Central City Concern said it will close the Letty Owings Center, a Portland residential treatment facility where mothers live with their children, effective October 31; its president estimated no more than 150 such beds exist statewide, including the center's 29, and the closure announcement cited a 52% five-year increase in operating costs. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency she is not available for its September 15 hearing on LAHSA's federal funding; her office said it will produce the requested documents by September 14, and the panel said it will proceed without her. The California Legislature sent Gov. Gavin Newsom SB 802, which would require Sacramento County's governments to form a joint powers authority as the countywide lead on housing and homelessness. A Real Deal analysis of Census Bureau data found 47.6% of U.S. renters spend at least 30% of their income on rent, up nearly 2 percentage points from 2020 to 2024. The post-holiday edition runs thin at eight items, with one wildcard city and a Deeper Dive on NLIHC's The Gap, the report behind the affordable-supply figures cited in yesterday's edition.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition published the March 2026 edition of its annual report, "The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes." The report counts rental homes affordable to the lowest-income renters and compares that supply against the number of such households. Extremely low-income households, it reports, account for nearly one fourth of the nation's 46 million renter households. Nationally, 7.2 million rental units are affordable to the 11 million extremely low-income renter households, but 3.4 million of those units are occupied by higher-income households, leaving 3.8 million units both affordable and available — a shortage of 7.2 million homes, or 35 affordable and available homes per 100 extremely low-income renter households. The figure cited in yesterday's edition via the AP, roughly 4 million affordable units available for 11 million households, corresponds to the report's 3.8 million affordable-and-available count.
The analysis is based on the 2024 American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample, an annual Census Bureau survey of approximately 3.5 million addresses. "Extremely low-income" means a household income at or below the federal poverty guideline or 30% of area median income, whichever is higher — a threshold that varies by geography. "Affordable" means rent and utilities that do not exceed 30% of a given income threshold, and units are categorized by the income needed to afford them without regard to the incomes of current tenants. The report's operative measure is "affordable and available": units that are affordable at an income level and either vacant or not occupied by a higher-income household. That distinction is what separates the 7.2 million units affordable to extremely low-income renters from the 3.8 million actually open to them. Units without complete kitchens or plumbing are excluded from the supply count.
The shortage corresponds to high housing cost burdens for this group. Per the report, 87% of extremely low-income renter households spend more than 30% of income on rent and utilities, and 74% spend more than half. Extremely low-income households account for 68% of all severely cost-burdened renters while making up about a quarter of renter households.
Across recent editions the headline figures have moved within a narrow band. The March 2024 edition, based on 2022 data, reported a shortage of 7.3 million homes and 34 affordable and available homes per 100 extremely low-income households; the March 2025 edition, based on 2023 data, reported 10.9 million extremely low-income households, a shortage of 7.1 million, and a ratio of 35; the current edition reports 7.2 million and 35. The national ratio spans wide state variation: from 16 affordable and available homes per 100 extremely low-income renter households in Nevada to 73 in South Dakota, with no state reaching parity.
The headline number is a count of rental homes relative to households, and the report states several things it does not capture. The ACS is a survey of addresses and does not include people experiencing homelessness; the report calls its own shortage figure understated on that basis, noting that 771,480 people were counted homeless on a single night in 2024 and that including their housing needs would raise the shortage to nearly 7.8 million. It also cites an outside estimate of 3.7 million individuals in doubled-up situations whose needs are not in its figures. The measure is affordability at fixed income thresholds, not housing condition — units lacking complete kitchens or plumbing are dropped from supply, but physical adequacy is not otherwise assessed — and the report notes that a residual-income approach would classify more households as burdened than the 30%-of-income standard it uses.
NLIHC's March 2025 edition of The Gap, based on 2023 data, reported a shortage of 7.1 million affordable and available rental homes for 10.9 million extremely low-income renter households.
The Oregonian/OregonLive · 2026-09-03 · on the Letty Owings Center closure
Central City Concern said it will close the Letty Owings Center, a Portland residential facility where women recover from drug addiction while living with their babies, at the end of October, along with its attached transitional housing facility, Laura's Place. CCC president Dr. Andy Mendenhall estimated that no more than 150 beds exist statewide where children can live with mothers receiving treatment, including the 29 at Letty Owings. CCC's closure announcement cited a 52% increase in the program's operating costs over five years while funding opportunities decreased, and said no other provider was found to take over the program.
Central City Concern's closure announcement sets an effective date of October 31, 2026; the center opened in 1989 and paused new admissions in July.
The Clark County Council scheduled a public hearing for 6:30 p.m. September 14 on proposed protections for manufactured home parks. The county worked with a consultant to develop an overlay zone under which its 34 existing parks, home to about 2,000 residents, could not be redeveloped; the county said the approach is similar to that used by several Washington cities, including Vancouver.
The council approved a six-month emergency ordinance pausing park redevelopment applications in August 2025, extended it in October, and extended it again in February for a year.
