The Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh has had the same leader for more than a decade. Its board of commissioners is poised to change that at its meeting tomorrow, Sept. 24. 

The board plans to vote on whether to appoint Ivory Mathews, who’s led public housing authorities across the country for more than two decades, as HACP’s new executive director. 

The commissioners have been on the search for a new director to replace Caster Binion since at least last year, according to an investigation published by WESA. 

Caster Binion, Housing Authority of Pittsburgh executive director, talks during a special meeting on the problems HACP is having with attracting landlords to the Section 8 program in City Council chambers on Oct. 30, 2024, at the City-County Building in Downtown. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)

Though Binion, who has held the seat since 2013, previously expressed interest in staying beyond the expiration of his contract in March, he announced earlier this year that he’s ready to retire. The body extended his contract first to June 30, then to Sept. 30, as it kept up its search for a new leader. 

“I’m still going to be here to finish up my legacy,” he said at the board’s February meeting, adding that “time comes when you have to make a decision. My family and I have made this decision. So, do not get it confused.”

Mathews could not be reached by email or phone ahead of publication. The Housing Authority declined to comment on the record, as did board commissioners, ahead of tomorrow’s vote. A spokesperson for the mayor’s office referred Public Source to the Housing Authority. The mayor appoints the board but does not directly control the agency.

About Mathews

Mathews spent the first few decades of her career in South Carolina, where, according to her LinkedIn, she served as an executive leader of housing authorities serving the cities of Columbia, Aiken and Greenville. She also spent three years in Toledo, Ohio, as the deputy executive director of Lucas Metropolitan Housing.

She recently spent about four years as the chief executive officer of Home Forward, a housing authority that operates on a budget of about $269 million and serves roughly 15,500 households in and around Portland, Oregon. For comparison, HACP’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2027 is $255 million, and it serves about 8,500 households. 

In May, Home Forward announced that Mathews had resigned from her position there. At a meeting of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission in August, the body voted to investigate Mathews after receiving a complaint that alleged she “used her position to obtain financial benefit on travel and lodging, which is inconsistent with Home Forward’s travel policy.” The complaint also alleged that Mathews authorized her own travel, presenting a conflict of interest. 

Willamette Week reported that the travel issues emerged at a time when Home Forward faced performance problems, including a 14% vacancy rate in its units and a turnaround time of six months to fill an empty unit. 

If appointed tomorrow, she’d walk into the role with the unusual experience of leading a Moving to Work Demonstration Program participant already under her belt. The program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), allows public housing agencies flexibility in their use of federal funding. In Pittsburgh, that’s resulted in new development — but also concern that funds get directed away from rental assistance. Home Forward is also among just 138 of the country’s more than 3,300 public housing agencies participating in the program. 

People walk along Johnston Avenue in Glen Hazel, near townhomes owned by an affiliate of the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh. (Photo by Ryan Loew/PublicSource)
People walk along Johnston Avenue in Glen Hazel, near townhomes owned by an affiliate of the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh. (Photo by Ryan Loew/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)

The potential leadership change comes at a fragile time for public housing agencies across the commonwealth: Likely cuts to HUD’s fiscal year 2027 budget could result in thousands of Pennsylvanians losing rental assistance. 

And as documented in a previous Public Source investigation, tenants, landlords and former HACP staffers have already been sounding the alarm for years on the authority’s management of its voucher program. 

“The Housing Authority hasn’t been the true landlord of public housing residents in a long, long time,” said Carol Hardeman, the executive director of the Hill District Consensus Group, which represents a neighborhood that includes the authority’s Bedford Dwellings community. But with a potential new leader at the helm, she’s hoping that changes. 

Mia Hollie is the economic development and housing reporter for Pittsburgh’s Public Source. She can be reached at mia@publicsource.org.

Help us continue telling stories like this one.

We’re Pittsburgh’s Public Source, an independent, nonprofit newsroom. That means we rely on donations from readers like you to help us report accurate, timely and impactful stories for the Pittsburgh region — available to everyone without paywalls.

Everyone deserves access to credible information to understand and help shape the region they call home, which is why we work hard everyday to deliver fact-checked stories on education, environment, health, local government and more.

We've seen our journalism prompt widespread change in the Pittsburgh region — but none of it would be possible without the support of our community. If you found this story valuable, consider "paying it forward" by making a gift today.

GIVE NOW

MOST READ STORIES

Creative Commons License

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Mia is the economic development and housing reporter at Pittsburgh’s Public Source, where she documents changes to the city’s built environment and contextualizes their effects on communities and residents....