A three-judge First Circuit panel stayed the ruling that had vacated HUD's FY2026 Continuum of Care NOFO, allowing the agency to proceed with a $1.3 billion set-aside for transitional housing and supportive services; the panel cited HUD's December 1 deadline to make awards. Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles charged three people with stealing $12 million in homelessness aid, one day after the House DOGE subcommittee's hearing on homelessness-services spending. The Census Bureau put the official 2025 poverty rate at 10.2 percent, the lowest on record, with the supplemental measure essentially unchanged at 13.1 percent. In Oregon, the legislature's two housing committee chairs said they will move to repeal the 1997 records exemption that lets the state housing agency withhold subsidized-housing cost data, and a DHM Research poll found the governor's race at 45–43.
Portland-proper newsrooms produced no fresh city stories in the window — the Safe Rest Village arrests, Moda Center funding options, and renters' forum all ran in earlier editions — so today's section runs on state housing politics and Clark County measures.
Rep. Pam Marsh, chair of the House Committee on Housing and Homelessness, and Sen. Khanh Pham, chair of the Senate Committee on Housing and Development, said they plan to introduce legislation in the 2027 session to eliminate a 1997 public records exemption that lets Oregon Housing and Community Services withhold financial details of subsidized housing projects. The agency cited the law in redacting sections of developers' cost reports that ProPublica requested in May. ProPublica's August investigation reported that Oregon has given developers $1.4 billion since 2021, that per-unit development costs have nearly doubled to $540,000, and that $850 million in future state funding is lined up.
Oregon's Sunshine Committee, the state body that reviews records exemptions, is separately examining the 1997 exemption.
A DHM Research poll of 600 likely voters conducted September 11 found Republican Christine Drazan at 45% and Gov. Tina Kotek at 43%, a margin inside the poll's 4% margin of error. Homelessness and housing are among the issues voters named in the race.
Kotek defeated Drazan in the 2022 governor's race; the 2026 election is November 3.
The political committee Affordable Housing for Clark County announced a campaign to pass Charter Amendment 24, on the November ballot, which would require the county to publish a Housing Impact Analysis before adopting land-use and construction code changes affecting residential housing. The campaign cited an estimated 15,700-unit county housing deficit and projections requiring roughly 4,767 homes per year through 2045, against a past-decade average of about 3,895 units annually. Charter Review Commissioner John Jay, the amendment's sponsor, said the goal is to give the County Council "all the tools they need to assess the viability of future regulations."
The amendment does not limit the County Council's authority to adopt regulations; it requires the analysis to be published before the public hearing on a qualifying proposal.
The Clark County Council on Tuesday approved impact fee increases for the La Center, Hockinson and Woodland school districts and new impact fees for four fire districts in unincorporated Clark County; Evergreen Public Schools requested its fee be reduced to zero, citing declining enrollment. La Center's fee for a single-family home rises from $3,501 to $7,536, and Hockinson's rises 95% to $15,175.
Federal prosecutors charged three people Wednesday with stealing $12 million in federal and state homelessness aid, alleging the money went to real estate, luxury trips and vintage vehicles. Lakiya Malone, 48, and Michael Young, 46, were arrested in Los Angeles; a third defendant, Donye Mitchell, 55, is considered a fugitive. Young founded Home At Last, a nonprofit that took in more than $118 million in public funds since 2019.
The charges were announced the day after the House DOGE subcommittee's September 15 hearing on homelessness-services spending.
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan announced city data showing the unsheltered population fell 32% over 18 months, from about 5,400 people in February 2025 to about 3,700 in August 2026, measured by a new model that uses 15 data points and can be run at least quarterly. Mahan attributed the decline to encampment cleanups, no-re-encampment zones and emergency housing alternatives; an advocate quoted in the story questioned the claims.
The city's model estimated 1,500 more unsheltered individuals than the county's point-in-time count.
Supervisor Myrna Melgar announced plans for legislation creating a Department of Housing Development and Preservation, consolidating housing functions now spread across the mayor's office into one agency modeled on New York City's counterpart, alongside a co-op ownership program. Melgar said she wants "one agency where the planning, financing and policy around housing is coordinated"; the city attorney's office is still drafting both pieces of legislation.
San Francisco has some 1,600 co-op units, most built between the 1960s and 1980s in the Fillmore, Bayview and Diamond Heights neighborhoods.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton and Los Angeles mayoral challenger Nithya Raman presented homelessness platforms at a forum hosted by the nonprofit Hope the Mission and KTLA5. Raman cited a Los Angeles Times report that 40% of Inside Safe participants returned to the streets and proposed short-term rental vouchers she said have a 75% effectiveness rate at moving people to permanent housing or self-sustainability; Hilton called California's homelessness situation a "scandal."
