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Home Forward, which serves as the city of Portland’s housing authority and provides rental assistance to thousands of Portlanders and owns 6,678 units of subsidized housing, says it’s facing a $35 million budget shortfall next year.
Home Forward spokesman Rylee Ahnen says that the largest budget reduction Home Forward is staring down is from the federal Housing Choice Voucher program, which provides Section 8 vouchers to low-income families. Ahnen says the nonprofit is bracing for a $14 million reduction in the program in 2026, thanks to insufficient funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to cover the costs of the program. Already, that program has taken a hit this year: WW reported in August that Home Forward could offer no additional vouchers through that program due to a funding shortfall.
The nonprofit’s CEO, Ivory Mathews, said in a statement to WW that the broader budget shortfall is due to “federal budget reductions” and “rapidly rising costs to operate and maintain affordable housing.” These pressures, Matthews said, have placed “unprecedented pressure on housing authorities nationwide, including Home Forward.”
Home Forward owns 6,678 units of affordable housing across the Portland area. Of its current year operating budget of $298 million, $199 million is spent on rental assistance paid directly to landlords by Home Forward. Another $62 million is spent on personnel and administrative expenses.
To cut costs, Ahnen says Home Forward is looking to lay off some staff, eliminate vacant positions and cut administrative costs.
“We will couple this with the use of program reserves, and one-time revenue sources to supplement the budget deficit,” Ahnen says. “These steps will help stabilize the budget as we continue to assess how our projections align with actual HUD funding distributions, which will become clearer in the Spring of 2026.”
