The First Circuit on September 24 vacated the district court judgment that had set aside HUD's FY2026 Continuum of Care NOFO and remanded the case, leaving the $4.04 billion competition, with its $1.3 billion set-aside for transitional housing and services-only projects, due September 30. Oregon set the 2027 maximum allowable rent increase at 10%, up from 9.5% this year. HUD's Office of Inspector General projected more than $2.7 billion a year in improper payments across project-based rental assistance and Housing Choice Vouchers. Portland's Impact Reduction Program removed 140 campsites last week, and three people used a shelter bed for at least one night. Apartment List reported the national median rent fell 0.1% in September to $1,388, the first monthly decline since January.
The Oregon Department of Administrative Services set the maximum allowable rent increase for calendar year 2027 at 10% for tenancies subject to ORS 90.324(b), up from 9.5% in 2026. The cap for manufactured-dwelling parks and marinas with more than 30 spaces is 6%. The statutory formula is the lesser of 10% or 7% plus CPI.
ORS 90.324 requires DAS to calculate and publish the following year's percentage no later than September 30 each year.
The Impact Reduction Program removed 140 campsites during September 21-27 and received 1,898 new campsite reports, including 475 reports of people living in vehicles. Assessment teams visited 345 active campsites. 33 people expressed interest in a shelter referral, 13 accepted one, and 3 used a shelter bed for at least one night.
The prior week (September 14-20) the program removed 155 campsites and received 1,524 reports; 15 people accepted referrals and 6 used a bed.
Julia Brim-Edwards, Sharon Meieran and Shannon Singleton debated Monday night at Portland State University in a KOIN 6 and City Club of Portland forum, with homelessness, addiction and the county's deflection center as the main subjects. All three said they do not support camping on the streets; Singleton and Brim-Edwards said drug testing or treatment should not be required to receive services such as shelter, and Singleton and Meieran said the deflection center is not working while Brim-Edwards said it had improved. Asked about the county's Moda Center commitment of over $100 million, Meieran and Brim-Edwards said they supported the investment, Singleton said any deal should benefit the communities displaced from Lower Albina, and Brim-Edwards and Singleton named a motor vehicle rental tax as a plausible funding source.
The three are running to replace Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, who opted not to run for a second four-year term.
Vancouver Homeless Assistance and Resource Team manager Jamie Spinelli, responding to the outlet's question of why the city does not ban camping citywide after adopting a 1,500-foot buffer around the 120-bed Bridge Shelter, said neither the city nor the county system has the enforcement, jail or shelter capacity to resolve unsheltered homelessness through enforcement. She cited a county report that the jail has had no available beds 88% of the time since January 2025 and asked where the 500+ people living outdoors would go. The outlet counted more than 100 tents and tarps within a few blocks of the Share House in downtown Vancouver on Thursday.
The city already bans camping within 1,000 feet of its four Safe Stay communities.
Metro opened applications for its Housing Production Accelerator Fund, which gives local governments grants and technical assistance for pre-development work such as permit review support, feasibility studies, environmental site assessments and regulatory updates. The fund is backed by a one-time $5 million investment from regional construction excise tax reserves and addresses four of the 16 actions in Metro's Regional Housing Coordination Strategy. Applications are reviewed and awarded on a rolling basis.
Metro Council President Juan Carlos González said creating the fund was the Council's first vote of 2026.
The Times profiled Dignity Village, the roughly 60-person self-governed tiny-home community next to Portland's composting facility, describing its village council, security department and incident-report process. The piece reported an annual operating budget of $60,000, about $1,000 per resident, and said about 60 percent of residents exit to some form of permanent housing versus 42 percent at city-run sites. Councilor Mitch Green was reported attending a Village Federation meeting of self-governed sites.
Green said Portland's city-run tiny home villages cost taxpayers approximately $40,000 per person annually.
The Washington State Department of Commerce awarded Ridgefield a $70,000 grant to speed up residential building-permit review; the city will work with a software vendor to identify and implement improvements. Commerce announced $475,000 in grants across eight local governments on Thursday, including Tacoma, Bellevue, Lacey, Tumwater, Yakima, Pierce County and the Snohomish County Health Department.
