The Los Angeles City Council voted 10-3 to remove Municipal Code 41.18 anti-camping zones in Council District 13, which the councilmember called the first effort to remove zones rather than add them. Layoffs are beginning at the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, which has 73 staff, as Seattle and King County move to reclaim its $159 million in contracts by January 2027. HUD issued Notice PIH 2026-20 on August 10, ending housing agencies' ability to set Emergency Housing Voucher payment standards up to 120% of Fair Market Rent without approval, and Secretary Scott Turner said in a radio interview that federal scrutiny of homelessness spending extends beyond Los Angeles to Seattle and Boston. In Portland, Mayor Keith Wilson endorsed three incumbents and challenger Kellie Torres for November's council races.
Mayor Keith Wilson endorsed Kellie Torres, a longtime Parks Bureau official, for a District 3 council seat, and said he plans to endorse incumbents Steve Novick, Olivia Clark and Eric Zimmerman for reelection in November. The District 3 incumbents include two Democratic Socialists of America members who have criticized Wilson's shelter expansion push and his support for the Moda Center renovation. Both council factions view the election as a chance to secure a seventh seat on the 12-member body and end its recurring 6-6 stalemates.
The council's January 2026 attempt to elect a council president failed amid repeated 6-6 votes.
The city's Street Services Coordination Center reported receiving 1,734 new campsite reports for the week of August 10-16, including 479 reports of people living in vehicles. Teams assessed approximately 662 reported campsites, visited 392 active campsites and removed 158 campsites the city said posed a health and safety risk. Six people accepted shelter referrals and three used a shelter bed for at least one night.
The program's cumulative totals since April 11, 2022 are 9,766 shelter referrals and 2,965 people who have used a shelter bed.
Vancouver city staff told the city council Monday the city will rework its scoring and timeline for awarding federal housing and community development funds after none of the 100 new rental units, 50 rehabilitated rental units or 10 homeowner units in its 2024-2028 plan were completed with those funds. Staff said federal HOME funds went unused because Build America, Buy America construction requirements raised costs, pushing developers to the city's more flexible Affordable Housing Fund. The city expects about $1.7 million in community development funds, $1 million in housing funds and roughly $500,000 for homelessness programs in 2027, with applications opening October 1.
The council separately weighed changes to the voter-approved Affordable Housing Fund on August 11 that would roughly double per-unit subsidies.
Portland Mercury · 2026-08-17 · on emergency demolition of the Centennial Mills housing redevelopment site
Demolition crews used controlled explosions Monday to topple the water tower at the former Centennial Mills site on Northwest Naito Parkway, which had been slated for redevelopment into mixed-use housing and retail before an August 2 fire destroyed most of the building. City inspectors said the structure was at risk of collapse from nearby train vibrations, and Mayor Keith Wilson declared a public emergency to arrange full demolition with owner Stuart Lindquist. The city said air monitoring outside the immediate fire area showed contaminant levels that do not pose a significant health risk.
City officials reported last week that K9s detected human remains of undetermined age inside the building; Portland Fire & Rescue said it does not believe anyone died in the August 2 fire.
The Columbian · 2026-08-18 · on unresolved housing and growth issues in Clark County's 20-year growth plan
Clark County scheduled four meetings through mid-October to resolve infrastructure concurrency, urban growth boundary and climate issues before adopting the 20-year comprehensive plan it began updating in early 2023. Developers told the county that its concurrency code interpretation, which paused land use hearings in June, could shut down the housing pipeline, while Ridgefield, Battle Ground and Camas are seeking urban growth boundary expansions that the Friends of Clark County group opposes. The county council has public hearings on October 6 and 13, when it is expected to adopt the plan.
The county's density goal is six residential units per acre; Ridgefield's city manager said the city has been developing almost eight per acre.
KGW reported that Stephanie Potter, a Portland woman facing eviction, applied for rent assistance through an Oregon Health Plan program that offers temporary rental help tied to health needs. She said she applied almost a year ago, the assistance never arrived, and she and her dogs now face homelessness.
The Oregon Health Plan's health-related social needs benefit screens eligible households for temporary rent and utility assistance.
LAist · 2026-08-18 · on the removal of 41.18 anti-camping zones in LA's Council District 13
The Los Angeles City Council voted 10-3 Tuesday to erase some Municipal Code 41.18 zones — areas where unhoused people cannot sit, lie, sleep, or keep belongings — in Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez's district, covering underpasses in Silver Lake and Echo Park and 101 Freeway overpasses in Hollywood. Soto-Martinez, who introduced the motion to remove zones established by his predecessor Mitch O'Farrell, said he believed it was the first effort to have 41.18 zones removed rather than put in place. Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, voting no, said the law "was never intended to be the solution to our homeless problem" but is "about protecting public spaces."
A 2023 report from the city's lead homelessness agency concluded the 41.18 policy had not kept most areas clear of encampments and was "generally ineffective" at connecting people to housing.
Management at the King County Regional Homelessness Authority told the agency's executive leadership team last week which staffers will lose their jobs in late August or early September, the first staff cuts of the agency's wind-down to a coordination role. Staff represented by the PROTEC17 union sent a letter to the governing board urging the agency to cut two top executives first, whose combined compensation tops $600,000 — what the union called "the direct financial cost of five to six full-time operational staff." The agency currently has 73 staff and has overspent its administrative budget by as much as $1 million this year.
Seattle and King County set a January 2027 timeline to take back $159 million in homelessness contracts from the authority, narrowing it to coordination.
