These organizations are not the same door.

If someone is in danger tonight: 911. If it is a mental-health crisis: 988. If it is domestic violence: the National Domestic Violence Hotline at thehotline.org, 1-800-799-7233. Those three are national, ungated, and not this site.

If you need rent help, shelter, food, or utilities: 211, or 211.org. In Oregon and southwest Washington the operator is 211info.org — a different site from 211.org, serving that region. Dialing 211 still works.

If the paper names a court, a case number, or an appearance date: LawHelp.org the same day. In Los Angeles, Stay Housed LA is an additional local door for eviction defense. In Oregon, Oregon Law Help and the Eviction Defense Project (through oregonrentersrights.org) are local doors. A tenants union is not a lawyer.

If the harm is discrimination — they will not rent to you, they are treating you differently because of who you are: HUD at hud.gov/reporthousingdiscrimination, and a local fair-housing group if you have one. Housing Rights Center serves Los Angeles. The Fair Housing Council of Oregon serves Oregon.

If the unit is not livable: the city inspector and 311, plus a written request to the landlord. LAHD in Los Angeles. Portland Permitting & Development / Rental Services in Portland. An inspector’s dated notice is a different kind of paper than a text.

oregonrentersrights.org is a self-help hub: handbooks, sample letters, a rent-increase checker, and a pointer to the Eviction Defense Project. It is not the statute, and it is not a union.

oregoncat.org is the Community Alliance of Tenants — a tenants union. Know-your-rights materials, organizing, and a renter hotline they publish on their site. They are advocacy. They are not the court.

211info.org is the regional 211 for Oregon and southwest Washington — rent help, shelter, food, utilities. Legal aid is still Oregon Law Help / LawHelp.org when a court is named.

ORS Chapter 90 is the statute. This classroom names it and does not reprint a day-count out of it. Portland adds a local layer administered by Rental Services. Use the Portland desk on this site for the city offices; use CAT and oregonrentersrights.org for the local handbooks they actually maintain.

Stay Housed LA (stayhousedla.org) is a City-backed eviction-defense network: workshops, clinics, and lawyers for eligible tenants facing eviction. It is the local door when a notice or an unlawful detainer arrives. It is not LAHD, and it is not HUD.

LAHD — the Los Angeles Housing Department (housing.lacity.gov) — administers the Rent Stabilization Ordinance, just-cause rules, and code complaints. Coverage is an address question they will answer. They publish a complaint path on their renter-protection page. Confirm what is in force there; emergency-period language goes stale, and this desk will not reprint it.

Housing Rights Center (housingrightscenter.org) is a fair-housing organization: discrimination intake, counseling, and clinics across Los Angeles County. They are not eviction defense. If the harm is “they will not rent to me because of who I am,” that is their door. If the harm is “they filed in court,” that is Stay Housed or legal aid.

Los Angeles County Superior Court is still the possession forum. None of those three organizations is the court.

HUD’s Fair Housing Act overview is the official federal explainer. We cite it. We do not try to outrank hud.gov for the name of the statute. What we add is the renter’s map: when HUD is the right door, when it is not, and which local group takes the same facts.

A HUD complaint does not replace an answer in eviction court. File both if both apply.