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Special Initiatives

Home Forward has a national reputation for innovation in developing and delivering housing and support for people in need. One of the ways we do this is through carefully planned special initiatives and pilot projects..

Rent Reform at Home Forward

Home Forward has simplified the way we calculate rent assistance to make it easier to understand, more equitable and less intrusive. We also want to use the new rent method to provide greater stability for residents, along with more supports and incentives for families to increase their incomes. To read more on Rent Reform at Home Forward click here.

Public Housing Preservation Initiative

Home Forward owns more than 2,600 units of public housing throughout Multnomah County. Federal funding has not kept pace with the growing needs of day-to-day operations, maintenance, and capital improvements for these properties. In order to protect and enhance our community’s public housing resource, Home Forward adopted the Public Housing Preservation Initiative, with four primary objectives:

  • Replace public housing units that are inherently inefficient to operate with more efficient public housing;
  • Address unmet and unfunded capital needs across the portfolio;
  • Bring back unused public housing subsidy, or "banked units," to increase the current public housing supply.
  • Pursue a plan to change the type of operating subsidy from the traditional federal Annual Contributions Contract (ACC) to project-based Section 8 funding while maintaining the same resident protections and Home Forward ownership of properties.

For more information, please read the following documents: