Multnomah County has quietly rewritten the survey that decides who gets priority access to scarce homeless housing, deleting three questions tied to race, sexual orientation and preferred language after months of federal scrutiny and a discrimination lawsuit from a disabled applicant. County officials confirmed the survey changes resulted from the legal challenges, even as they disputed the characterization that the system racially discriminates against homeless residents.
The changes trace back to a lawsuit filed by Michele Mei, who sued Multnomah County in January 2026 alleging discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to OregonLive. Mei's case, now handled by law firm Consovoy McCarthy, was amended in July 2026 to allege the county unlawfully used race to determine who received housing services. Separately, the Washington Free Beacon reports Mei had filed a pro se complaint in April 2026 after a housing provider allegedly told her the county directed agencies to only help people of color at this time, and that she was turned away from reapplying for rent assistance after falling short of the county's priority cutoff score.
Federal agencies moved on parallel tracks. The Department of Justice opened an investigation into the county's housing-support practices on May 15, 2026, with DOJ official Carrie Pagnucco announcing the probe in a letter to Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, per the same account. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon had written in April that the department would investigate and potentially take legal action, and HUD Secretary Scott Turner's agency announced its own Fair Housing Act investigation on May 29, declaring that no government benefit should be distributed based on race, per the Free Beacon's earlier report.
How the Scoring System Worked
The county's Multnomah Services and Screening Tool, created in 2024 to replace the earlier VI-SPDAT assessment, includes 42 questions and assigns one to three points for various responses. Applicants need at least 16 points to qualify for the priority housing pool, which provides likely placement in supported housing within six months, the survey's canonical scoring rules show. Question 39 asked whether applicants wanted to be considered for culturally specific services and awarded two points for a yes answer, while question 40 let applicants select services for African American, Indigenous, Latino, immigrant and refugee, or LGBTQIA2S+ populations, with an additional point available for selecting LGBTQIA2S+ services.
HUD official Craig Trainor wrote on May 29 that the county's points-based system prioritizes race over need when determining who receives housing resources. Both HUD and the Department of Justice raised concerns that Multnomah County gave improper weight to answers related to race, sexual orientation and country of origin. County Homeless Services Department spokesperson Julia Comnes pushed back on that framing, telling OregonLive the survey has never included scored questions about race itself.
What Changed on the Survey
On August 12, 2026, Multnomah County notified providers that two culturally specific-services questions had been removed from the survey, and also eliminated a separate question that had asked immigrants or refugees about Somali- or Slavic-language services. In total, the county deleted three survey questions related to race, sexual orientation and preferred language. Comnes wrote that the Homeless Services Department is changing its coordinated access scoring system to comply with federal guidance and legal interpretations. The survey still retains a general question about language and translation needs, according to OregonLive's review.
Shannon Singleton, a source cited in the OregonLive reporting, said the culturally specific-services questions should direct people to suitable services rather than determine their priority status, adding that scoring that question at all crosses a line. Meghan Moyer, also cited in that reporting, said the county must find a way to address racial disparities in homelessness while still complying with civil-rights law — capturing the bind county leaders now face.
Who the Money Serves
The stakes are significant because of how much funding flows through this single intake tool. Coordinated access is a federally required system for prioritizing households for limited housing support, and jurisdictions nationwide need one to qualify for HUD homeless services funds under Continuum of Care rules, according to the Multnomah County Homeless Services Department. Multnomah County receives approximately $40 million in federal money for housing support, 92% of which goes toward permanent housing, and that funding placed 2,380 people in housing in the last fiscal year, per OregonLive's figures. The county also draws tens of millions of dollars in local tax revenue for long-term housing, separate from the federal stream — revenue that, per Street Roots, comes largely from the voter-approved Supportive Housing Services Measure, which funded 61% of the county's total homelessness budget as of July.
That local tax base has already strained under separate pressures: the county board approved a budget modification in November 2025 to shift $20 million toward a $28 million state funding shortfall in the Homeless Services Department, as previously reported by Hoodline, leaving an $8.7 million gap in rapid rehousing even as it preserved support for more than 1,000 residents.
The Demographic Numbers Behind the Debate
The dispute centers partly on how homelessness demographics compare with who actually receives housing. In May, 53% of people homeless in Multnomah County were white, 20% were Black, 15% were Latinx and 9% were Indigenous, according to county data cited by OregonLive. Among people who received permanent supportive housing in the county, 57% were white, 26% were Black, 16% were Indigenous and 14% were Latinx. County officials have pointed to the earlier VI-SPDAT tool as inadequate, saying it did not go far enough to address equity issues and identify and prioritize people needing immediate support — the rationale behind the 2024 redesign that produced the current, now-revised survey.
The Fair Housing Act of 1968 bans housing discrimination based on race and other personal characteristics, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development distributes the homeless services funds at the center of the dispute. Multnomah County's central assessment tool cannot simply be scrapped, since Coordinated Entry systems remain a federal requirement for HUD funding — leaving the county to revise rather than eliminate the process while the DOJ and HUD investigations, and Mei's amended lawsuit, continue.
