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Last week, the Oregon Government Ethics Commission voted unanimously to investigate the former CEO of Home Forward over lavish travel spending between 2023 and 2025.
Ivory Mathews resigned in May of this year from the largest housing authority in the state after WW reported on her extensive travel on the public dime while her agency, which provides affordable apartments to low-income Portlanders and provides some 12,000 housing vouchers, struggled.
The ethics commission took the 8-0 vote after a staff investigator recommended the body move to a full investigation. His recommendation followed preliminary review of the case, which was prompted by a complainant named Amy Chapman. The investigator said that there exists “substantial objective basis to believe that Mathews may have violated the use of office and conflict of interest provisions.”
That conclusion rests on the findings inside the 19-page preliminary review. Dated June 29, it contains much of what was already publicly known about Ivory Mathews’ extraneous travel spending, much of which was reported in a series of stories by WW.
But other findings by staff investigator Silas Patterson were new or more detailed than what was previously disclosed, and paint an even clearer picture of how Mathews used the agency to fund her travel—both work travel and, potentially, personal vacations.
Patterson’s report, exclusively obtained by WW through a public records request, teased out a few common themes that threaded together Mathews’ many travels to housing conferences and networking events: Mathews appeared to regularly exceeded per diem rates and reimbursement rates set by the feds. (Home Forward is primarily funded by the federal government.) Mathews did not appear to receive any authorization for travel expenses from the agency or its board. Mathews appears to have regularly tacked on additional days in other cities before or after destination conference dates, and charged expenses to Home Forward. And she regularly attached her personal hotel rewards account to her Home Forward-reimbursed stays across the country.
Patterson, too, noted that he didn’t believe he had all of the records that exist. He notes that he built his findings off of the “same documentation that Home Forward provided to Willamette Week,” however he noted that the records “appear to be incomplete.” (On multiple occasions, WW had to request additional records from Home Forward after certain receipts appeared to be missing.)
“At the time of this preliminary report, general counsel for Home Forward are still working to compile and provide Commission staff travel agendas and justifications for travel as well as their annual operating budgets,” Patterson wrote.
And perhaps most alarmingly, Patterson said that when he asked Home Forward to provide documentation of travel authorization requests or approvals for Mathews’ travels, the agency produced nothing and said it was because “authorizations were not required by their travel policy.”
But according to Patterson’s report, that answer appears to conflict with Home Forward’s written travel policy.
“Commission staff contacted Home Forward and referenced their travel policy and the requirement for authorization,” Patterson wrote in his June 29 report, “and at the time of this preliminary report have [not] yet received a response.”
Patterson did eventually receive an email from Home Forward’s general counsel, Juhi Aggarwal, explaining the discrepancy in a late June email, after the report had been all but baked. In that email, a copy of which OGEC provided to WW, she wrote that the agency’s travel policy doesn’t apply to the CEO, only those below the CEO and her three chiefs in the organizational chart.
“The quote you sent below from the Handbook applies to anyone who is supervised by a Department Director,” Aggarwal wrote.
If Aggarwal is correct about Home Forward’s policy, that means there exist no guardrails around the travel expenses of the agency’s leader—a remarkable oversight.
OGEC executive director Susan Myers said in an email that the “issue will be examined during the investigation.”
Patterson’s findings, he wrote in his report, show that there is “substantial objective basis to believe that Mathews may have violated the use of office and conflict of interest provisions.” Mathews’ conduct may be a violation of ORS 244.040, which prohibits a public official from using their position for private financial gain or “avoidance of financial detriment.” Patterson noted she “may have also failed to adhere to rules about a conflict of interest if she authorized her own travel expenses.”
Below are some of the details included in Patterson’s June 29 report about specific trips:
- Mathews stayed at the Portland Marriott Downtown for three nights in the summer of 2024 during a conference Home Forward was hosting. Home Forward paid $784.95 for the three nights. Mathews lives in Tigard, just nine miles away from the conference destination, Patterson noted. (The commute takes 15-20 minutes without traffic.)
- About this expense, Patterson wrote: “Home Forward is a housing authority of the City of Portland. Therefore, it would be expected that employees of the City of Portland would not need hotels to attend conferences within the City.”