A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by the Times, released September 23, put Councilmember Nithya Raman at 39% and Mayor Karen Bass at 28% among likely Los Angeles voters, with 33% undecided. The online survey of 2,150 likely city voters ran September 15-20 with a margin of error of about 3 points. Bass's unfavorable rating was 63%; the poll listed moving homeless people indoors and building more affordable housing among voters' top issues.
Bass beat Raman 34% to 29% in the June 2 primary.
King County Executive Girmay Zahilay transmitted a $746 million supplemental budget to the County Council on September 24, amending the 2026-2027 budget adopted last November. It carries the $19.5 million package for 612 shelter and affordable-housing units announced September 21, $4.4 million to extend the Salvation Army SODO Shelter lease through 2027 (over 200 beds), and $4.2 million for contract and audit oversight in the Department of Community and Human Services. The release said the General Fund faces a $120 million shortfall in 2028-2029 and that the proposal includes $15.4 million in General Fund savings.
Council Budget Chair Rod Dembowski said the council intends to adopt the budget before Thanksgiving.
The Phoenix City Council voted Wednesday, September 23, to begin building private partnerships for a $5 million master leasing pilot in which the city leases apartments from landlords and subleases them to people leaving the shelter system who would fail credit or eviction screening. The program would start with at least 50 units and is funded through a combination of federal funds and the city's Office of Homeless Solutions. The nonprofit A New Leaf said it would help identify shelter residents who are employed and stable but blocked by rental history.
Maricopa County had confirmed 230 heat-related deaths in 2026 as of the report, a 60% increase over the same point last year, with another 567 deaths still under investigation. County Chief Medical Examiner Jeff Johnston said the 2023 record of 645 will likely stand but 2026 could be the second- or third-highest year. Preliminary data showed 34% of this year's heat deaths occurred indoors, up from about 24% over the prior three years; early county data showed people experiencing homelessness may account for a smaller share of this year's heat deaths than in previous years, and the Phoenix City Council approved more than $5 million for heat relief this year.
Heat deaths in Maricopa County fell 30% in 2025 from the prior year.
A jury trial opened Monday in an inverse-condemnation suit by two Tower Grove South homeowners who say the City of St. Louis let a Sudanese couple live in a tarp-and-shopping-cart structure on the sidewalk in front of their house for 44 months, from August 2020 until the city tore it down in April 2024. The plaintiffs seek $66,000, the rent they say the property could have earned; Assistant City Counselor Erin McGowan argued the city “was pouring resources to get them off the streets” and formed a task force in 2023. The trial is expected to last three days.
Media coverage at the time reported the couple back on the street at South Spring and Gravois within days of the April 2024 removal.
Two weeks after the South Grand Community Improvement District issued and then retracted a letter telling businesses not to give water to unhoused people and to call 911, Peter and Paul Community Services and the city's Continuum of Care increased outreach along the corridor, where providers estimate one to two dozen people live unsheltered. Alderwomen Daniela Velazquez and Alisha Sonnier said they would use their ex-officio seats to oversee the CID board, and Sonnier said she is exploring pooling several CIDs' funds for a full-time social worker. Human services director Adam Pearson said shelters have been running near full.
The Bangor City Council voted unanimously Monday night not to fund a local version of Portland, Maine's Project HOPE, which would have hired a coordinator and three housing navigators through three local shelters to move people from encampments into apartments. MaineHousing had offered to cover 70% of the cost, leaving the city to contribute $126,000; councilors said they could not agree on a funding source among opioid settlement funds, the unassigned fund balance, or a community development block grant. Councilor Susan Faloon said the vote meant saying no to $300,000 in state funding.
A motion to postpone failed 3-5, with Deane, Faloon and Leonard in favor.
Clark County coroner's records showed heat contributed to at least 260 deaths in 2026, 74 of them people listed as homeless, as Las Vegas closed its second-warmest summer on record. Clark County said it conducts roughly 1,200 encampment cleanups a year using Public Works, Social Services, Code Enforcement and outreach partners. An outreach volunteer described a woman whose heart medication was discarded during a cleanup.
