For years, Home Forward has operated with little scrutiny by public officials. Portland’s housing authority supplies 7,000 affordable apartments in the metro region—the backbone of the city’s low-income housing stock—but it’s a self-contained public agency funded largely by federal dollars and overseen by a nine-member board of commissioners. That board approves the budget and hires and fires the CEO, but has largely operated as a rubber stamp for organizational leadership. Commission appointees are subject to confirmation by the Portland City Council—and for much of last year, three of the nine seats remained empty.
But as the cracks at Home Forward keep widening, Portland city councilors are at last taking notice.
“Is this system to its core rotten?” Councilor Eric Zimmerman mused in a meeting last week…