Cascadia Health opened Mountain View, a 10-bed secure residential treatment facility for adults with serious mental illness in Southeast Portland, in collaboration with Multnomah County and the Oregon Health Authority, with an opening event held September 3. OHA dedicated $5 million from House Bill 5024 (2021) to the project as part of an investment in creating 172 new secure residential treatment facility beds across Oregon. OHA said referrals will come primarily from hospital partners, including Oregon State Hospital, to reduce wait times for patients ready for discharge.
OHA said 1,067 of 1,660 new licensed residential treatment beds statewide are already open, with 593 more scheduled to open within the next two and a half years.
The unused wildcard cities (Boston, Phoenix, Detroit, Minneapolis) turned up no substantive news in the window, so Houston runs as the only wildcard alongside Los Angeles and Sacramento.
New York Post · 2026-09-07 · on Bass declining the Sept. 15 House DOGE subcommittee appearance
Mayor Karen Bass's legal counsel, David Michaelson, wrote the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency that the mayor "is not available" for its requested September 15 appearance at a hearing on federal homelessness funding routed through LAHSA, and gave no reason. The letter said her office would produce the requested documents — covering LAHSA's internal controls, use of federal homelessness funds, and communications among the mayor's office, LAHSA, the City Council and the county Board of Supervisors — by September 14. A subcommittee spokeswoman said the panel is proceeding with the hearing without her.
The subcommittee's September 3 letter from Chairman Tim Burchett cited more than $1 billion in federal funds to LAHSA since 2021.
LAist · 2026-09-02 · on UCLA/USC research on unsheltered residents near 2028 Olympic venues
Researchers from UCLA and USC published an estimate of 5,975 unsheltered people living within one mile of Olympic and Paralympic venues in Los Angeles County, more than three times the roughly 1,600 the L.A. County Department of Housing and Homelessness had estimated could be affected by security perimeters. The researchers put about 2,200 unhoused people within a half mile of venues and published the findings on a website called Home 2028. Officials have said security perimeters will require unhoused people to leave Olympic zones but have not detailed plans for where they would go.
The 2026 point-in-time count recorded around 49,000 unsheltered people countywide.
The Legislature passed SB 802, Sen. Angelique Ashby's bill requiring elected officials across Sacramento County to create a joint powers authority as the lead entity for housing and homelessness countywide, and it now awaits Gov. Gavin Newsom's signature. The Bee reported it would be the first known time the Legislature has ordered local governments in the state to create a JPA for homelessness, and that the mandate could end up in court. Sacramento County staff and most of its elected leaders oppose the bill, citing cost concerns.
The Senate concurred in Assembly amendments 33-0 on August 27.
A Chronicle records analysis found the number of people whom official documents indicate had been homeless before they were found dead in Houston's bayous has risen in recent years, with total bayou deaths surpassing 30 a year for the first time in 2024 and 2025. The increase came as the region's annual unsheltered count dropped to its lowest point since Hurricane Harvey, under 1,300 every year since 2023. Ben King, founding director of the University of Houston's Institute for Housing, Homelessness and Health, has documented the trend in an annual homeless mortality report.
A prior Chronicle analysis tallied 201 deaths along Harris County bayous in medical examiner records from 2017 through late November 2025; the unsheltered count covers Harris, Montgomery and Fort Bend counties.
One fresh national item cleared the post-holiday window: the First Circuit had not ruled on HUD's stay motion in NAEH v. HUD as of this morning, the Federal Register published no HUD documents September 5-8, and HUD's newsroom has posted nothing since September 3. With fewer than ten fresh items across the edition, the section adds a Deeper Dive on NLIHC's The Gap report.
A TRD Data analysis of the Census Bureau's most recent five-year American Community Survey estimates found 47.6 percent of U.S. renters spend at least 30 percent of their income on rent, a rise of nearly 2 percentage points from 2020 to 2024. Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach ranked first among metros, with almost 61 percent of renters spending about a third or more of their income on rent.
Spending 30 percent or more of income on housing is the federal government's standard definition of cost burden.
2026-09-14 — Clark County Council public hearing, 6:30 p.m., on proposed manufactured home park protections (source)
2026-09-14 — Documents from the Los Angeles mayor's office on LAHSA internal controls, federal funding use, and communications due to the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (source)
2026-09-15 — House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency hearing on federally funded homelessness services and LAHSA; the panel says it will proceed without Mayor Bass (source)
2026-09-18 — NW Northrup Shelter in Portland closes permanently, one year after opening (source)
2026-09-28 — Comments due on HUD 30-day information collection notice, "Public Housing Reform; Change in Admission and Occupancy Requirements" (source)
2026-09-30 — Deadline for Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign or veto the California bill barring housing-authority work requirements and time limits on federal rental assistance (source)
2026-10-01 — FY 2027 Fair Market Rents take effect; comments on the FMR notice also due this date (source)
2026-10-09 — Comments due on HUD's proposed amendments to the Fair Housing Act disparate-impact standard (source)
2026-10-31 — Letty Owings Center and Laura's Place in Portland close, per Central City Concern's announcement (source)
2026-12-11 — Continuing resolution signed September 2 (H.R. 6500) funds the government through this date (source)