HUD appealed the August 7 vacatur of its FY2026 Continuum of Care funding notice on August 13, and Judge Mary S. McElroy denied the government's emergency stay request the same day; the First Circuit docketed the appeal as case 26-1923. In Portland, the city plans to eliminate the RV parking component at its North Portland Road shelter site, the last sanctioned location for people living in vehicles. The San Francisco Examiner reported that the city's DSA chapter organized Proposition I, which would dedicate nearly $120 million a year in transfer-tax revenue to a housing fund, and Realtor.com's July report put the monthly cost of buying a starter home $858 above renting one across the 50 largest metros. The weekend was a quiet news window: this edition runs three Portland items, five from other regions, and four national.
The city of Portland plans to eliminate the RV parking component at the North Portland Road shelter site, its last sanctioned venue for homeless people living in vehicles. KGW reported the change is part of a city effort to cut costs.
The site opened in 2024 with both shelter pods and RV parking spots; the city's other RV site, Sunderland RV Safe Park, closed in September 2025.
The Portland Planning Commission voted unanimously on July 14 to send the Central City Code Amendments Project, a package of downtown zoning changes aimed at converting empty office space to housing, to City Council. Downtown office vacancy stood at 29.6% in the second quarter of 2026, according to a Kidder Mathews report. The current draft raises height limits for qualifying residential projects but contains no financial incentives.
A City Council vote on the package is expected this fall or winter.
Kenneth Voyles, who was shot after breaking into Touchstone Granite & Marble on Northeast Columbia Boulevard in March 2023, is suing the business and owner James Grant for $10 million in Multnomah County, alleging battery, assault, negligence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The complaint seeks $5 million in compensatory and $5 million in punitive damages and says Voyles entered the closed shop seeking warmth and food.
The lawsuit was filed May 6, 2026, over an incident on March 6, 2023.
The San Francisco chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America is the group behind Proposition I, a ballot measure that would dedicate the city's transfer taxes on properties worth $10 million or more — nearly $120 million a year, per the City Controller — to a House SF Fund for affordable-housing programs. Mayor Daniel Lurie and the city's police and firefighters unions said the measure would create "an unaccountable slush fund."
The transfer tax had raised $504.6 million by February, about $200 million of which initially went to housing-related programs, according to advocates cited in the article.
Attorney Stuart Gross, representing three neighborhood associations, sent an August 11 letter to San Francisco's planning and public health directors threatening to sue if the 848-home Marina Safeway redevelopment — 86 affordable units in buildings up to 22 stories — proceeds through AB 2011 streamlined review before contamination testing is completed. The letter said more than 40,000 square feet beneath the operating store remains untested; Planning Director Sarah Dennis Phillips wrote last month that the project "satisfies the environmental site criteria outlined in AB2011."
A state Department of Toxic Substances Control representative cited 2023 testing that found petroleum in soil at up to 2,500 milligrams per kilogram, about twice the commercial screening threshold and 10 times the residential threshold.
San Diego County opened applications for a shallow rental subsidy program that will give 195 qualifying adults $500 a month for 18 months, first come, first served. Applicants must be at least 60, head of household, extremely low income, spending at least half their income on rent, and unable to access other rental assistance.
Seniors make up about one third of the county's unsheltered population, according to the January point-in-time count.
Six months into a $30 million contract to run the Aspen, a former DoubleTree hotel shelter, Urban Alchemy told a Denver City Council committee it is exceeding the housing department's performance targets: 93% occupancy against a 90% goal, 99% of clients getting intake housing conversations, and 88% receiving regular housing-focused case management. Average length of stay across the city's shelters rose from 166 days in 2025 to 229 days in 2026, which deputy director Jeff Kositsky attributed to the loss of housing authority vouchers and ARPA funding.
The city's performance metrics for shelter providers do not count housing exits; Kositsky told the council providers do not control housing resources.
Houston police were investigating three deaths in which bodies were found in or near area bayous over two weeks: an unidentified man's decomposed body on the banks of Buffalo Bayou, a man recovered from Brays Bayou near the Gulf Freeway, and a woman's partially burned body found near the Gulf Freeway on July 29. Autopsy results were pending in all three cases and police had not established a connection between the deaths.
Forensic investigators documented more than 30 people whose bodies were recovered from Houston-area bayous in 2025, with causes of death ranging from drug-related drownings to blunt-force trauma.
HUD, Secretary Scott Turner, OMB, and Director Russell Vought filed a notice of appeal on August 13 from the August 7 order that set aside the FY2026 Continuum of Care NOFO, and moved for an emergency stay of the judgment pending appeal, requesting relief by August 17. Judge Mary S. McElroy denied the stay the same day, writing that the defendants failed to present a new basis on which they would likely succeed on the merits. The First Circuit assigned the appeal case number 26-1923 on August 14.
The vacated NOFO's original application deadline was August 26, 2026; responses to the stay motion in the district court were due August 27.
A federal judge in the District of Rhode Island rejected grant conditions the administration imposed on federal grants administered by HHS and HUD in Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence v. Kennedy. The plaintiff coalition of domestic violence, sexual assault, housing, youth, and homelessness organizations had sued to block conditions targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and transgender rights; Democracy Forward said the decision follows an earlier order preliminarily blocking the restrictions.
The case was filed July 21, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, the same court that set aside HUD's FY2026 CoC NOFO on August 7.
The quarterly RCN Capital/CJ Patrick Company investor sentiment index, which surveys more than 300 fix-and-flip and rental investors, fell for the second straight quarter to an all-time low at the end of June. 26% of respondents said market conditions are better than a year ago, down from 35% in the first quarter, while 45% said the market has gotten worse, the highest share in the survey's history. CJ Patrick CEO Rick Sharga said investors purchased 23% fewer homes in the first quarter of 2026 than the previous quarter, and 32% of respondents do not plan to buy any properties this year.
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act generally prohibits investors holding at least 350 single-family homes from acquiring additional ones.
Realtor.com's July 2026 Rental Report found buying a starter home cost $858 more per month than renting one across the 50 largest metros, with the gap as small as $19 in Orlando. The median listing price of a 0- to 2-bedroom starter home fell 2.9% year over year in July while rents declined 1.4%, and mortgage rates averaged 6.54% in July, down from 6.72% a year earlier. The report named Oklahoma City, Orlando, Seattle, Miami, Tampa, Las Vegas, and Nashville as metros where starter prices fell faster than rents while wages grew at least as fast as the 3.8% national rate.
Realtor.com's Market Clock found 70% of the 100 largest metros now favor buyers or are moving in that direction, up from 52% a year ago.