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Home Forward, the city of Portland’s housing authority, plans to increase the portion of income the vast majority of its tenants and voucher holders must pay on rent in an effort to close an estimated $31 million budget gap.
Unlike how a rent increase typically works for market-rate housing, the agency’s plan is to require its clients and tenants to pay a greater portion of their monthly income on rent and lower the agency’s portion.
For instance, if a tenant currently pays 28% of their monthly income on rent, under the new policy they will pay 31%. While that’s just a 3-point increase for the tenant, it translates to much more than a 3% increase in actual rent. For someone who currently pays $285 per month of their $1,000 monthly income toward rent (so 28.5% of their monthly income), instead they may have to pay 31.5%, or $315 per month. That’s a 10.5% rent increase. For someone with a monthly income of $2,100 paying 28.5% on a $1,400 rent, paying 31.5% of their income would amount to an 18% rent increase.
Home Forward spokesman Rylee Ahnen said in a statement that around 12,356 households will be affected by the rent portion increases, including Housing Choice voucher holders, low-income tenants living in many Home Forward buildings, and those who hold project-based vouchers. That’s a vast majority of the households the agency serves.
“Our goal is to continue providing services to as many households as possible while keeping Home Forward financially strong for the future,” Ahnen said in a statement. “This change will apply to most, but not all, tenants in our federally subsidized housing programs. Tenants who live in housing that is affordable, but not subsidized, are not subject to this increase.”
Ahnen added that “exact amounts and dates” have not yet been set. The increases will go into effect “no earlier” than Feb. 1, 2027, he says. Those increases will dovetail with the end of a one-year rent increase moratorium that Home Forward imposed on landlords that accept Section 8 Housing Choice vouchers, meaning that voucher holders may well be hit with two separate increases in a matter of months.
The planned increases in rent portion comes at a tender time for the agency. It has struggled in recent years to keep its affordable apartments filled, to collect rents from tenants, and to rein in rampant drug dealing and activities within its buildings as tenants have begged for greater security.
Last spring, its former CEO, Ivory Mathews, resigned from the agency after WW reported on her lavish travel spending while her agency’s housing portfolio dropped dangerously close to being financially underwater. She received a $171,000 severance package.
Interim executive director Michael Buonocore is leading the agency while the board searches for a permanent replacement. Under his leadership, the agency has held a number of resident feedback sessions to make tenants feel more involved and heard—one of the agency’s attempts to rebuild trust after it came under intense scrutiny earlier this year.
The upcoming rent increases, however, are likely to upset residents, who have said they often struggle to pay even current rents. (Earlier this year, Home Forward said 3,335 of its around 7,000 residents were more than 30 days delinquent on rent.)
Of the $31 million budget deficit the agency says it’s currently in (double the shortfall the agency described earlier this year, an error Buonocore said was the fault of previous leadership), the rent burden increases are expected to decrease that deficit by just $6 million.
“Home Forward already made several cost-saving measures in 2025 and 2026, including staff layoffs, staff furlough days, and reducing administrative and program costs,” the agency says on its website. “Home Forward is considering other additional measures including staffing impacts, lowering administrative and program costs, and changing agency operations.”
The agency says that increases in the portion of a tenant’s rent will “[depend] on your income and other factors.” Tenants and voucher holders will receive notice of their increased rent 90 days before it goes into effect, the agency says.
Clarification: WW previously miscalculated what the percentage rent increase would be if someone went from paying $285 in rent to $315. That has since been corrected.
