PORTLAND, Ore. – A 68-year-old disabled veteran who faced eviction from his affordable housing apartment will now be able to stay in his home, thanks to swift action by his neighbors and a Portland city councilor.
A Sudden Eviction Notice
Last Friday, Dan McLean, a retired veteran battling severe health issues and vision impairment, received an eviction notice at The Yards at Union Station, an affordable housing complex in Northwest Portland. The notice gave him just four days to vacate.
McLean says he was blindsided. For years, his rent had been covered in full through the HUD-VASH program, which combines federal rental vouchers with services from the Veterans Affairs Department. At some point last year, however, the subsidy stopped covering the full amount, leaving McLean responsible for $140 per month—a change he says he was never notified about.
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By the time the oversight was discovered, McLean reportedly owed about $1,500 in rent and fees.
“I was blind for two and a half years,” McLean told staff in Councilor Mitch Green’s office during a video call. “My surgeries ain’t done, and they wanna throw me out on the streets.”
Neighbors Mobilize
Several of McLean’s neighbors, who help lead a tenant union at The Yards, immediately rallied to his defense. They contacted Pinehurst Management, the property management company, and reached out to District 4 City Councilor Mitch Green.
Organizer Melody Frye, also a veteran, said the group believed Pinehurst had failed to accommodate McLean’s disability and had not ensured he received critical notices.
A letter the tenant union sent to management alleged that McLean never received a mailbox key for the temporary unit he was placed in after a 2024 flood displaced multiple tenants. As a result, eviction warnings and court summonses sat unread until neighbors intercepted a mail carrier and discovered them.
“Until very recently, Dan has been functionally blind due to cataracts,” the letter read. “The leasing staff knew this but never connected him to a caseworker or took steps to accommodate him.”
City Council Steps In
Councilor Green and a staffer visited McLean over the weekend. By Tuesday, Green sent a letter to Home Forward, the housing authority that owns The Yards, demanding the eviction be stopped.
“I’m writing with urgency to convey my alarm at the news that Home Forward is set to evict Mr. Daniel McLean, a disabled veteran, on Tuesday,” Green wrote. “This is a fiscal and moral failure.”
Green argued it made little sense to evict a veteran over $1,500 in back rent, only for the city to spend much more trying to rehouse him later.
Eviction Dismissed
On Wednesday, McLean received word: his eviction case had been dismissed, and he would be allowed to remain in his apartment. Pinehurst Management agreed to work with him on a repayment plan for the balance owed.
Tenant union members credited Green’s office for pushing the case over the line, but Green praised the neighbors for alerting him in the first place.
Staff in his office noted that without community intervention, McLean likely would have been forced onto the streets.
Broader Housing Concerns
Green framed the case as an example of systemic failures in Portland’s affordable housing system.
“Dan’s story is not an anomaly,” he said in a statement. “We are spending vast sums of public money on an affordable housing system that isn’t really affordable, and then exponentially more to deal with the homelessness that results.”
He argued that preventing evictions should be a higher priority than reacting to homelessness after the fact.
Tenant organizer Frye echoed that concern, saying mismanagement and lack of oversight put vulnerable residents like McLean at risk.
“Nobody is watching what’s going on,” Frye said. “For the most part, we’ve learned to look out for each other.”
Home Forward Responds
Home Forward, which provides housing assistance to more than 18,000 families, said it does work with tenants to arrange repayment plans and prioritize housing stability.
“When we were contacted about this resident’s situation, we confirmed that we followed our steps to prioritize stability,” said Ian Davie, the agency’s chief operating officer. “Regardless, we decided to dismiss the case to make additional efforts to assist.”
Davie said the agency regularly reassesses tenant rent portions based on income and notifies both residents and property managers of changes.
Push for Social Housing
Green, who recently supported a social housing policy in Portland, used McLean’s case to argue for deeper structural reform.
“We need a model that is financed and governed right here in Portland,” Green said. “Social housing—permanently affordable, high-quality housing for all—serves the public good, not private profit.”
For McLean, the fight for housing stability continues, but thanks to his neighbors’ advocacy, he will not be forced into homelessness—at least for now.
