The Federal Open Market Committee voted 12–0 to raise its benchmark rate a quarter percentage point to a range of 3.75% to 4%, the first increase since 2023, and Freddie Mac's 30-year fixed mortgage average rose to 6.95% from 6.76% a week earlier. DHS public-charge rules letting immigration officers count housing assistance against green-card applicants took effect today, with a 22-state lawsuit pending in federal court in Manhattan. The Multnomah County board voted unanimously Thursday to reserve rooms at a Northeast Portland motel as the Northeast Family Shelter, with rooms for more than 50 families, after plans for a Gresham family shelter failed. In Los Angeles, an internal city memo said SRO Housing Corp., which operates 2,500 units of affordable housing on Skid Row, faces severe financial distress and anticipated roughly six months of solvency — a figure its CEO disputed.
The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Thursday to approve a resolution reserving a block of rooms at the Studio 6 motel at 4911 NE 82nd Ave., which will operate as the Northeast Family Shelter for adults caring for minor children and for residents in their third trimester of pregnancy. The county's homeless services leader said plans to open a family shelter in Gresham failed "due to a financial situation specific to hotel ownership."
The county's shelter page for the site lists "Rooms for 50+ families" — approximately 50 large-sized guest rooms with private baths.
The Portland Housing Bureau announced conditional awards for two projects on land-banked sites expected to produce 106 affordable homes in total. Mt. Tabor Annex Townhomes at 511 SE 60th Ave. would build 24 townhomes for purchase with $4.3 million in Metro Affordable Housing Bond funds, and Cornerstone at Gateway at 10226 E Burnside St. would build 82 one- and two-bedroom rental homes with $8 million in Gateway TIF funding. The bureau said the Mt. Tabor award brings Metro Bond-funded units in Portland to 2,177, exceeding the city's initial goal by 48%.
The Mt. Tabor award is conditional pending Metro concept endorsement; Cornerstone at Gateway proceeds through a development agreement.
Residents of Battle Ground Mobile Estates, a park of about 350 people ages 55 and up, asked the Battle Ground City Council for protections against redevelopment after a resident purchase effort stalled. Residents said 51% of the community expressed intent to buy the park after a June 25 notice of opportunity, but estimated the cost would run around $40 million. The council will discuss options Monday, September 21.
Clark County's moratorium on manufactured home park redevelopment, approved in August 2025 and extended to February 2026, covers unincorporated areas only and does not apply inside Battle Ground city limits.
An internal Los Angeles housing department memo said SRO Housing Corp., which operates 2,500 units of affordable housing in nearly three dozen Skid Row buildings, needed "immediate assistance," was facing "severe financial distress," anticipated roughly six months of solvency, and would shut down without help. CEO Anita Nelson told Politico she never told the city the organization expected to close in six months and said it is not currently planning to do so.
Another major Skid Row supportive-housing landlord, the Skid Row Housing Trust, collapsed in 2023.
The Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development projected its annual capacity dropping from roughly $330 million supporting 20 projects this fiscal year to about $130 million supporting seven projects in 2027–28, with the next housing bond not scheduled until 2034. Proposition C on the November ballot would raise the Affordable Housing Trust Fund's $50 million annual cap to about $125 million, and Proposition I would dedicate $125 million in taxes on high-end property sales to non-market housing. 48 Hills reported more than 12,000 affordable homes are in the pipeline awaiting funding.
More than $1 billion in affordable-housing bond money approved over the past ten years built almost 5,000 units and funded roughly 2,000 more now coming online.
Denver's Department of Housing Stability submitted plans August 18 to build two 20,000-square-foot cold-weather shelter buildings holding around 200 guests each at 4001 and 4121 N. Monroe St. in Elyria-Swansea, the former site of the Monroe Tiny Home Village, whose contract the city declined to renew in the 2026 budget as part of a set of non-renewals of non-congregate shelter sites that saved $12.4 million. HOST executive director Cole Chandler said the goal is not to add capacity but to protect against buildings going offline or emergencies; if approved, the buildings would be the city's second-largest homeless facility.
