1. CAT’s members and volunteers have counseled more than 24,000 callers to our Renters’ Rights Hotline, providing Oregon tenants with the information they need to stand up for their rights.

2. In 2007 CAT and our partners in Affordable Housing NOW! (AHN!) won a 30% set-aside of urban renewal funds for affordable housing.  In the next 5 years, this will result in over 121 million in spending for affordable housing, an increase of more than $10 million a year over historic spending in urban renewal areas on affordable housing. 

3. In 2007 CAT won commitment from the City of Portland to create a Quality Rental Housing Work Group to address “the issue of environmental health and substandard housing conditions that threaten the health and safety of low-income tenants and develop corresponding policy and program recommendations.”

4. In 2006 CAT won an expedited system for referring landlords in Portland with outstanding code violations to code hearings.  Before this victory, units with outstanding code violations would go two years before a decision to take the landlord to a code hearing was made.  Now, any unit with fire/life/safety violations is referred to code hearing after 30 days.

5. In 2005, CAT won expansion of Portland’s code enforcement relocation services to include tenant families getting sick as a result of mold or lead in their housing.

6. In 2005, CAT won stronger protections for tenants from discrimination and retaliation under Oregon’s state landlord/tenant act. Landlords are now required to tell us in writing why they turn us down for housing. This makes it more difficult for landlords to refuse to rent to us for discriminatory reasons or because we successfully challenged evictions in the past.

7. In 2002, CAT, together with two partner organizations, launched the Affordable Housing NOW! Campaign (AHN!) (link to AHN page on CAT website).  Over 40 organizations and hundreds of individuals have signed onto AHN!’s Declaration of Support, and to date, AHN! has won more than $19 million for affordable housing programs from the City of Portland’s general fund.

8. In 2001, CAT won passage of an affordable housing “no net loss” policy for the neighborhoods of Portland’s Central City (include link to research section).

9. In spring of 2000, CAT coordinated a campaign to win $4.5 million from Portland’s general fund for affordable housing for extremely low-income households including $500,000 for Portland’s first-ever ongoing budget line-item for affordable housing.

10. In 1999, tenants in Oregon were organized and actively involved in a state legislative session for the first time - negotiating changes to the landlord-tenant law - winning improvements for renters.  We held back initiatives to gut the Portland Preservation Ordinance and to exempt some landlords from fair housing laws that protect tenants from discrimination.

11. In September 1998, CAT, leading a coalition of 5 organizations, won the nationally groundbreaking Portland Affordable Housing Preservation Ordinance.  This ordinance is a tool with which to save the affordable homes of nearly 5,000 low-income families.