PORTLAND — Several community organizations in the Portland area are operating programs to help people whose past crimes are eligible for expungement file the paperwork to make those criminal records disappear.

Portland and Clackamas community colleges have both scheduled free legal clinics next week in recognition of National Expungement Week, Sept. 19 to Sept. 24.

Expungement services are in high demand this year after Oregon stopped charging a $281 filing fee per case, advocates say. Community colleges are helping fill that need. Portland Community College started a weekly expungement clinic two years ago, and Clackamas Community College is eyeing ways to support expungement efforts in that county.

Crimes eligible to be wiped clean in Oregon must be years in the past and don’t include the most serious crimes such as murder.

Even a relatively minor criminal record can bar Oregonians from earning degree credentials and applying for jobs. It can be a barrier to finding housing and qualifying for loans and even keep parents from volunteering at their children’s schools.

“We see those with criminal backgrounds … they maybe are told that they can only expect the bare minimum after they serve their sentence or got into trouble as kids,” said Gabby Sloss, director of workforce development services at Clackamas Community College. “That shouldn’t define their future and what they have access to.”

Who can apply

Expungement is not available for murderers or sex offenders or other Oregonians convicted of most serious class A felonies. Driving under the influence is also a permanent stain.

Other crimes may be eligible for expungement after a period of time, ranging from one to seven years depending on the severity of the charge.

Clean Slate and a Portland Community College clinic that goes by the acronym CLEAR, for Community Legal & Access Education & Referral, both help people determine if they qualify for expungement and, if so, fill out the right paperwork to start that process.

Expungement seekers have to pay for a $33 background check from the Oregon State Police, but often the clinics can help cover the cost of that, too.

Expungement isn’t an automatic process. Victims of a crime can object to the perpetrator’s application for expungement, as can the district attorney. If that happens, a judge can hold a hearing to determine whether to grant the expungement.

Leni Tupper, director of CLEAR, said those objections are pretty rare. A larger hurdle she’s seeing is long delays in processing expungement requests.

Before the 2022 law changes, Tupper said CLEAR served maybe 10 people a day during the free Friday clinics. Now it serves 30 to 60 people every Friday afternoon. District attorneys are seeing that workload surge, too, Tupper said, and they often take longer than the 120 days allowed under the law to decide whether or not to object to an expungement request.

“Our clients, our clinic participants, are just stuck in this waiting game, which is absolutely not fair to them,” Tupper said.

Community college involvement

Leni Tupper, director of CLEAR, who is an immigration attorney by trade, started the CLEAR clinic as a way to keep working on legal advocacy while she taught in the paralegal program at Portland Community College and to give her students hands-on experience in the field.

She recruited students and volunteer attorneys to host irregular expungement events until 2020, when CLEAR was officially established as an ongoing clinic at the college. CLEAR is unique in Portland, and in the community college realm, because it doesn’t restrict services to students and the services are always free, Tupper said.