OSTA: Empowering Park & Marina Residents
If you are an Oregon Manufactured Home Park or Marina resident who owns their home, but rents the space or slip in which your home is located, then we are here for you.
OSTA is your support network, a trusted source of information about your rights, and your advocate for more secure housing through improved legislation.
Through these efforts and initiatives, we enhance your quality of life.
OSTA is a nonprofit, grassroots organization that seeks direction from members, avoiding a top-down approach, regarding decision-making on critical issues affecting members’ lifestyle choices, quality of life, and rights as residents in manufactured housing and floating home communities.
OSTA works to provide an expanding array of programs, information, and services to its members. It is an organization focused, not only on protecting the rights of homeowners as residents in parks and marinas but an organization that supports all aspects of manufactured and floating home living.
To enable this to happen we rely on members, teams, and colleagues, across the state who support this common vision. This work requires time, investment, and dedication to serve our 80,000+ residents and we rely solely on memberships and donations to achieve our goals.
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https://oregontenants.com/membership-account/membership-levels/
OSTA: Empowering Park & Marina Residents
OSTA Update: Short Session, Strong Voices
The clock is ticking on Oregon’s 35‑day short session, and that compressed timeline can either sideline renters or sharpen our influence. We take you inside a practical game plan for making the most of limited days and limited bills, with a laser focus on enforcing existing rental laws, boosting agency responsiveness, and proving—again—that we’re organized, present, and paying attention.
We break down two timely proposals that illustrate what targeted policy can do: low‑interest energy efficiency loans from investor‑owned utilities that reduce monthly costs for tenants and seniors, and stronger lobby transparency so every voter can see who is backing or fighting each bill. Along the way, we connect these ideas to everyday stakes—heat bills, healthy homes, and trust in the process—so you can speak to lawmakers in plain terms that move votes.
Organization is our force multiplier this month. We’re hosting regional Zoom meetings from Portland to Ashland to surface local priorities while building statewide momentum. Not everyone has a computer, so we lay out simple steps for park-and-rec room watch parties, along with why it’s crucial to document attendance and send names. That proof of turnout earns credibility with committees and staff, and it keeps our issues on the agenda. We also cover clean membership data—why your email and phone number matter for action alerts—and the digital steps that expand our reach: subscribe on YouTube, hit thumbs up, and share this episode so we can unlock live tools and mobilize faster.
If you care about rental code enforcement, transparent lobbying, and practical relief like energy upgrades that cut bills, this conversation is your roadmap for the weeks ahead. Join a regional session, invite a neighbor, and help us keep the pressure smart, local, and sustained. Subscribe, share with one person today, and tell us: what’s your top question for your legislator this month?
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Comments or Questions for the Podcast
Email: bbateman@oregontenants.com
Copyright OSTA2045,2025 Not for rebroadcast w/o express written permission. Please share and download for educational purposes with attribution.
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Well, hi everybody, and welcome to the first OSTA update of 2026. Come on in, we've got some suggestions, some news, and some ideas to kick off the new year. Let's get started. Well, hi everybody. I hope you had a good holiday season at your house. Thank you. We did at ours, and it worked out very well. We're heading on into 2026. Right here while I'm recording, it is the fourth day of January. I haven't had to write it on a check yet, so I'm just waiting to see how long it takes me to put 2025 on something. But uh a welcome, and we got some stuff to talk about. And in this OSTA update, I want to remind everybody this is a short legislative term. Now, what that means, the Oregon short legislative session for 2026 is scheduled to begin on February the 2nd and must adjourn by March 9th. The state constitution limits the session to only 35 calendar days, and each legislator is limited to introducing only two bills. For example, Senator Jeff Golden is introducing a bill that would require investor-owned utilities such as Pacific Power to create programs that issue low interest loans for projects to improve a home's energy efficiency. And for a second bill, Senator Golden is also introducing legislation that would make it easier to see who lobbyists in Salem are representing and the bill they're working to pass or defeat. So that gives you an idea. It's uh got to be picking, you've got to be choosing, and you got to be swinging effectively. You can't swing wildly in this legislative session. Well, heck, you can't do it anytime, but it's even more critical in a short term. And it's critical for us too, because this year we at Osta, and that means you, the renters out there, should be preparing for the next session as well. You see, at the conference, we heard from you, and uh at the conference and in the letters since then, we've had a lot of people talking about supporting enforcement of the existing laws, specifically landlord violations of the state rental code, uh, getting more out of our agencies, hearing about some non-responsive agencies out there, that uh if this is a tight budget year, are we spending our money wisely? There's a lot of things that need to be addressed, a lot of things you and I, as renters, as senior citizens, and as members of the community need to talk about. And we do not want to lose our momentum. Now, this session, it's our chance to prove that we're still here. We have demonstrated last year that we are serious and we don't want to have to do that again. So let's let our legislators know we are still organized, we're still watching, and we're still preparing to fight for the long haul. To that end, we're scheduling a series of Zoom meetings statewide this month from Portland all the way down to Ashland. Each meeting is going to focus on a specific area of the state. We've decided to divide the state at least into thirds. And you know the problems, they are the same, but the people are different. And we want all of them to know who we are, know our faces, and what our concerns are. And we're going to have more information on that program and that series of Zoom meetings in the weeks to come. A few housekeeping points. When you sign up, and I be it's kind of good news, bad news. We're getting a lot of people who are signing up to be members and who are renewing. And thank you. That's great. That's the way to do it. Let's grow this organization. But it's a minor point. When you sign up, include your phone number and email with your check. We cannot enter you in our database without a unique ID. Believe it or not, we discovered there's more than one Mary Smith here in Oregon. Who knew? Yeah, the simplest way is to use a membership form on the website, and I'm going to include that link in the header here of the podcast, and you can print out a membership form to send in with your check. But uh a unique ID is something that's different than anybody else's. For example, your driver's license number or your social security number, those are unique IDs. Do not give us those. Those are things that could be used for something else. But email is different, and phone numbers are all different. And to help our database keep you and the other Mary Smith separate, uh please include the necessary information so we can get you the services and the information that you've requested. On another point, we also need you to share and subscribe to this YouTube station and to this podcast. That allows us to show the broadcasters and the people who provide these services that we are a serious organization and we'll be able to hold live events on YouTube when we get enough people as actual subscribers. So before you go today, I'm going to ask you to please click the subscribe link, give us a thumbs up, and then as your final departing act, share this podcast with a neighbor so we can keep getting the word out. And start thinking about what uh you'd like to say at the upcoming meeting. We had very good luck last year by having folks get together in a park. Not everybody's got a computer, not everybody's got access to uh to Zoom. But you do have access to your rec rooms and maybe your neighbors can have watch parties. We'll have you come over, join the Zoom, and you can watch. And if you'd like, send us a quick uh letter, or we'll have a sign up at the Zoom meeting so that the person hosting can allow you to sign up as a participant, and that goes to document to people. Yeah, we had 35 people up in Canyonville, and they were all watching, and here's who they are, and they're at this park or that park, and it really helps lend credibility to the people who we're speaking to. So 2026 is going to be a year of enforcing our presence so we can work on enforcement of the laws. Let's let people know we're here. We haven't gone away. We're going to continue to work. You've done an excellent job, and we want to keep doing an excellent job for you. So, with that said, I'm going to keep this short because everybody's got lots to follow up through from the holidays. I'm still putting stuff away. So, have a good month. We'll have more in a couple of weeks with what's going on, and we'll have things on the website, of course, and in your newsletters as well. So, until then, be good to each other, be safe, and stay strong. The preceding program was a presentation of Retired Guy Productions.