- Mathews arrived in Orlando, Florida three days before a conference began. As WW previously reported, she upgraded to a hotel room that had a balcony view of a pool laser show. Patterson notes that the reservation was “booked for 2 adult guests.” She then spent five nights at a Marriott that cost $270 per night. Home Forward paid for all of the nights. About this trip, Patterson noted that there is “no indication these extra days were for business purposes. Therefore, it appears Home Forward funds were used for personal travel.”He added that Mathews appears to have “used incorrect GSA rates when requesting reimbursement” and “was paid a per diem more than what was permitted.”
- Plus, Home Forward may have paid for a personal guest of Mathews, which would run afoul of the agency’s travel policy. “It appears that Home Forward may have paid the cost for additional room occupants, and extra nights of lodging for personal use, because it appears that Ms. Mathews had a guest stay with her at the Marriott Orlando World Center Hotel, and that Ms. Mathews was accompanied by family members during her trip to Hawaii in 2024.”
- Speaking of Hawaii: That 2024 trip perhaps received the most attention by both WW and, later, The Oregonian. WW reported that Mathews went to Hawaii for six days to allegedly attend a conference on captive insurance, and had arrived three days before it began and flew out the last day of the conference. Patterson corroborated that reporting and noted that it “does not appear the extra days were for business purposes.” (Indeed, Mathews’ social media shows that she spent time horseback riding, choreographing sunset photoshoots on the beach and taking local tours of farms with members of her family while there.) Patterson said the total charged to Home Forward for Mathews’ Hawaii trip totaled $8,135.
- In the spring of 2023, Mathews charged three nights at the Bellagio in Las Vegas to Home Forward, “including room upgrades,” Patterson found. The hotel charge exceeded the Las Vegas GSA rate of $152 per night.
- Patterson found that Mathews repeated connected her personal Hilton and Marriott rewards accounts to her Home Forward-reimbursed stays. He also noted that Home Forward had paid for Mathews’ annual Clear+ Membership, which is essentially a fast-pass through TSA screenings at airports. “It does not appear the purchase of the CLEAR+ Membership is included in Home Forward’s travel policy or Ms. Mathews’ compensation package,” Patterson wrote. “More information would be required to determine if Ms. Mathews used this membership for personal travel.”
- Citing reporting that Mathews had actively campaigned for a senior leadership position in the the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, or NAHRO, while attending a conference in Orlando, Patterson wrote: “It appears that Ms. Mathews set up booths, had campaign stickers, and offered complimentary items to individuals who visited her booth....If this case were to move to investigation Commission staff would seek to determine whether Ms. Mathews used her position to campaign for the NAHRO’s Senior position while attending Home Forward-funded conferences.” Indeed, WW found that Mathews had taken ten agency staff with her to the Orlando conference, some of whom apparently voluntarily staffed her campaign booth.
The OGEC now has 180 days to conduct a full investigation, which will then be presented to the commission.
Per OGEC procedure, Mathews was made aware of the complaint and was invited to submit any evidence or material she thought would be helpful to investigators. Those records show that Mathews sent an email on June 15 to Patterson.
It read, in part: “For a fuller account of the agency’s position on the recent media coverage regarding executive travel, I would respectfully refer you to the attached letter of recommendation from Home Forward Vice Chair [Jenny] Kim, which reflects the consistent message communicated by the Home Forward Board to all parties of inquiry,” Mathews wrote. “As Vice Chair Kim notes, the travel in question was ‘authorized, documented, and undertaken in service of a national leadership role’ and directly produced measurable benefits for Portland.”
Mathews added: “I have consistently held myself to the highest ethical standards—standards, as Vice Chair Kim writes, ‘higher than any audit could measure.”"
Mathews attached Kim’s letter. In it, Kim offers full-throated support for Mathews. “As a board member, I have no doubt that Ms. Mathews’ professional travel was not a personal indulgence—it was a legitimate and essential function of her role as CEO,” Kim wrote. “The travel in question was authorized, documented, and undertaken in service of a national leadership role that elevated.”
(Home Forward general counsel, just one month later, would say no authorization existed.)
And Kim wrote:“I offer my strongest possible recommendation of Ivory N. Mathews to any board, agency, or organization, who is fortunate enough to consider her for a future leadership role.”
Patterson responded to Mathews’ email, thanking her and asking if she would provide more information “on the process of travel authorization and the documentation authorizing business trips that you took from 2022-2026?”
In response, Mathews wrote: “I currently do not have access to any of the documents of inquiry. These documents are currently in the possession of my previous employer, Home Forward.”
