Oregon has protected renters from eviction in the midst of the COVID-19 economic crisis, but only by shifting and delaying the financial burden. If the state wants to temporarily outlaw evictions, the state, not landlords, should bear the cost.

The economic crisis hit almost overnight. Oregon has seen massive unemployment, with 269,000 people filing new claims in the past few weeks. Many of the newly unemployed are service and gig workers who are more likely to live paycheck to paycheck. They can’t work from home and they can’t pay the bills without income.

It was with all that in mind that Gov. Kate Brown ordered an eviction moratorium for people who had suffered economic hardship from COVID-19. They could skip rent for now without penalty. That way they wouldn’t wind up on the street, making a bad situation worse.

Brown’s simple solution has complex, far-reaching consequences that she and others seem not to have thought through or willfully ignored. She did not make the problem go away; she moved it around and postponed it.

If tenants don’t pay rent, landlords suffer lost income. Tenants’ rights activists, who may believe that landlords only prey on renters, might cheer that result, but anyone interested in the stability and health of the housing market should be worried.

Sure, there are big rental companies that own many apartments and don’t treat their tenants well. If they’ve managed their business successfully, they probably have reserves to survive a few months with reduced cash flow.

But there are many more mom-and-pop landlords who own a couple of rental units or a small apartment building. For them, monthly cash flow is essential for keeping up with bills. They have utilities to pay, maybe a custodian, upkeep costs and perhaps a mortgage. If they come up short on payments and penalties accumulate, foreclosure could be the endpoint. That could have dire effects on home values across the market. It also could leave rental units ripe for gobbling up by the large operators, the ones that tenant activists especially loathe.

Meanwhile, all that financial distress for landlords only postpones the problem for tenants. Tenants signed a contract and are on the hook for the rent payments they miss. When the crisis passes, they will find themselves paying double rent to make up what they missed. Many people living paycheck to paycheck or still not working won’t be able to do so.

Then landlords would be out of the money permanently and still would evict people. They might hire debt collectors to recoup at least some of what they are owed, but it’s hard to collect from someone without resources to pay. Tenants, meanwhile, would wind up with a stain on their credit history – maybe even the very eviction they’re trying to avoid – that makes it all the harder to rent or get a loan in the future.

At that point, Oregon might be tempted to declare rent forgiveness to keep people in their homes, wiping the slate clean for tenants at the expense of landlords. If the idea of upending lease obligations and the rental marketplace like that sounds outlandish, look no farther than Portland for proof that it’s in play. There, the City Council unanimously signed a letter calling for rent and mortgage forgiveness now. Landlords would have to eat it if no one else covers the costs.

In Portland’s grandstanding, however, are the seeds of a solution. Oregon should take on the cost and risk of its policy decisions. The federal Payroll Protection Program, despite its early challenges, provides a good model for how to do so. Issue loans to renters or landlords that the state could later forgive if they are used to cover rent. If that seems too complicated, the state could just pay the rent for tenants and take on the responsibility for collecting the debt later.

There would be challenges, of course, not least that the state is going to run into a huge financial crisis of its own. That’s where smart leadership and deliberative democracy become essential. If the Legislature were in session and supported such a plan, it could raise taxes or cut spending to cover the costs.

In other words, lawmakers could prioritize what is important to Oregonians rather than just stick it to landlords without helping tenants in the long term.