The CEO of Multnomah County’s housing authority, Home Forward, is resigning effective May 1. Home Forward announced Ivory Matthews’ departure via a press release Wednesday morning.
Matthews’ resignation comes amid questions about travel she made on the public’s dime, first reported by Willamette Week earlier this month. Home Forward offers program vouchers and rent assistance for over 16,000 households each year, in addition to other affordable housing support for Multnomah County residents. It is a public corporation, run by a volunteer board of commissioners. The board’s chair, Matthew Gebhardt, accepted Matthews’ resignation, according to Home Forward.
“I want to sincerely thank everyone who has supported the Housing Authority’s mission and the important work we do every day,” Matthews said in the press release. “I remain committed to ensuring a smooth transition and to supporting the organization during this period.”
The interim director of the Portland Housing Bureau, Michael Buonocore, will step into an interim role as Home Forward’s director while a search for a permanent director continues, Home Forward announced Wednesday. Buonocore was the previous executive director of Home Forward from 2014 to 2022, and he did a prior stint as interim Housing Bureau director in 2023. He again took on the interim Housing Bureau role in October 2025 after Mayor Keith Wilson and Deputy City Administrator Donnie Oliveira put the former director on administrative leave without cause before she ultimately resigned.
With Buonocore headed back to Home Forward, that leaves the Housing Bureau with four changes in leadership in as many years. The latest move comes at an already tumultuous time for the Housing Bureau. City councilors grilled Buonocore, Oliveira, and the city budget office’s top staff in an oversight hearing last week, trying to determine why the Council was not informed of millions of dollars in unspent housing funds during a tense budget cycle last year.
City spokesperson Elliott Kozuch said city leadership is expected to finalize a transition plan for the Housing Bureau in the coming days, and make a decision on a new interim director.
“I’m deeply committed to the work of Home Forward and to the talented, hardworking team that shows up every day for the people and communities we serve,” Buonocore said in the press release. “Affordable housing is facing historic challenges due to federal cuts and increasing need, and our employees are on the front lines of that work. We take seriously our responsibility to perform at the highest level. Strengthening our accountability to residents, partners, and the public is the top priority I will carry as interim. I look forward to working alongside this team to do right by the mission.”
Home Forward has faced scrutiny as the region’s homelessness crisis continues to rise. As an organization that holds housing vouchers—often on long wait times due to federal requirements—many housing initiatives fall on Home Forward to execute housing placements. Vacancy rates in organization-run buildings have remained high, and critics have called for better accountability to address the crisis and move people into housing.
Earlier this month, the organization publicly committed to achieving a 94 percent occupancy rate and said it would create a public dashboard for data transparency.