The 260 and 74 figures are countywide coroner counts for Clark County, not city of Las Vegas totals.
The First Circuit on September 24 vacated the Rhode Island district court's August 7 judgment that had set aside HUD's FY2026 Continuum of Care NOFO and remanded both appeals for further proceedings after the plaintiffs withdrew the notice-and-comment claim on which the district court had ruled; the mandate issued September 28. NN4Y reported that the NOFO, which provides $4.04 billion and includes a $1.3 billion set-aside for transitional housing and supportive-services-only projects, remains in effect as written, with applications due September 30 at 8:00 PM ET, and that the district court can now rule on the plaintiffs' remaining claims, including the threshold criteria and the law-enforcement-policy requirement. HUD's competition page states the department must make awards by December 1, 2026, and that CA-600 (Los Angeles) applications have a separate October 14 deadline.
The First Circuit's September 16 stay order found HUD “has made a strong showing that it is likely to succeed on the merits” of its argument that the set-aside is not a “bonus or other incentive” under 42 U.S.C. § 11386b(d).
HUD's Office of Inspector General announced two audits projecting more than $2.7 billion in improper payments annually across HUD's two largest rental assistance programs. The OIG attributed $1.291 billion to the Multifamily Project-Based Rental Assistance program, citing incorrect rent calculations, missing eligibility documentation, and inadequate oversight by performance-based contract administrators, and $1.430 billion to the Public and Indian Housing Tenant-Based Rental Assistance program (Housing Choice Vouchers), citing inaccurate income calculations, outdated documentation, improper utility allowance determinations, and insufficient HUD monitoring of public housing agencies.
The OIG said both programs have gone nine consecutive years without HUD producing the improper payment estimates required under the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019.
Apartment List reported the national median rent fell 0.1% in September to $1,388, the first monthly decline since January, and is down 0.4% from a year earlier after year-over-year growth bottomed at -1.6% in April. The national multifamily vacancy rate fell to 7% from a February peak of 7.3%, and units took an average of 34 days to lease. Among large metros, San Antonio posted the largest annual decline at -4.5% and the San Francisco metro the largest gain at +12%.
Apartment List's September rent declines averaged -0.5 percent from 2022 to 2025 and -0.3 percent from 2017 to 2019.
FHFA's seasonally adjusted monthly House Price Index rose 0.3 percent in July and 2.6 percent from July 2025, and the previously reported 0.0 percent June figure was unchanged. Monthly changes across the nine census divisions ranged from -0.8 percent in the Mountain division to +1.5 percent in the Middle Atlantic, and 12-month changes from +0.6 percent in the Mountain division to +6.3 percent in the Middle Atlantic.
FHFA's July 28 release reported a 2.2 percent annual gain for May 2026.
Governor Michael Barr told the Chicago Fed's Housing Affordability 2026 summit that the Atlanta Fed's homeownership affordability index fell to 68 in July 2026, the lowest in 21 years, and that about half of renters are cost burdened with about one-fourth paying at least half their income in rent. He put the national housing shortfall at roughly 2 million to 5.5 million units and said the CPI rent index in August was 34 percent above December 2019. Barr said he supported the FOMC's rate increase the prior week and that, in his base case, further policy adjustments are likely to be needed.
The Board corrected the speech on September 28 to say 20 percent of rental units rented for $1,000 or less in 2024, versus 55 percent in 1980 adjusted for inflation.
HUD requested public comment, due November 30, 2026, on three revisions to the NSPIRE Scoring Notice governing inspections of public housing and HUD multifamily properties. The notice confirms that beginning October 1, 2026, deficiencies under the new affirmative requirements (fire-labeled doors, GFCI outlets, guardrails, HVAC, interior lighting, minimum electrical) will count toward a property's inspection score after two prior extensions, corrects two rows of the unit-sampling table, and fixes two figures in a scoring example. The notice does not apply to the Housing Choice Voucher or Project-Based Voucher programs.
HUD previously extended the start of scoring for the new affirmative requirements to October 1, 2025 (Notice PIH 2024-39) and then to October 1, 2026 (Notice PIH 2025-27).