Eviction filings in Oregon are at an all-time high. This January, nearly 3,000 Oregon families faced eviction in court, roughly one-third of whom are Multnomah County residents. That’s double the pre-pandemic average.
But even those high numbers don’t tell the full story. For every formal eviction filed in court, five households experience informal evictions, according to Oregon Law Center data. Informal evictions happen when landlords get tenants to move: via harassment like lockouts, refusal to address dangerous conditions, simply removing people’s belongings, or by threatening formal eviction — regardless of whether that threat is legally actionable.
Leeor Schweitzer, an organizer with Portland Tenants United, said people tend to focus on eviction filings, because they’re easy to track…