What’s Next For Home Forward?

Home Forward CEO Ivory Mathews resigned April 29, two weeks after WW first reported on her lavish travel on the public dime. Mathews, who had led the agency since 2022, received a $171,424 severance package that the agency’s board of directors said was the cost of making a clean break.

Mathews’ departure marks a turning point for the organization, which functions as the city of Portland’s housing authority—providing 7,000 affordable apartments and just over 10,000 federal rent assistance vouchers to Multnomah County residents.

While Mathews might have bid farewell to the organization’s many problems, her resignation gave rise to calls from the public, agency employees, tenants and local officials for a long-overdue reckoning for the agency.

“It’s outrageous that Home Forward has vacant units in the middle of a housing crisis. We need to remake the board to ensure greater accountability and oversight,” City Councilor Olivia Clark says. “This agency needs a thorough top-to-bottom review. No more business as usual. Its top priority must be to fill every vacant unit as soon as possible; Portlanders cannot afford to wait any longer.”

After all, the problems at Home Forward, documented by WW in a series of stories over the past six months—more than 900 vacant units, drug dealing in hallways, lackadaisical property management, buildings inching closer to the red—still remain after Mathews’ departure. And many of those problems at least in part predated Mathews’ arrival.

That leaves an agency that’s rid of its controversial CEO but is far from clear of its problems—and to some critics, Mathews’ departure is just the first step in a series of drastic changes the agency must make to do right by the people it’s meant to serve.

“Workers are skeptical that her resignation will be enough to rebuild the organization’s credibility, or realign with their mission of keeping vulnerable Portland families housed,” AFSCME Local 3135 said in a statement following Mathews’ departure. Local president Jennifer McMillan said the board and agency executives “had failed to ethically serve our communities.” Meanwhile, agency officials have attributed many of their problems to forces beyond their control, as have other affordable housing developers—including inflation, rising operating costs, higher-acuity residents, and government underfunding.

Below are five questions about the organization’s future—and what comes next.

Is the current board up to the task?

The Home Forward board of commissioners is responsible for hiring and firing the CEO, approving the annual budget, and ensuring that the agency’s operations and finances are running smoothly. Its nine members are volunteers, and their day jobs range from urban studies professor to nonprofit director.

In recent years, the board appears to have let executives atop the agency run it with few questions asked. It green-lighted policies that eased screening requirements for prospective tenants and took away a disciplinary tool the agency used to punish bad tenant behavior. It rubber-stamped dozens of contracts and contract extensions at the agency, and rarely voiced concerns.

The board held its monthly meetings virtually and consistently had one to three openings, a responsibility of local governments—and ultimately the mayor of Portland and the Portland City Council—to fill.

Yet throughout WW’s six months of coverage of the agency’s many problems, the board mostly stayed quiet. And when WW asked the board specifically about Mathews’ travel spending in excess of $100,000 over three years, it came to her defense.

“Ivory’s engagement in national affordable housing organizations is a core part of her role and strengthens our work,” Gebhardt said at the time, adding that commissioners had “full confidence” in Mathews’ leadership.

They may have been the only ones. City councilors called Mathews’ spending an irresponsible use of taxpayer funds, and perhaps the most important vote of confidence—that of AFSCME Local 3135, the union that represents 205 of the agency’s 340 employees—was lost. The union said in a statement it had lost faith not only in Mathews, but also in the board.

Still, the board dug in. Commissioners took turns defending Mathews at an April 24 board meeting.

Mathews resigned April 29. At that point, board members admitted they could have kept a closer watch on the agency’s performance.

“We hear you and understand your criticism, particularly regarding speed and responsiveness, and we can do better,” said board chair Matthew Gebhardt, a professor at Portland State University.

That did little to stanch criticism, especially after the board unanimously approved Mathews’ severance package on May 1, which along with six months’ pay, or $171,424, also includes six months of health insurance and a vacation accrual payout.

“You were appointed to this board because of your experience, your judgment, and the trust placed in you to act in the public’s best interest and to steward funds responsibly. The funds you are considering approving today [for Mathews] could reduce furlough delays, ease the burden on staff, and support the very mission this agency was created to serve,” said Home Forward employee Kelly Ellis-Hernandez. “That is a choice, and it is your choice. And it is one you will be held accountable for.”

Calls for the board to resign came from elected officials, too. Multnomah County Commissioner Shannon Singleton has called on every single member to resign. So has Portland City Councilor Eric Zimmerman.

The board has not responded to multiple requests for comment from WW about calls for the commissioners to resign.

How will the organization stabilize financially?

With an annual operating budget of around $300 million, Home Forward is a mammoth agency with two tusks.

More than two-thirds of its budget comes from the feds, in the form of rent assistance vouchers from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Home Forward distributes more than 12,000 rent assistance vouchers to low-income residents across Multnomah County. Some of those vouchers are tied to specific units within buildings. The rest can be used in the private market, at the discretion of the client. (The Trump administration and Congress’ general ineffectiveness has caused uncertainty for housing authorities that rely on federal funding for vouchers. Home Forward warned last year that it faced a $30 million deficit largely due to projections of less congressional funding per voucher than previously awarded. However, earlier this year, the agency stated that federal funding was more complete than previously thought—dropping the agency’s budget deficit to $13.8 million.)

The other prong: Home Forward owns and operates about 7,000 affordable apartments across the city, spread across dozens of buildings. The agency acts as both owner of the properties and landlord, collecting rent from tenants and using that money to pay down buildings’ monthly debts and mortgages.

But as WW highlighted in a Feb. 25 story, Home Forward’s housing portfolio is inching toward financial distress. The agency has blamed the poor finances on issues outside of its control, including spotty rent collection and rising insurance, building maintenance and security costs. Indeed, general expenses have skyrocketed since the pandemic, and housing providers say tenant needs have risen as their ability to pay for even affordable units has dropped.

