving. The state used to spend $25 million per biennium to confront the issue. "That's only a part of a drop in the bucket now," he said.
He agreed with Chaichi that issues such as revisiting Senate Bill 611 are just not going to be revisited this year. Legislators will likely respond to requests from Kotek and take care of some housekeeping matters, he said. "The short sessions are very short. They've left some things unfinished on the table."
A lot of people adjourn with unfinished business, Hendron said, but people like Bayse don't get additional sessions and don't have time to wait for those who do.
There was something almost metaphorical about her friend in his final moments, she said. "He was staring straight ahead, as though he was looking for something."
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