Home Forward’s Ex-CEO Did Not Get Authorization for Her Journey Spending—Including a Journey to a Portland Waterfront Hotel

Last week, the Oregon Government Ethics Commission voted unanimously to research the previous CEO of Home Forward for lavish journey spending between 2023 and 2025.

Ivory Mathews resigned in May from main the most important housing authority within the state after WW reported on her intensive journey on the general public dime whereas her company, which supplies inexpensive flats to low-income Portlanders and distributes some 12,000 housing vouchers, struggled.

The ethics fee took the 8–0 vote after a employees investigator really useful the physique transfer to a full investigation. His advice adopted preliminary evaluation of the case, which was prompted by a complainant named Amy Chapman. The investigator stated there existed “substantial objective basis to believe that Mathews may have violated the use of office and conflict of interest provisions.”

That conclusion rests on the findings contained in the 19-page preliminary evaluation. Dated June 29, it incorporates a lot of what was already publicly identified about Ivory Mathews’ extraneous journey spending, a lot of which was reported in a sequence of tales by WW.

But different findings by employees investigator Silas Patterson had been new or extra detailed than what was beforehand disclosed, and paint a fair clearer image of how Mathews used the company to fund her journey—each for work and, doubtlessly, private holidays.

Patterson’s report, obtained completely by WW by means of a public data request, teased out a couple of widespread themes that threaded collectively Mathews’ many travels to housing conferences and networking occasions: Mathews appeared to usually exceed per diem and reimbursement charges set by the feds. (Home Forward is primarily funded by the federal authorities.) Mathews didn’t seem to obtain any authorization for journey bills from the company or its board. Mathews seems to have usually tacked on extra days in different cities earlier than or after vacation spot convention dates, and charged bills to Home Forward. And she usually hooked up her private resort rewards account to her Home Forward-reimbursed stays throughout the nation.

Patterson, too, famous that he didn’t consider he had all the present data. He wrote that he constructed his findings on the “same documentation that Home Forward provided to Willamette Week”; nevertheless, he famous that the data “appear to be incomplete.” (On a number of events, WW needed to request extra data from Home Forward after sure receipts seemed to be lacking.)

“At the time of this preliminary report, general counsel for Home Forward are still working to compile and provide Commission staff travel agendas and justifications for travel as well as their annual operating budgets,” Patterson wrote.

And maybe most alarmingly, Patterson stated that when he requested Home Forward to offer documentation of journey authorization requests or approvals for Mathews’ travels, the company produced nothing and stated it was as a result of “authorizations were not required by their travel policy.”

But, based on Patterson’s report, that reply seems to battle with Home Forward’s written journey coverage.

“Commission staff contacted Home Forward and referenced their travel policy and the requirement for authorization,” Patterson wrote in his June 29 report, “and at the time of this preliminary report have [not] yet received a response.”

Patterson did finally obtain an electronic mail from Home Forward’s normal counsel, Juhi Aggarwal, explaining the discrepancy in a late June electronic mail after the report was all however full. In that electronic mail, a duplicate of which OGEC offered to WW, she wrote that the company’s journey coverage doesn’t apply to the CEO, solely these under the CEO and her three chiefs within the organizational chart.

“The quote you sent below from the Handbook applies to anyone who is supervised by a Department Director,” Aggarwal wrote.

If Aggarwal is appropriate about Home Forward’s coverage, meaning there are not any guardrails across the journey bills of the company’s chief—a outstanding oversight.

OGEC govt director Susan Myers stated in an electronic mail that the “issue will be examined during the investigation.”

Patterson’s findings, he wrote in his report, present that there’s “substantial objective basis to believe that Mathews may have violated the use of office and conflict of interest provisions.” Mathews’ conduct could also be a violation of ORS 244.040, which prohibits a public official from utilizing their place for personal monetary acquire or “avoidance of financial detriment.” Patterson famous Mathews “may have also failed to adhere to rules about a conflict of interest if she authorized her own travel expenses.”

