Welcome To [The New] Oregon
A Single Mother Of Three Special Needs Children Forced To Leave Her Northwest Oasis
Welcome to Oregon
It’s so weird packing up the memories of coming to this place. This was where we broke free. This is where we found ourselves, both our family as we’ve defined it, and individually. This is where we attempted new, big things we’d always dreamed of but had been shamed away from trying for so many, many years. This is where we lost six of our cats, one small dog, and over a dozen birds, until we former city dwellers realized coyotes and bobcats were part of the local food chain. We couldn’t keep them safe. Each and every creature lost was like losing beloved family. This is where we puzzled out how to milk goats, assisted in delivering kids, and learned more than a little veterinary medicine.
This is where we realized church didn’t mean what we’d thought it did; experiencing firsthand what happens when a woman quits submitting and leaves her abusive husband. This is where we lived in breathtaking natural beauty and deliciously peaceful quiet, velvet dark nights. This is where I came with children and am leaving with adults. This is where Maia lived; she won’t be coming with us. This is love and joy, and moments of ecstasy. This is also death, loss, sickness, being forced to live inauthentically. And so we prepare to leave.
This was the splendor in which we sheltered following the divorce I never wanted, but was deeply, intensely thankful for when it finally happened. Surrounded by lush, nearly overgrown rhododendrons (my favorite in life), lilacs (my second favorite), tulip trees, dogwoods, more than I was ever able to identify. We thought we’d landed in paradise, in the middle of forty acres, at the end of a 3/4 mile long, twisty gravel driveway. We learned to breathe again here, free from two decades of manipulation, gaslighting, emotional abuse. The toxicity we each had soaked up over the years began to melt away here in the peaceful countryside, with herds of deer, rabbits everywhere, large families of quail dashing across the driveway, bright, amusingly vicious hummingbirds fighting all comers in their territories, owls hooting at night, and bats dashing after insects in the dark.
This is where we learned we are enough. This is where, after having internalized abuse for so long, it finally caught up with a few of us, as chronic, incurable illnesses set in. This is where we had to let go of a new set of dreams when our physical limitations stole our ability to keep our beloved animals, goats, chickens, ducks, geese, cared for and safe. It was a gut wrenching loss. But there was still solace in the spirit of this place, in the beauty of nature, the quiet, the deep peace of lying in a hammock with no distractions or neighbors watching, the gentle creak of the porch swing lulling us into meditative tranquility.
This is one of the last remaining unspoiled parcels of land in Damascus — Happy Valley as of June 1. And now this place is suddenly sold to a faceless development group, with no warning and a 60-day notice to vacate in place of the expected six month lease I’d just signed.
And so we prepare to leave. We prepare as best we can to lose our safe place, the place where our babies are buried, the place where we have a lifetime of memories crowded into the garage with no place to take them. We prepare to be forgotten as they pave it over, as they tame it and create an HOA to make sure everyone’s micro-lawns are cut uniformly.
Welcome to Oregon
Ed. Note: Angela Carhart joins CDR as our Copy Editor, a role she has filled for months now. Angi’s attention to detail, extreme grammar skills, and quick turnaround for submitted pieces will continue to make a much-needed addition to our staff. Welcome and thank you, Angi!
Angi’s first written contribution scours the wrecking emotions of a forced move, the new norm for renters in Oregon.
The Carharts; Angi and her three basically grown children (each of whom is special needs) had lived on a beautiful 20 acre spread in Damascus, Oregon, until very recently. Her landlord, owner of the land, fell into the lucrative eddy like have so many landholders in Oregon: he sold to developers who will cut down all trees, destroy all remaining native ecosystems, and, in the words of Joni Mitchell, “pave paradise and put up a parking lot,” one for each of the new parcel of million dollar homes.
For those just moving to the Northwest, this action will provide the top 10% net worth folks a new buying opportunity on freshly-spoiled land, and for the 90% remaining, a new area, and era, in which they will not be welcome.
For native Oregonians and Northwesterners, it will be the latest nail in the coffin of what used to be one of the most beautifully preserved, and adored, nature areas on the entire planet.
What also leaves much to be desired is the method, of the slimy new post-pandemic eviction, perhaps illegal, moratorium-bypass methods. In this case such involves legal wrangling vying to bypass letter of intent statute in order to remove tenants quickly, often using scare tactics, landlord intimidation and threats of the dreaded “eviction” on one’s rental record. The latter could literally leave a renter homeless, labeled officially as “unrentable,” for their next moves forward, for life.
Evictions are never removed from court docket records; they follow tenants in perpetuity, and in most states are a legally allowed reason to deny even a well-employed and financially stable applicant from renting.
In Angi’s case, her landlord took these usual underhanded methods now becoming commonplace in the Cesspool Landlord Club, and which are backing up Oregon’s landlord/tenant dockets, even turning them into virtual bloodbaths of dislocation for financially vulnerable tenants. This landlord added one more: he pressured her into signing a new six-month lease agreement solely because it gave him legal leverage to evict her in 60 days. As a month-to-month tenant, especially with over eight years of unblemished tenancy, the Carharts had more legal leverage than if they signed a new lease under current Oregon statutes. Landlord violated the good faith and trust built over years, and convinced Angi it would be in her best interest to just sign a new lease agreement. He had no intention of providing the longer term stability Angi’s children need for survival. He had her sign the new agreement so he could exercise a clause it contained which allowed him to terminate the lease in shorter time period than Oregon law otherwise requires.
(County Democrat Reader recommends ALL contractual agreements be reviewed by an attorney, before signing, but especially those involving rent, nationwide. There are many free legal services provided, discoverable by a simple web search.)
This action left Angi and her kids, one of who requires 24/7 care, betrayed, nearly homeless, and forced to make a quick move to a less desirable new location than a more thorough search would have produced — and at a higher rate of rent.
Meanwhile, landowner sold well into seven figures and walked away with only his conscience to grapple with. Which, apparently, is not much of a challenge for him.
This case is less isolated than it is illustrative of what is happening all over the more sought after areas of Oregon and the Northwest that are becoming pillaged by the flock of corporate speculators and nouveau riche refugees coming from southern climes more affected by Climate Crisis than are trusty, reliably rainy northern areas. These new atmospheres have become so toxic, the State of Oregon created a new organization to advocate for vulnerable tenants, Eviction Defense Project, in partnership with the Oregon Law Center. All qualified cases are handled, often brilliantly, free of charge to tenants.
Subsequent to this ruthless eviction tidal wave, Oregon rental rates are skyrocketing, particularly in the urban I-5 corridor areas, with no relief in sight. So are property values, with a median average house price of $550,000 in Portland alone, nearly 25% higher than the national rate, and making the average US couple unable to qualify or afford a starter home in Portland. As a result, the rates of homelessness are outnumbering the rates of tenancy and new-builds, especially for affordable housing, leading more and more to destitution and the quagmire of social service offerings — which are spotty, at best.
What preceded was a collection of personal reflections from Angi as she packed up the home she moved into after a contentious divorce, finished raising her kids, and was bullied into leaving.
All pictures by Angi and her family.
