HUD OIG issued a 25-page memorandum to HUD General Counsel David Woll comparing admission and termination requirements across public housing, Housing Choice Vouchers, project-based rental assistance, Section 202/811, ESG, CoC, HOPWA and HOME for criminal activity, substance use and immigration status. The memo stated that because HUD has not issued regulations implementing PRWORA, it “still remains unclear the extent to which PRWORA applies to any HUD programs in practice,” and that programs not covered by Section 214 “might not impose any eligibility restrictions on the basis of immigration status.” It recounted the November 2025 HUD notice, HUD’s litigation stay in certain states, and the February 18, 2026 DOJ Office of Legal Counsel opinion that partially superseded the notice.
The November 2025 HUD notice the memo analyzes was vacated by the District of Rhode Island on September 21, 2026, three days before the memo’s date.
Federal Register (HUD) · on HUD's proposed NSPIRE inspection-scoring revisions
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).
WESA · on ex-Home Forward CEO Ivory Mathews hired on a 7-0 board vote
The Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh board voted 7-0 Thursday to appoint Ivory N. Mathews as executive director, with a first day of October 1. Mathews led Home Forward from 2022 until April 2026 and remains the subject of an Oregon Government Ethics Commission investigation opened last month over her taxpayer-funded travel spending. HACP has a $255 million budget for 2027 and houses roughly 18,000 Pittsburghers.
Willamette Week reported the expected pick a day before the vote; outgoing director Caster Binion departs at the end of September.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reported that Hollywood East, the largest apartment complex managed by Portland housing authority Home Forward, houses seniors and people with disabilities amid violence, drug activity, pest infestations and frequent resident deaths. The 14-story Northeast Portland building is a project-based Section 8 community with 286 apartments. The article reported the conditions as the city and Multnomah County decommission more than 1,000 adult shelter beds and seek to place people from the streets directly into publicly subsidized housing.
Home Forward's property page says the community has a waiting list preference for seniors and persons with disabilities.
Willamette Week reported, citing the Pittsburgh nonprofit newsroom Public Source, that the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh is poised to pick former Home Forward CEO Ivory Mathews as its next executive director, with a board vote set for its September 24 meeting. Mathews resigned from Home Forward this spring after Willamette Week reported on her travel spending while the agency struggled to fill more than 900 empty units. Home Forward owns and operates around 7,000 affordable housing units and provides about 12,000 housing vouchers on an annual budget of around $300 million.
After Mathews' resignation, the Oregon Government Ethics Commission voted unanimously to open an investigation into her travel expenditures.
Courthouse News Service · on denial of HUD's motion to dismiss housing authorities' grant-conditions suit
U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in Oakland denied the federal government's motion to dismiss, or transfer to Washington state, a lawsuit by the housing authorities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Baltimore, and Salem challenging DEI-related conditions on HUD's Operating Subsidy, Capital Fund, Family Self-Sufficiency, and Multifamily Housing Service Coordinator grants. The government had argued the suit duplicated an earlier case over different HUD grants; Tigar wrote that "the two suits challenge identical grant conditions imposed on distinct grants received by distinct entities."
Tigar issued a temporary restraining order in October 2025, three days after the suit was filed.
Home Forward opened applications September 9 for project-based waitlists at five subsidized affordable properties: Meadowlark Place, Dahlke Manor, Hollywood East, Medallion Apartments, and Gresham Civic Station. The application window runs through 11:59 p.m. September 21, and eligible households must earn less than 50% of area median income. The release did not specify how many units or waitlist slots will be filled.
Home Forward is planning around an estimated $31 million budget shortfall, per Willamette Week's September 2 reporting.
The National Housing Law Project submitted a comment September 8 opposing HUD's proposed rescission of portions of the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard, writing that the proposal "puts poor and working families that rely on HUD assistance at greater risk of danger, displacement, and homelessness by reducing notification and mitigation requirements for homes that are vulnerable to flooding." HUD published the proposed rule July 10, 2026; supporters of the rescission argued local governments know their flood conditions better than federal officials. The comment period closed September 8.
Comments on the proposed rule (Federal Register document 2026-13939, published July 10, 2026) closed September 8, 2026.
Home Forward said it plans to raise the share of monthly income most of its tenants and voucher holders pay toward rent — a tenant now paying 28% of income would pay 31% — to help close an estimated $31 million budget gap, with the change taking effect no earlier than February 1, 2027. Spokesman Rylee Ahnen said about 12,356 households would be affected, including Housing Choice and project-based voucher holders, and the agency expects the increases to reduce the deficit by $6 million. Tenants will get 90 days' notice, and the increases coincide with the end of a one-year rent-increase moratorium Home Forward imposed on landlords who accept Section 8 vouchers.
In July, Home Forward said its budget shortfall was $31 million — double the figure the agency had described earlier in the year, an error interim director Michael Buonocore attributed to previous leadership.
Federal Register · on loosened MTW safe harbors on work requirements, term limits, and spending
HUD published a revised Operations Notice for the Moving to Work expansion, changing the "safe harbor" limits that let expansion agencies adopt policies without prior HUD approval: the maximum work requirement per individual rises to 40 hours per week, the minimum term of assistance under term limits drops to two years, and the safe harbor restricting Local Non-Traditional activity spending to 10% of the Housing Assistance Payment budget is deleted. The revisions apply to MTW expansion agencies, and comments are due November 2.