Below are among the particulars included in Patterson’s June 29 report about particular journeys:

• Mathews stayed on the Portland Marriott Downtown for 3 nights in the summertime of 2024 throughout a convention Home Forward was internet hosting. Home Forward paid $784.95 for the three nights. Mathews lives in Tigard, simply 9 miles from the convention, Patterson famous. (The commute takes 15–20 minutes with out visitors.)
• About this expense, Patterson wrote: “Home Forward is a housing authority of the City of Portland. Therefore, it would be expected that employees of the City of Portland would not need hotels to attend conferences within the City.”
• Mathews arrived in Orlando, Fla., three days earlier than a convention started. As WW beforehand reported, she upgraded to a resort room that had a balcony view of a pool laser present. Patterson notes that the reservation was “booked for 2 adult guests.” She then spent 5 nights at a Marriott that value $270 per evening. Home Forward paid for all the nights. About this journey, Patterson famous that there’s “no indication these extra days were for business purposes. Therefore, it appears Home Forward funds were used for personal travel.” He added that Mathews seems to have “used incorrect GSA rates when requesting reimbursement” and “was paid a per diem more than what was permitted.”
• Plus, Home Forward might have paid for a private visitor of Mathews, which might run afoul of the company’s journey coverage. “It appears that Home Forward may have paid the cost for additional room occupants, and extra nights of lodging for personal use, because it appears that Ms. Mathews had a guest stay with her at the Marriott Orlando World Center Hotel, and that Ms. Mathews was accompanied by family members during her trip to Hawaii in 2024.”
• Speaking of Hawaii: That 2024 journey maybe obtained probably the most consideration from each WW and, later, The Oregonian. WW reported that Mathews went to Hawaii for six days, purportedly to attend a convention on captive insurance coverage, and had arrived three days earlier than it started and flew out the day it ended. Patterson corroborated that reporting and famous that it “does not appear the extra days were for business purposes.” (Indeed, Mathews’ social media exhibits that she frolicked horseback using, choreographing sundown photograph shoots on the seaside, and taking native excursions of farms with members of her household whereas there.) Patterson stated the whole charged to Home Forward for Mathews’ Hawaii journey totaled $8,135.
• In the spring of 2023, Mathews charged three nights on the Bellagio in Las Vegas to Home Forward, “including room upgrades,” Patterson discovered. The resort cost exceeded the Las Vegas GSA charge of $152 per evening.
• Patterson discovered that Mathews repeatedly linked her private Hilton and Marriott rewards accounts to her Home Forward-reimbursed stays. He additionally famous that Home Forward had paid for Mathews’ annual Clear+ Membership, which is basically a quick move by means of TSA screenings at airports. “It does not appear the purchase of the CLEAR+ Membership is included in Home Forward’s travel policy or Ms. Mathews’ compensation package,” Patterson wrote. “More information would be required to determine if Ms. Mathews used this membership for personal travel.”
• Citing reporting that Mathews had actively campaigned for a senior management place on the the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, or NAHRO, whereas attending a convention in Orlando, Patterson wrote: “It appears that Ms. Mathews set up booths, had campaign stickers, and offered complimentary items to individuals who visited her booth….If this case were to move to investigation Commission staff would seek to determine whether Ms. Mathews used her position to campaign for the NAHRO’s Senior position while attending Home Forward-funded conferences.” Indeed, WW discovered that Mathews had taken 10 company staffers together with her to the Orlando convention, a few of whom apparently volunteerred to employees her marketing campaign sales space.

The OGEC now has 180 days to conduct a full investigation, the outcomes of which is able to then be offered to the fee.

Per OGEC process, Mathews was made conscious of the grievance and was invited to submit any proof or materials she thought could be useful to investigators. Those data present Mathews despatched an electronic mail to Patterson on June 15.

It learn, partly: “For a fuller account of the agency’s position on the recent media coverage regarding executive travel, I would respectfully refer you to the attached letter of recommendation from Home Forward Vice Chair [Jenny] Kim, which reflects the consistent message communicated by the Home Forward Board to all parties of inquiry,” Mathews wrote. “As Vice Chair Kim notes, the travel in question was ‘authorized, documented, and undertaken in service of a national leadership role’ and directly produced measurable benefits for Portland.”

Mathews added: “I have consistently held myself to the highest ethical standards—standards, as Vice Chair Kim writes, ‘higher than any audit could measure.’”

Mathews hooked up Kim’s letter. In it, Kim presents full-throated assist for Mathews. “As a board member, I have no doubt that Ms. Mathews’ professional travel was not a personal indulgence—it was a legitimate and essential function of her role as CEO,” Kim wrote. “The travel in question was authorized, documented, and undertaken in service of a national leadership role that elevated.”

(Home Forward normal counsel, only one month later, would say no authorization existed.)

And Kim wrote: “I offer my strongest possible recommendation of Ivory N. Mathews to any board, agency, or organization, who is fortunate enough to consider her for a future leadership role.”

Patterson responded to Mathews’ electronic mail, thanking her and asking if she would supply extra info “on the process of travel authorization and the documentation authorizing business trips that you took from 2022–2026?”

In response, Mathews wrote: “I currently do not have access to any of the documents of inquiry. These documents are currently in the possession of my previous employer, Home Forward.”