LAist · 2026-08-17 · on the reopening of L.A. County's public housing waitlist after nearly two and a half years
The Los Angeles County Development Authority began accepting applicants onto its public housing waitlist Monday for the first time since April 2024, at 16 of the 68 properties it oversees for more than 6,600 residents. The agency's chief of programs said the program averages 300 vacancies per year; the application window runs through 5 p.m. September 16, with smaller properties capped at 1,000 applications. Applicants generally must earn under 50% of area median income — up to $58,300 for an individual or $83,300 for a family of four.
Rent in the county-owned units is generally capped at 30% of household gross income.
Utah state, Salt Lake City, and Salt Lake County leaders launched three days of workgroup meetings Tuesday to implement the Leifman Group's 25 recommendations for diverting people with mental illness and substance use disorders away from jails and homelessness. County Mayor Jenny Wilson said some recommendations could take up to 10 years while others could be adopted in months, with funding or legislative proposals expected for the session starting in January. Officials cited work already underway, including mental health group homes expected to eventually total 90 beds and an expansion of Salt Lake City's Project CONNECT, which targets the city's 50 most-arrested people.
State leaders' earlier plan for a 1,300-bed homeless campus in northwest Salt Lake City received no legislative funding this year.
Austin's No Wrong Door initiative assigns four Austin police officers — each carrying a caseload of about 25 people since early March — to coordinate treatment, housing, and services for people drawn from roughly 950 residents officials identify as the county's highest "utilizers," whose repeated arrests, ER visits, and psychiatric crises cost an estimated $137 million in public resources annually. All 17 partner organizations signed agreements to share resources and case information. Mayor Kirk Watson said "we're getting some wins, but we're going to need money," and the city plans to ask the Legislature to fund a new mental health crisis care center; the advocacy group VOCAL-TX questioned whether police should be the primary point of contact.
Austin's 2025 point-in-time count found more than 3,200 people living outside or in shelters, up about 50% from roughly 2,150 in 2018.
HUD's Office of Public and Indian Housing issued Notice PIH 2026-20 on August 10, removing language that had allowed public housing agencies to set Emergency Housing Voucher and Stability Voucher payment standards up to 120% of Fair Market Rent without HUD approval. Agencies must now follow the standard 90-110% range, with anything above 110% requiring formal HUD approval, and must comply within 60 days for new Stability Voucher admissions and for current EHV and SV families moving to a new unit.
The Emergency Housing Voucher program's $5 billion appropriation is projected to be depleted by the end of 2026, with almost 42,000 households still relying on it.
In an August 18 interview on KVI's Ari Hoffman Show, HUD Secretary Scott Turner said the administration's scrutiny of federal homelessness spending is not limited to Los Angeles, answering "Absolutely" when asked whether HUD was looking at similar action in Seattle and naming Seattle, Boston, and the Virgin Islands. Turner told KVI that federal officials found LAHSA could not account for 2,300 housing spaces and said HUD will judge programs by treatment and self-sufficiency outcomes rather than money distributed.
HUD suspended LAHSA from federal grant activity on June 11; a federal judge blocked the suspension on August 13.
The Department of Veterans Affairs announced a $29 million fund to provide goods and services to eligible homeless veterans and veterans in the HUD-VASH program, with up to $11 million in aid distributed on VA clinicians' recommendations starting in early FY2027. VA also expects to award transportation contracts by September 2026 providing up to $18 million in free transportation services for homeless veterans.
The Senator Elizabeth Dole 21st Century Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act authorizes the assistance through the end of FY2027.
Senators Amy Klobuchar and Kirsten Gillibrand and Representatives Dwight Evans and Brian Fitzpatrick reintroduced the bipartisan VITAL Act (S.5285/H.R.10049), which would reform the Low Income Housing Tax Credit to require that at least 40% of states' LIHTC units be disability adaptable and accessible, or at least 20% in walkable or rollable neighborhoods. The bill would also increase credits for accessible projects in walkable neighborhoods and raise the LIHTC annual state allocation.
Less than six percent of the nation's housing stock is accessible for people with mobility-related disabilities, per NLIHC.
The Senate confirmed Cameron Hamilton as FEMA administrator on August 7 by a 51-47 vote as part of an en bloc package of 74 nominees, and he was sworn in August 10. Hamilton is the first Senate-confirmed FEMA administrator of the second Trump term and takes charge as the agency manages more than 1,000 open disasters; NLIHC noted he previously served as FEMA's acting head until his dismissal in May 2025.
Hamilton said at his June 17 confirmation hearing he would not support a 2025 proposal to quadruple the damage threshold states must meet to access assistance.
A USC Lusk Center for Real Estate report found more than 10,200 accessory dwelling units were completed in Los Angeles County in 2025 — a record — accounting for 37% of the county's new housing. Overall county housing production fell more than 4% in 2025, to 27,293 new units from 28,498, and the county has produced fewer than 125,400 units since 2021 against a state-mandated goal of 812,000 new permitted units by 2029.
The LA County Board of Supervisors approved $3.8 million in state funding in March 2026 to support ADU production.
2026-08-26 — Continuum of Care application deadline for the Los Angeles region; Judge David O. Carter indicated he intends to rule on LAHSA's frozen federal funding before this date
2026-08-31 — House members return; vote expected on the Senate-amended CR funding the government through December 11 (source)
2026-09-16 — L.A. County public housing waitlist application window closes at 5 p.m. (source)
2026-10-06 — Clark County council public hearing on its 20-year comprehensive plan update; adoption expected at the second hearing October 13 (source)
2026-10-09 — Comments due on HUD's proposed amendments to the Fair Housing Act disparate-impact standard (source)