LA PINE — Michael and Shawna Page and their former landlord, Frederick Clark, tell what could be the same story: After years of tension, Clark evicted the Pages and their 19-year-old son, Michael Brandon Page. But they tell the story from very different perspectives.

The Pages contend Clark discriminated against them because they are disabled, first when they asked for repairs in 2013, and again in 2015 when they asked for what they allege were reasonable modifications to the property . Clark, meanwhile, points to a foot-high stack of correspondence with the Pages, saying they’re the most difficult tenants he’s had in his short career as a landlord.

Four years have passed since the Pages moved into the single-story, four-bedroom house on Day Road, and it’s been just over a month since they were evicted. Yet the Pages remain tangled with Clark. Although the Bureau of Labor and Industries found no substantial evidence of discrimination in their case, the couple filed a lawsuit in October alleging Clark failed to allow reasonable modifications to the property under federal Fair Housing laws. They’re at something of an impasse in legal proceedings: Since the Pages, who are representing themselves, don’t have a permanent address, court documents can’t be delivered.

Clark, who owns six properties in La Pine, acknowledges he’s not as familiar with state and federal housing laws as he should be. And regardless of the landlord-tenant relationship, the fact remains the eviction has been difficult for the Pages, who have navigated a complex array of social, medical and legal services to stay afloat.

Michael, 57, is bipolar and prone to angry outbursts. He says he fell off a 30-foot scaffold in 1998, and the accident separated his pelvis from his spine. He was in a wheelchair for the next two years and Shawna, 54, supported the family. In 2004, Shawna started having more health problems: She says a diabetes diagnosis and being the family’s sole breadwinner had taken a toll. Medical records, provided to The Bulletin by the family, show she has a benign meningioma — a tumor in the membranes around the brain and spinal cord — and severe neuropathy, or nerve damage.

Shawna now needs a walker to move about 5 feet at a time, and moves farther only by motorized scooter. To have surgery to remove the tumor, she says, she needs to lose 75 pounds.

Since the 1960s, federal law has protected Americans from housing discrimination, including people with physical and intellectual disabilities. Landlords and tenants also each have rights and responsibilities under Oregon law.

The combination of federal and state law can create a complex maze of regulations and rights that can be difficult to navigate for both parties. The Fair Housing Council of Oregon, a nonprofit in Portland that seeks to uphold fair housing law, says it receives about 3,000 calls a year from landlords and tenants seeking information about fair housing rules.

In search of a home

The Pages’ protracted search for a home in Oregon began before they moved to La Pine in late 2011. They moved to the Portland area from Texas in 2009, and into a trailer behind the Fort Rock Community Church in Fort Rock southeast of Bend in 2010.

It wasn’t long, though, before they needed to find a new place to live. They say they weren’t satisfied by the condition of the trailer and started casting about for options the next summer. By October of 2011, electronic court records show, the church filed eviction proceedings against them . That month, they signed a month-to-month lease for the house on Day Road.

This is where the stories start to diverge: Clark says they loved the house, but the Pages say it was all they could get after five months of searching for a place in Central Oregon.

Over the next four years, Clark and the Pages also differed significantly over what repairs, if any, the home needed. Clark would give them notice to vacate at least five times and file eviction papers twice.

Clark’s lack of familiarity with landlord-tenant law was apparent from the beginning. Copies of the initial lease show a handwritten addendum stating the tenants would rent the home in as-is condition.

Under Oregon law, such a clause isn’t enforceable. Oregon law specifies requirements for a property to be considered habitable, such as adequate heating and weather protection for exterior walls.

“I didn’t know it was illegal if I put it down there,” Clark said in a phone interview Wednesday.

Over the next year or so, the Pages say, problems with the house began to mount: They pointed to the old electrical system, poor weather protection and a partially insulated wood stove.

They sent a letter to Clark in January 2013 with a list of things they wanted inspected or fixed. That request resulted in an eviction attempt that, with legal help, was ultimately dismissed in court.

Clark had told them they had to be out in 30 days. According to a letter to Clark from their attorney, Erika Hente, the Pages were entitled to 60 days’ notice, not just 30, because they had lived in the property for more than one year. And by accepting February rent, Clark had waived his right to terminate the tenancy.

