U.S. District Judge David O. Carter issued a preliminary injunction Thursday blocking HUD's suspension of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, restoring the agency's role over about $240 million in federal homeless funds and setting a February trial. Human Rights Watch reported that HUD closed or halted at least 115 fair housing complaints without findings and that its Office of Fair Housing shrank from 31 staffers to 11. July CPI put shelter costs up 3.2% year over year, and the 30-year mortgage averaged 6.67%, down from 6.69% the prior week. In Portland, a council committee voted unanimously to give Albina Vision Trust first negotiating rights on city-owned land next to the Moda Center, and San Diego funded 160 new shelter beds for women and children.
The council's five-person City Life Committee voted unanimously Aug. 11 to advance a resolution giving Albina Vision Trust the first opportunity to negotiate redevelopment of city-owned parcels next to the Moda Center — two parking garages north of the arena and a green space to its south. District 2 councilors Elana Pirtle-Guiney, Sameer Kanal and Dan Ryan introduced the proposal; Councilor Angelita Morillo raised concerns about giving sole preference to one nonprofit. The measure goes to a full council vote later this summer.
The full council approved the Moda Center renovation term sheet the next day; Albina Vision Trust's stated goal is revitalizing 94 acres of the historic Albina neighborhood.
The Oregonian reported that a Portland high school is piloting a host-family program for students experiencing homelessness, run by the nonprofit Second Home — the organization's first program serving youth experiencing homelessness in Portland. The program places unaccompanied high school students with volunteer host households.
Second Home, coordinated through Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, began in Beaverton and has previously placed unaccompanied students in Washington, Lincoln and Multnomah counties.
Portland Mercury · 2026-08-13 · on Multnomah County heat deaths and cooling-center capacity
The Mercury reported that 14 people have died of heat-related illness in Multnomah County in the five summers since the 2021 heat dome, which killed 72 people statewide that summer, 69 of them in the county. The county reported 611 visits to three cooling centers during a July 2024 heat wave and 532 visits to four sites across two August 2025 heat waves. Public health officials said most fatalities involved people without functional air conditioning, and that men over 50 living alone were overrepresented among the deaths.
Senate Bill 54, which would have required landlords of multifamily properties with 10 or more units to provide air conditioning in all units by 2036, died in committee.
San Diego is funding an additional 160 shelter beds at Rachel's Promise, the Catholic Charities-operated downtown women's shelter, bringing its total to 210 beds — about 110 beds for single women opening the following week and 100 beds for women with children the next month, including 28 family units. The city is funding the program at $5.6 million a year. San Diego Housing Commission data showed the share of unhoused women and girls in SDHC shelter programs rose from 29.9% in fiscal year 2021 to about 40.5% in fiscal year 2026.
Rachel's Promise operated as a 50-bed shelter before the expansion.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and HUD Secretary Scott Turner presented the administration's "Treatment First" toolkit at the San Diego Rescue Mission in National City, describing it as a shift away from the Housing First model toward abstinence and long-term recovery; Turner called it "a playbook" of "proven and practical strategies from across the United States of America." Local providers said the region lacks the long-term residential treatment capacity the approach requires; Housing 4 the Homeless director Joanne Standlee said people need 12 to 18 months of residential treatment.
The same secretaries appeared at a Los Angeles treatment center on Aug. 11, where they said LAHSA would not receive more federal money until it showed accountability.
The Boston Globe · 2026-08-13 · on San Francisco's inclusionary cut and Boston's 20 percent mandate
San Francisco is cutting its inclusionary housing requirement from 15 percent of new builds to 5 percent this summer and growing its housing trust fund to $125 million, while Chelsea and Waltham have cut their mandates and Cambridge is studying its policy. Mayor Michelle Wu said she is not considering a change to Boston's 20 percent requirement; her office said the city permitted 1,643 new housing units in the first half of 2026, the highest first-half total since 2022. The Globe reported Boston's requirement has produced about 3,000 affordable units in the last decade.
Wu raised Boston's inclusionary requirement from 13 percent to 20 percent, including 3 percent set aside for Section 8 voucher holders, in her first term.
A report from Boston's Office of Housing found more than 6,200 income-restricted units were built or under construction during Mayor Michelle Wu's first term, which the report called the highest production level in 25 years, and said the city has a higher share of subsidized housing than any peer among the nation's 15 largest markets. The city put much of its $560 million in pandemic-era relief funds into housing; officials said that aid expires by the end of the year, and the Office of Housing is exploring other funding sources.