This is HUD's fifth issuance affecting public housing or Moving to Work agencies in six business days, following PIH notices 2026-21, 2026-22, and 2026-23 and the August 28 admission-and-occupancy collection notice.
U.S. Attorney Scott E. Bradford announced that federal prosecutors will expand a three-year, downtown-focused fentanyl enforcement partnership with the FBI and Portland police to target dealers operating in public housing and outside drug treatment clinics. "We cannot and will not tolerate dealers on our streets, outside of our clinics or inside our public housing," Bradford said at a news conference.
The U.S. Attorney's Office reported on August 25 that more than 100 people have been charged with fentanyl trafficking in downtown Portland since 2023.
The Reading, Pennsylvania housing authority convened advocates, service providers, and local officials on August 20 to weigh whether to adopt work requirements or time limits for public housing residents under HUD's proposed rule, which lets authorities adopt either, both, or neither. The authority operates 1,610 public housing units, saw 120 households exit in 2025, and received 2,296 applications when its waiting list opened for four days in 2023; president and CEO Stacey Keppen said no decision has been made.
HUD's proposed work-requirements rule closed comments May 1; it would make work requirements a condition of continued occupancy, not admission, and exempts older adults and people with disabilities.
HUD announced updated guidance (PIH-2026-23) for its public housing demolition and disposition program, citing an estimated $170 billion capital-needs backlog across PHA-managed properties. The changes expand the definition of obsolete buildings eligible for redevelopment or sale, allow PHAs with 75 or fewer units to reposition all their properties at once and exit the public housing program, and expand demolition and disposition eligibility for mixed-finance and scattered-site properties. HUD said the tools will move public housing to the Section 8 platform and reduce reliance on federal funds.
This is HUD's third PIH issuance affecting public housing agencies in three business days, following the MTW offsets-and-appeals notice PIH 2026-22 and the Operating Fund calculation notice PIH 2026-21.
HUD published a 30-day Paperwork Reduction Act notice seeking OMB approval to renew the information collection requiring public housing agencies to maintain and make available written admission and continued-occupancy policies under QHWRA and HOTMA, with comments due September 28. The revision updates burden calculations to reflect that the number of active PHAs has fallen from 2,774 to 2,667 since the last approval, which HUD attributed to PHA mergers and program terminations through the Rental Assistance Demonstration. HUD published a companion 60-day notice for the Public Housing Capital Fund Program collection the same day.
The predecessor 60-day comment notice for this collection published February 18, 2026 at 91 FR 7508; this is the renewal of OMB Control No. 2577-0230, not the separate work-requirements rulemaking.
NAHRO reported that HUD published PIH Notice 2026-21, setting operating subsidy grant eligibility calculations for calendar year 2027, with new provisions beyond the usual annual terms. The notice asserts HUD's right to "terminate, reduce, or limit the availability of a grant" for performance or substantial noncompliance, makes Operating Subsidy recipients and their contractors responsible for complying with all existing and future executive orders, and references a proposed HUD Unified Grant System whose reporting requirements would apply to all grant recipients. NAHRO said the notice also states that provisions not specifically struck down by a judge will be considered by HUD to remain in place.
Comments on the proposed HUD Unified Grant System reporting collection are due September 8, 2026, under a 60-day Federal Register notice published July 8, 2026.
A preliminary review by an Oregon Government Ethics Commission investigator found former Home Forward CEO Ivory Mathews did not obtain authorization for travel spending between 2023 and 2025, including $784.95 for three nights at the Portland Marriott Downtown Waterfront during a conference Home Forward was hosting and $8,135 charged to the agency for a Hawaii trip. The investigator found a "substantial objective basis" to believe Mathews violated conflict-of-interest and misuse-of-office provisions; Home Forward's general counsel said the agency's travel policy did not apply at the CEO level.
The commission voted unanimously the prior week to open a full investigation; Mathews resigned in May 2025.
NAHRO · on PIH Notice 2026-22 on Housing Choice Voucher reserve offsets
HUD published Notice PIH 2026-22, which describes the implementation of an offset of funding for the original Moving to Work agencies, the process by which those agencies may appeal, and the criteria HUD will use in evaluating appeals. Under the notice, HUD may offset Housing Choice Voucher reserves until an initial MTW agency holds a reserve balance equal to four months of operating expenses; offset appeals are due by 5 p.m. ET on October 19, 2026.
HUD rescinded payment standard flexibilities for the Emergency Housing Voucher and Stability Voucher programs the prior week, per an August 19 NLIHC report.
LAist · 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.
The Bipartisan Policy Center published an analysis of the comment record on HUD's proposed rule letting public housing agencies and assisted-housing owners opt into work requirements and time limits, reporting that the public submitted nearly 2,000 comments. The brief said the rule could affect a share of the more than 4.3 million households served by HUD's Housing Choice Voucher, public housing, and PBRA programs, and that an estimated 20 Moving to Work agencies have already established some form of work requirement.
The proposed rule published March 2, 2026, closed comments May 1, and HUD has said it plans a final rule this fall.