Hente, an attorney for the Legal Aid Services of Oregon office in Bend, declined to comment for this story. The main office of Legal Aid Services of Oregon in Portland did not return a request for comment.

The day that first filing was dismissed, Clark notified them he would file eviction papers again in 60 days, saying their four exotic birds — Nico, Murphy, Nanna and Master Solo — were a violation of the rental agreement. He said in an interview that the Pages had told him they would sell the birds by Christmas 2011.

The Pages say their pets are both a help and a hindrance. They soothe the constant anxiety of their situation — Michael Page said caring for the birds keeps him on “a more even keel” — but can make finding a home more difficult. Fair housing laws prevent landlords from asking tenants to “prove” a disability or if they need a service animal.

After Hente intervened again, the Pages signed a yearlong rental agreement with Clark, who stated in the agreement he intended to sell the property and would give the Pages the first option to buy it. The Pages were to pay the same rent of $750 a month until the house was sold or the end of the one-year term. Clark agreed to pay for any repairs required by law.

To their surprise, they got an offer to extend the lease a year later, in March 2014, and took it. Clark, they contend, still hadn’t made the repairs they wanted to consider the property habitable, though he’d bought them carbon monoxide detectors. In late November of that year, Clark inspected the electrical system, noting in a Nov. 26 letter to the Pages that it was in working order but said they were using more devices than the system could handle.

By early 2015, Shawna couldn’t stand long enough to shower on her own. Getting in the existing shower required “extreme” help, she said. Her social worker said the state could pay for a larger shower. Ultimately, it was never purchased or installed.

Clark questioned the proposed modification. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the shower would stay in the house after the Pages left . In one letter, they said the shower would stay even if they moved ; in a later letter, they said the state wouldn’t pay to have another shower installed elsewhere, so they would take it with them.

Shawna wanted to stay in the Day Road house for stability, and argues Clark asked for an expensive “restoration fee” to replace the existing shower knowing they were on a fixed income. They receive $1,100 in Social Security payments.

He gave them another 60-day notice to vacate in early April, saying he wanted to settle up his assets. A month later, he told them he required the $2,500 restoration fee to ensure a licensed contractor would replace the existing shower when they moved in early June and account for any damage caused by the renovation.

So the Pages filed a civil rights complaint with the state Bureau of Labor and Industries. They alleged the demand for $2,500 was “harassment and constructive denial of a reasonable modification,” according to the agency’s findings, released in August.

BOLI, whose jurisdiction is limited to discrimination claims, found insufficient evidence to support the allegations. Michael bought an inflatable pool and set it up in the side room. Every few days, he would help Shawna in and out so she could bathe and wash her hair.

Clark sent them a letter terminating their rental agreement Aug. 21. “My trust in your honesty is suspect,” he wrote. Two months later, the Pages filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court.

Under the Fair Housing Act, landlords must provide reasonable accommodations and modifications for tenants with disabilities. A reasonable accommodation could mean allowing a tenant to have a service dog in a building that has a “no pet” policy, for example.

But the law has limits, as the qualification “reasonable” would imply. Modifications must not put an “undue financial burden” on the landlord or fundamentally alter the nature of the housing provided, according to a handbook compiled by Disability Rights Oregon, an advocacy organization for people with disabilities.

Mental health considerations

Colleen Thomas, a homeless outreach coordinator at Deschutes County Behavioral Health, says she can advocate for clients with mental health diagnoses in their quests to find and maintain rental housing. But the reception they get when they run interference depends on the landlord.

Professional property managers often have more experience with diverse clientele and can be more receptive to requests for accommodation or modification.

Independent landlords who rent one or just a few single-family properties, can be less accommodating, agrees Rachael Marble, a housing specialist at Behavioral Health.

“Because they don’t want to deal with us,” Marble said. “You know, we have a lot of forms, we have a lot of things that we ask about, they’re scared, (they ask) ‘Why is this person dealing with behavioral health?’ And we can’t tell them.”