The 2026 Greater L.A. Homeless Count estimated 45,000 unhoused people in the city of Los Angeles, a 3.4% increase after two years of decreases.
The New York City Council approved John Mangin, a Department of City Planning official and an architect of the 2024 "City of Yes for Housing" plan, to chair the Board of Standards and Appeals by a vote of 40 in favor, six against and four abstentions. The board interprets the city's zoning rules and decides whether to grant exceptions to developers whose projects do not conform to them.
New York City's rental vacancy rate is 1.4 percent, the lowest in nearly sixty years.
A 127-unit affordable building on DeKalb Avenue in Bushwick opened with 45 units reserved for families who were formerly homeless, young families and young women who are pregnant. The building, a collaboration between Camber Property Group and RiseBoro Community Partnership, provides free social services to its supportive-housing tenants and ranges from studios to three-bedroom units.
The Dutchess County Legislature approved 23-2 an agreement to move forward with a homeless shelter at 26 Oakley Street in Poughkeepsie, funded by a $13 million grant from the state's Homeless Housing and Assistance Program. Lawmakers also passed resolutions creating a county homelessness action plan and adding three staff to an outreach team for chronically unhoused individuals; residents objected that shelters and services are concentrated in specific city neighborhoods.
The shelter carries an eight-year sunset period, after which it transitions to serving single women and/or families only, and the county committed not to construct more emergency shelters in the city for 35 years.
A three-judge panel of the First Circuit stayed U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy's ruling that had barred HUD from setting aside $1.3 billion of the roughly $4 billion FY2026 Continuum of Care appropriation for transitional housing and supportive-service-only grants. The panel said the administration was likely to succeed in establishing that the set-aside was not subject to notice-and-comment requirements, and that HUD would suffer irreparable injury absent a stay because it must make awards by December 1, 2026. McElroy's vacatur had come in suits brought by 22 states, the District of Columbia, and a coalition of homelessness and housing groups.
McElroy set aside the FY2026 CoC NOFO in its entirety on August 7 for lack of notice and comment; the appeal is First Circuit case 26-1923.
House Oversight Committee · 2026-09-16 · on the DOGE subcommittee's homelessness-spending hearing
The Delivering on Government Efficiency subcommittee held its September 15 hearing on homelessness-services spending, with testimony from Jonathan Choe of the Discovery Institute, Paul Webster of the Cicero Institute and Samantha Batko of the Urban Institute. The majority's wrap-up said Los Angeles has taken in $2 billion in federal funds since 2005, including $220 million in 2024, and that overall homelessness there has doubled. Webster alleged LAHSA's chief executive signed $2.1 million in contracts with the nonprofit that employs her husband; Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who was invited, did not appear.
Chairman Tim Burchett announced the hearing September 14, and federal prosecutors charged three people with Los Angeles homelessness-aid fraud the day after it was held.
The Census Bureau's annual Current Population Survey release put the official 2025 poverty rate at 10.2 percent, down half a percentage point and the lowest on record, while the supplemental poverty measure was essentially unchanged at 13.1 percent. Real median household income rose 2.6 percent to a record $87,460. Researchers quoted by Stateline said the 2025 figures predate cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and other benefits enacted in last year's tax and spending law.
The data cover calendar 2025 and do not reflect safety-net cuts taking effect in 2026.
President Trump sent the Senate the nomination of Matt Jones, HUD's deputy assistant secretary for single-family housing, for the dual role of HUD assistant secretary for housing and FHA commissioner, a seat vacant since Frank Cassidy stepped down in June. Jones previously worked at the Mortgage Bankers Association and on Senate committee staff; MBA and NAR issued statements supporting the nomination.
The FHA manages about $2 trillion in insured mortgages, and its Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund held $188.9 billion in capital at the end of fiscal 2025.
2026-09-22 — Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson's 2027-2028 proposed budget, funding her shelter action plan, is scheduled for release (source)
2026-09-25 — Applications due to take over LAHSA's four federal Continuum of Care roles (source)
2026-10-06 — Portland City Council Housing and Permitting Committee public hearing on the Central City Code Amendments Recommended Draft, 2 p.m. (source)
2026-10-13 — Comment deadline on HUD's CoC additional-incentives research notice (source)
2026-11-03 — General election: Oregon governor's race and Clark County Charter Amendment 24 on the ballot
2026-12-01 — HUD's deadline to make FY2026 Continuum of Care awards, cited by the First Circuit in granting its stay (source)