Renter Stability Education Program
The Renter Stability Education Program (RSEP) gives low-income tenants accurate information about landlord-tenant law and suggestions about how to maintain professional rental practices and respond to specific rental situations.
RSEP assists renters in stabilizing our housing and improving its livability. We work to prevent damaging situations: loss of housing, loss of significant money, damage to credit reports, change in schools, illness and harm from housing conditions, distancing from support network, emotional stress and extreme hardship.
RSEP provides information targeted to empower low-income renters and renters of color to successfully advocate for ourselves.
RSEP has three components:
1. The Renters' Rights Hotline gives tenants detailed information about their rights and practical suggestions to help protect those rights,
2. Workshops in the community to provide an orientation to landlord-tenant law and to give renters information needed to protect our rights, and
3. A series of renter information brochures explaining the law in everyday language and suggesting courses of action that will increase the ability of renters to remain in our current homes.
*All RSEP services are available in both Spanish and English.
Renters' Rights Hotline: Call (503) 288-0130
The hotline is an important tool in outreach to affected communities, in gathering data about Oregon's rental housing weaknesses and strengths and in gathering demographic statistics about renters.
Since 1996, CAT has counseled over 19,000 hotline calls providing tenants with the information needed to advocate for their rights and preserve their housing. In order to work towards our mission of safe, stable and affordable rental homes, tenants need a home base- stable housing is the basis of a strong community.
The Renters Stability Education Program (RSEP) works to provide tenants with the basic information and strategies we need to know what our rights are and how to protect them. With this knowledge, we stand a better chance of maintaining our housing and being able to focus on building more protections for tenants under the law. RSEP is run almost totally by CAT's membership- tenants helping tenants. So we are able to provide something that no other group in Oregon can- concrete information about landlord-tenant law in everyday language, that real renters can understand. We also work with folks one-on-one to come up with a strategy that fits their particular situation. Because many hotline volunteers have been through similar situations, they understand what people who use the hotline are going through.
Because RSEP is so unique and so valuable, we are in high demand! We get so many calls to the Renters' Rights Hotline, and because we're run on volunteer power, that means we always need help from people like you to run the hotline.
So if you have a question for the hotline, please call us, and please be patient- we will return your call. Also, please consider becoming a member or volunteering with RSEP so we can help more people!
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