Published September 24, 2026 at 12:53 PM EDT

Board members of Pittsburgh’s housing authority voted 7-0 on Thursday to appoint a new executive director whose recent tenure at a public housing agency in Oregon drew scrutiny.

Ivory N. Mathews led Home Forward, the housing authority in Portland, Ore., from 2022 until April of this year. According to multiple local news stories, she left her post there amid reports of more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded travel between 2023 and 2025 while the agency struggled. She also faces an Oregon state ethics investigation that was launched last month.

Despite the negative headlines, housing authority board chairman Wasi Mohamed said board members are confident Mathews is up to the job.

“We are extremely confident this is a homerun decision, a homerun hire,” he said after the meeting. Mohamed also serves as chief of staff to Congresswoman Summer Lee.

Mohamed added that he believes some travel is appropriate for people in Mathews’ role, particularly for national conferences.

“We recognize that policy — unfortunately — is not always made in Pittsburgh. We have to go some places sometimes,” he said, particularly in the current federal climate.

Mathews has experience leading other large housing authorities, which is crucial, he said.

Mathews’ personal website touts her previous leadership roles at housing authorities in several states, as well as consulting work. She also serves on the board of governors for the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials.

Mathews was not present in Pittsburgh for Thursday’s vote, but did attend the hybrid meeting online.

Like the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh, Portland’s housing authority is a Moving to Work agency, a federal designation held by a relatively small number of housing authorities nationwide that gives participating agencies greater flexibility.

HACP has hundreds of employees and a $255 million budget for 2027, much of which comes from the federal government. Between traditional public housing and the voucher program it administers, the agency is responsible for housing roughly 18,000 Pittsburghers.

The board’s resolution did not state what salary Mathews will earn. Her first day on the job will be October 1.

Several local affordable housing advocates said they saw her hiring as a positive step for the agency.

“HACP bears the responsibility of being a good landlord for all of Pittsburgh’s public housing tenants,” Carol Hardeman, executive director of the Hill District Consensus Group, said in a statement. “We can have a fresh start, new leadership, and a chance to ensure tenants are at the heart of everything the housing authority does, for the good of the city and the quality of life for public housing residents.”

Having a strong housing authority is crucial for its residents and the city, said Maddy McGrady, co-chair of advocacy group the Pittsburgh Housing Justice Table.

“New leadership is a great opportunity to ensure our communities are a guiding voice in the direction of the housing authority and we look forward to working with Ivory Mathews to increase the supply of publicly owned, operated financed units that our city, and most importantly, our public housing tenants deserve,” she wrote in a statement.

Caster Binion, who has led Pittsburgh’s housing agency for more than ten years, will depart at the end of September, according to a board resolution also approved Thursday.

Authority board members have been seeking a new leader for the agency for some time. As WESA previously reported, the agency was expected to seek a new top executive when a wave of board members appointed by then-Mayor Ed Gainey were seated last year.

While Binion wasn’t immediately ousted, efforts to replace him were ongoing, emails and job postings showed.

He had faced criticism for the authority’s administration of its Housing Choice Voucher program, though the agency also won several competitive federal redevelopment grants under his watch.

Several board members at Thursday’s meeting thanked Binion for his service, including Janet Evans, who is also an HACP resident.

Dozens of HACP staff members were present Thursday for an emotional standing ovation farewell to Binion.

Mathews will take the helm at HACP at a challenging time for the agency as Trump administration policies have cut the safety net in multiple ways.

The implications of those cuts were on display during Thursday’s board meeting, as HACP staff discussed plans to wind down a program that aimed to help HACP clients with children move from high poverty neighborhoods to communities with more opportunity. The change is due to declining federal support, staff said.