But experts in affordable housing, and local elected officials, have pointed out some practical solutions the agency could take. It could more strictly enforce monthly rents and repayment plans. It could reduce overhead by cutting the number of contracts it approves with consultants assisting the executive team with nonoperational matters. And most importantly, the agency could lower rents to reduce vacancies.

How will Home Forward reduce vacancies and improve turnover times?

As WW reported earlier this year, the agency is sitting on more than 900 vacant units and takes an average of six months to fill an empty unit—no doubt one of the reasons its rent revenues aren’t keeping pace with expenses.

While the agency blamed the vacancies primarily on market forces outside of its control, it modestly lowered rents at a handful of its buildings this year in hopes that vacancies would fall. Agency leaders also said they’d begun meeting weekly with property managers to maintain closer insight into individual properties.

Early data presented by the agency in March suggested the needle had moved in the right direction. Chief operating officer Ian Davie reported to the board that the vacancy rate had fallen from 14% in November to 11.7% in March.

And facing public pressure about agency transparency following WW’s April 16 story on Mathews’ travel, the agency announced it would set up a public-facing dashboard to provide more real-time data about vacancies and turnover time. The board pledged to bring in a consultant to look at the agency’s operations.

Agency spokesman Rylee Ahnen says tools like aggressive marketing of available apartments, move-in incentives, lower rents, and “streamlining maintenance” for vacant units are all being tried. At a May 5 meeting of the City Council’s Housing and Permitting Committee, Davie said lowering rents could not be the only solution to the financial problem. “It ultimately is an exercise in balancing mission with financial prudence,” he said. “We’ve had to be very careful there...as we reduce rents and as costs increase, [our debt coverage ratio] is going to shift in a tough direction.”

Another critical question revolves around how the agency will balance expansion of its portfolio with keeping its current portfolio functioning and safe. As WW reported earlier this year, the agency continues to acquire and build new affordable buildings every year—mostly containing units at the higher end of the affordable spectrum that Home Forward is already struggling to fill—even as its current portfolio becomes more unwieldy.

The agency has given no indications it will slow its rate of production.

How will the agency better serve tenants?

Renters across Home Forward’s buildings have begged the agency to take seriously the drug dealing, property damage, and sporadic violence taking place in their halls. And while the agency and its board have consistently told tenants, and media outlets, that they take the concerns seriously, tenants who spoke with WW say the agency is just offering lip service.

The issues compounded during and after the COVID-19 years, tenants say. During that time, Home Forward made sweeping changes to its operations.

Leaders emphasized to staff that evictions were a last-resort option, offering greater leniency to tenants with a checkered or nonexistent track record of paying rent. (At one point earlier this year, over half of Home Forward tenants were more than 30 days late on rent.) The agency, with the approval of the board, loosened criminal screening policies for prospective tenants and greatly narrowed the circumstances under which someone could have their voucher revoked for bad and even violent behavior.

Those policy changes, paired with properties chronically understaffed by both Home Forward and their third-party property managers, created a sense of lawlessness in several buildings, as WW has reported.

While much of the board’s attention has been focused on Mathews’ travel, plus vacancy rates and finances, it’s given little indication how the agency plans to better serve tenants. Tenants, though, have offered plenty of ideas: implement fob-only access to buildings and elevators to limit damage by nonresidents, punish disruptive or criminal behavior, require I.D. checks for visitors, and keep common areas free of urine, feces, strangers and trash. (Ahnen says the agency has taken steps to strengthen security and property access at some buildings.)

“The board must become more visible, accessible, and accountable to the people it serves [by] holding regular in-person meetings, ensuring consistent attendance, and creating predictable opportunities for public engagement each month,” says Brendan Jamieson, a tenant at the Home Forward-owned Lovejoy Station. “Board members and senior staff should step beyond meeting rooms and into every Home Forward property—listening directly to tenants, observing conditions firsthand, and rebuilding trust through presence and action.”

How involved should the city of Portland be moving forward?

Local elected officials have largely given wide berth to Home Forward, a public corporation that operates independently. But the city of Portland in particular is inextricably linked to Home Forward.

First, through the agency’s board. It comprises two commissioners nominated by the city of Gresham, four by the city of Portland, and two by Multnomah County, plus one Home Forward client. The mayor of Portland brings the nominees of the various governments to the Portland City Council, which has final approval of all appointees.

Second, through the Portland Housing Bureau. The bureau has regulatory agreements with Home Forward for 2,900 units across 35 buildings. For the most part, that’s because Portland has provided public money or incentives to the agency; a bureau spokesperson previously told WW that the regulatory agreements require the agency to share a vacancy rate with the Housing Bureau every six months.

The Portland City Council recently approved $8.8 million for rent buy-downs, available to affordable housing providers. The idea is that providers, chosen through a formal process at the city, will use the money to pay off remaining building debts, in turn allowing them to lower rents.

It’s likely Home Forward will pursue some of that money, which offers another avenue for the City Council to seek accountability.

The Housing Bureau and Mayor Wilson have said for months they created a “strike team” to reduce vacancies in affordable housing buildings, including at Home Forward properties. But to date, the city can’t say how much of a difference those efforts have made. Wilson says he’s also convened a table of providers to discuss strengthening safety at affordable buildings by doing things like “improving communication between Portland police and affordable housing property managers, developing training and information sharing for best practices related to onsite security, and exploring new technologies to enhance site monitoring.”

The mayor has voiced notes of concern, but given little detail about what he wants Home Forward to do differently. (He openly disapproved of Mathews’ severance package, however.) In a statement, Wilson says he expects better from the agency: “Home Forward must return to accountable stewardship of public resources and champion safety and service for those who need housing most.”