The nearby 48th Avenue Men's Shelter is currently the city's largest homeless facility.
San Francisco's Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing held three community-listening sessions across the city in the past week on its plan to rebid homelessness services contracts, and the deadline for its request for information was extended from September 21 to mid-October. The chair of the Homeless Emergency Services Provider Association, which represents around 35 providers, said the feedback questions are nuanced and answering them has taken significant effort, and providers said outcomes-based payment could penalize organizations serving higher-acuity clients.
The reprocurement policy tying contracts to outcomes was announced in late August, covering roughly $500 million in homelessness services contracts.
At a community meeting required during the zoning process, Denver's Department of Housing Stability presented plans for a 20-family homeless shelter near Columbine Street and 43rd Avenue in Elyria-Swansea. Residents said the area lacks grocery stores, childcare and green space, and questioned whether shelters are being distributed equitably across the city; neighbors also cited the proposed 400-bed cold-weather shelter about a mile away on Monroe Street, which has its own community meeting October 8.
The city filed site plans August 18 for the separate 400-bed Monroe Street cold-weather shelter about a mile away.
KWB Apartments, a permanent supportive housing complex at 44 N. 1000 West developed in partnership by First Step House and Housing Connect, opened with 67 apartments for people exiting long-term homelessness. The $26 million project, funded through public and private sources, pairs the units with on-site case management, mental health care and recovery support; a project official said retention data for this housing model with supportive services runs 90 to 95 percent.
The DHS public-charge rule took effect Friday, September 18, with no publicly reported court order blocking it as of publication. Immigration officers may now weigh applicants' use of means-tested benefits — including federal housing assistance, SNAP, WIC and Medicaid — in green-card adjudications for applications filed on or after that date. Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, sued in federal court in Manhattan on September 14 to block the rule.
The states' complaint says that for benefits received before September 18, 2026, officers will only consider public cash assistance for income maintenance.
The Federal Open Market Committee voted 12–0 to raise its benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point to a range of 3.75% to 4%, the first increase since 2023. Chair Kevin Warsh cited core PCE inflation of 3.2% and CPI of 2.4%, saying underlying inflation trends "have not meaningfully improved." The 10-year Treasury yield, which mortgage rates track, reached 5% this week for the first time in three years.
The 30-year fixed mortgage averaged 6.95% in Freddie Mac's September 17 survey, up from 6.76% the prior week.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.95% in Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week ending September 17, up from 6.76% the prior week.
A year ago at this time, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.26%, per the same survey.
U.S. Census Bureau · 2026-09-17 · on August housing starts and building permits
Privately-owned housing starts ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,275,000 in August, 2.6 percent below the revised July estimate of 1,309,000 and 1.2 percent below August 2025. Single-family starts rose 7.6 percent to a 918,000 rate, while total building permits fell 2.7 percent to a 1,394,000 rate; the release notes the monthly changes in total and single-family starts are within the ±90% confidence intervals.
Permits were 3.5 percent above the August 2025 rate of 1,347,000.
The OCC and FDIC proposed on August 12 raising the asset threshold for the full large-bank Community Reinvestment Act examination from $1.649 billion to more than $10 billion, which would move banks between those sizes out of the separate community-development test that has driven bank capital into LIHTC investments. Industry participants told the outlet CRA motivation often raises the price investors pay for housing tax credits by about ten cents per dollar, and that reduced incentives could lower equity pricing. Public comment is due October 13.
2026-09-21 — Battle Ground City Council discusses options for manufactured home park protections (source)
2026-09-25 — Applications due from the City of Los Angeles and L.A. County for the federal homelessness roles LAHSA is relinquishing; the CoC Board's pick is then reviewed by HUD and the federal judge (source)
2026-10-08 — Community meeting on Denver's proposed 400-bed Monroe Street cold-weather shelter (source)
2026-10-13 — Comment deadline on HUD's CoC additional-incentives research notice (source)
2026-10-13 — Comment deadline on the OCC/FDIC Community Reinvestment Act examination-threshold proposal (source)