After St. Paul closed the Pig's Eye Park encampment on Aug. 5, dozens of its residents moved about seven miles up the Mississippi River to an encampment near Randolph Avenue and Shepard Road, which one longtime resident said doubled in size. Before the shutdown, city officials estimated around 220 people lived across three major encampments, 140 of them at Pig's Eye, and the city is spending at least $1 million to expand shelter capacity. Residents of the adjacent Waterford Bay Apartments reported increased 911 calls and concerns about car break-ins; state Rep. Leigh Finke opposed the closure strategy.
Sahan Journal reported on Aug. 5 that the closure began against a 1,400-person shelter waitlist and 49 newly added shelter beds.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter issued a preliminary injunction finding HUD acted arbitrarily and capriciously when it suspended the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority from managing federal homelessness funds, and ordered LAHSA restored as master applicant when the funding process is redone — about $240 million on behalf of 140 service providers under the application originally due Aug. 26. Carter set a trial date in February, ordered the Los Angeles Continuum of Care to deliver a review by Oct. 13 of agencies that could replace LAHSA, and ordered HUD to execute stalled contracts with providers that have been working without reimbursement. HUD Secretary Scott Turner posted on X that the administration would "fight this legally."
HUD suspended LAHSA on June 11; a separate Aug. 7 ruling in Rhode Island threw out HUD's 2026 homelessness spending plan, nullifying the Aug. 26 application deadline.
Human Rights Watch · 2026-08-13 · on HRW findings on HUD fair-housing enforcement
Human Rights Watch released a report on federal civil rights enforcement finding that HUD closed or halted at least 115 fair housing complaints without findings, which the report said was in some cases in apparent defiance of federal regulations requiring investigation of every complaint. The report said HUD's Office of Fair Housing shrank from 31 staffers to 11, and cited an August 2025 whistleblower complaint by career attorneys describing a gag order barring fair housing attorneys from contacting complainants or the Justice Department.
HUD's proposed rescission of its disparate-impact rule, published Aug. 10, has a comment deadline of Oct. 9.
Landlords in two New York voucher-discrimination cases are arguing that New York City's source-of-income law should be struck down, extending a March ruling by an upstate state Supreme Court justice that held requiring apartment inspections for Section 8 vouchers constituted an unlawful search under the Fourth Amendment. The defenses seek to extend that ruling to the city-funded CityFHEPS program, and Housing Works attorney Armen Merjian said similar challenges are underway in California, Virginia and Missouri.
New York's Court of Appeals is scheduled to review the upstate ruling, People v. Commons West, in October.
HUD is accepting comment through Sept. 7 on a proposal to rescind the 2024 Federal Flood Risk Management Standard rules for federally funded projects in flood-prone areas and replace major components with the agency's previous floodplain review framework. The National Association of Home Builders said it plans to support repeal; the Association of State Floodplain Managers said projects would be less resilient, the U.S. Green Building Council said the change would make HUD-assisted housing less resilient, and the Union of Concerned Scientists said it would increase flood risk. HUD said the changes would reduce costs and support affordable housing development.
HUD published the rescission proposal in the Federal Register on July 10; the 2024 flood-risk rules were targeted by a January 2025 executive order, and FEMA halted implementation.
Federal Register (HUD) · 2026-08-13 · on HUD request for comment on the CDBG-DR allocation formula
HUD published a notice seeking additional comment on the methodology it uses to calculate Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery allocations, with comments due Sept. 14, and said it will use the formula from its January 2025 notice for allocations to 2023 and 2024 disasters until rulemaking is complete. The notice, required by Section 504 of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, asks for comment on dropping SBA disaster loan data and FEMA Public Assistance estimates from the formula and on a "catastrophic" eligibility standard limiting which disasters receive grants.
The ROAD to Housing Act's Reforming Disaster Recovery Act provisions gave the CDBG-DR program standing statutory authorization for the first time.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the July all-items Consumer Price Index rose 0.1% from June and 3.4% year over year, down from June's 3.5% annual increase. The shelter index rose 0.1% for the month — which BLS said accounted for roughly two-thirds of the monthly all-items increase — and 3.2% from a year earlier, with the rent and owners' equivalent rent indexes each up 0.3% for the month.
The all-items index had fallen 0.4% month over month in June.
Freddie Mac · 2026-08-13 · on the weekly Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey · Update — first covered 2026-08-10
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.67% in the week ending Aug. 13, down from 6.69% the prior week; the 15-year rate averaged 5.96%, down from 6.01%. Freddie Mac said "recent increases in purchase and refinance applications suggest that borrowers continue to respond to even modest changes in mortgage rates."