Beyond that, mental health is a slippery and changing state with continued social stigma, and landlords may not always understand how a mental health diagnosis can interfere with the ability to manage an apartment or home. For example, a schizophrenic woman may hear voices in her head telling her to dismantle the refrigerator; a bipolar man may have a manic episode that causes him to mouth off to a landlord or a depressive period when he forgets to pay the rent.

For Clark’s part, he says that as a disabled veteran, he didn’t consider the Pages’ disabilities when they moved in.

“I agreed to rent to them so I didn’t have anything against them,” Clark said in an interview Wednesday. “When I wouldn’t give them what they wanted I became the bad ogre. When I eventually asked them to move they came up with this, that and the other.”

Shawna Page said she saw a therapist at Deschutes County Behavioral Health, but wasn’t aware of the housing services it offers.

The eviction

In the final days before their eviction, the Pages were in a state of inertia: Shawna sat in front of the TV, waiting for her social worker to arrive, while Michael chatted.

The birds squawked, poking around in cages lined with cardboard. A family friend put items in boxes for a bit. In the pantry, there were cans of soup and vegetable stock; Shawna’s office remained fully furnished, stacks of paper surrounding a large computer monitor.

Shawna’s social worker stopped by: they went through her options for emergency shelters, talked about her health.

Meanwhile, Michael tried to arrange for a storage unit and pack up their belongings, but the reality that sheriff’s deputies would forcibly remove them just didn’t seem to have sunk in.

They got a moving truck. It got stuck in the foot or so of snow that had just fallen as Shawna sat in the front seat of their blue SUV. Deschutes County Sheriff’s deputies stopped by, letting them know they had to get moving.

On Dec. 2, the deputies came in the middle of the night, and the home was no longer theirs .

The housing landscape in Central Oregon, especially in Bend, is grim. In Deschutes County, the rental market vacancy rate is 7 percent, down from 10.9 percent in 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. And the vacancy rate for apartments is tighter, at approximately 2.6 percent.

Marble, the Deschutes County Behavioral Health housing specialist, says there’s a fundamental disconnect between what we expect from housing — a safe place to share with our loved ones — and what landlords or property managers want.

“Housing is a business,” Marble said.

A host of local coalitions and organizations try to tackle the problem: HousingWorks, NeighborImpact, the Bethlehem Inn and many more. The first Friday morning of every month, a conference room at the Downtown Bend Public Library is packed with people of different disciplines who try to address local housing issues.

For the Pages, this housing landscape means an extended stay in Motel 6, seemingly endless sojourns around Central Oregon looking at homes , applying for the Housing Choice Voucher Program waitlist. On Dec. 9, it meant a trip to an RV dealership in Redmond.

It was raining as they drove up from Bend, thinking maybe they could buy a trailer with the money they’d saved. They toured a model they liked, and hoped they could secure a loan.

After waiting outside the building for awhile, the salesman, wearing a navy windbreaker as stiff as his smile, indicated a sale wouldn’t be made. The dealership couldn’t knowingly sell an RV to people intending to use it as a permanent home.

Shawna, smoke drifting from her cigarette, had a notebook filled with phone numbers of apartment buildings and property management companies in places they might be able to put down roots: in the valley, on the coast. They considered going back to Texas. They looked at a house in Spray, population 160, in Wheeler County.

“We have tried everything,” Shawna wrote in a text message Dec. 10. “Shelter just told us we would have to get rid of our service animals before they would help. Would you give up your family?”

A month later, they say, things seem to be improving : Michael was recently approved to be Shawna’s 24-hour, in-home caregiver, which would supplement their Social Security income by $2,400 a month, most of which goes to paying the motel’s rate of $67 per night . Shawna has a new social worker who says they can get her scooter fixed and make sure the bathroom at the motel meets her needs. They feel something is going to work out — it has to.

“We’re living in the here and now, and that’s what we’ve got to do,” Shawna said Friday. “This will all work out somehow, some way. I’m not sure when, but we’re hoping.”

As for Clark, county property records show he hasn’t yet sold the house on Day Road. The county is looking into a suspected code violation there.

“In my opinion, you’ll probably never have a complete story,” Clark said.

— Reporter: 541-383-0376,

cwithycombe@bendbulletin.com