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In April 2025, Portland City Council adopted a landmark resolution to explore social housing and other innovative models to help respond to our city’s housing stability gap. Read the study to learn about the lessons and recommendations for Portland.
View the report
Advancing Housing Stability in Portland: Applied Lessons from Social Housing and Other Innovative Housing Models
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Appendices A-E
Appendices F-J
Appendices K-N
- Appendix L: Alternative Financing Models for Non-Market Housing Study: Prototypes and Sample Pro Formas for Rental and Homeownership
Background and City Council Resolution
Like many cities across the country, Portland faces high housing costs and a shortage of affordable housing, making it difficult for people to live and work here. In April 2025, Portland City Council adopted a landmark resolution directing the City to deliver a plan for how the city could implement social housing.
The study was submitted to City Council on August 31, 2026. The study explored specific areas as directed by City Council in Resolution 37703, including innovative models and approaches, funding and land banking strategies, tenant governance, alternative financial models, and policy recommendations.
Progress Reports
May 2026
Watch presentation to the City Council's Housing & Permitting Committee.
February 2026
Watch presentation to the City Council's Homelessness & Housing Committee.
Technical Assistance Panel (TAP)
The Social Housing Technical Assistance Panel (TAP), convened by PHB, brought together local leaders with expertise in affordable housing to inform and advise PHB's work on the study. Participants contributed their diverse perspectives and knowledge in financial and economic analysis, regional housing system planning, homeownership and multifamily development, land banking, lived experience of housing insecurity, landlord-tenant policies, renter needs, architectural design, advocacy, and international and national housing models. The TAP met from November 2025 to July 2026.
Meetings and Materials
November 21, 2025
December 12, 2025
*From February to July 2026, TAP members met in several work group meetings across topic areas. Materials and notes from these meetings are found in Appendix E.
Resources
Explainer Videos
- The Non-market Solution to the Housing Crisis (16:03), About Here
- Social Housing in California Reinvigorating Housing Investment for the Social Good (4:50), Othering & Belonging Institute
- Social Housing 101 (2:19), Alliance for Housing Justice
Policy and Research Articles
United States
- A New Vision for Social Housing in America, Center for American Progress (2024)
- Decommodification and Its Role in Advancing Housing Justice, Urban Institute (2023)
- Green Social Housing at Scale, Urban Democracy Lab, climate+community project, Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative (2024)
- Housing for the People: How Local Governments are Building Social Housing Solutions for Public Good, Local Progress Impact Lab, PolicyLink, Power Switch Action (2025)
- Social Housing Principles, Alliance for Housing Justice (2022)
International
- Building Better Cities with Strategic Investments in Social Housing, Rethinking Social Housing in Mexico Project (2016)
- South-South Cooperation – FUCVAM, Uruguay, Uruguayan Federation of Mutual Aid Housing Cooperatives (FUCVAM) (2016)
- The Austrian model of limited-profit housing – an example for other sectors of the economy?, Gerald Koessl, Bernd Riessland (2022)
Websites on Social Housing
Flyers and Opinion Pieces
- "Could this city be the model for how to tackle the housing crisis and climate change?", NPR (2025)
- How a Federal Green Social Housing Development Authority works, Urban Democracy Lab, climate+community project, Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative (2024)
- Opinion | What We Can Learn From Social Housing in Singapore and Vienna | Common Dreams (2024)
- Social Housing: How a New Generation of Activists Is Reinventing Housing, H. Jacob Carlson, Gianpaolo Baiocchi (2023)
Also see Upcoming Events
Housing the City: A Beginner's Guide to Vienna Social Housing
The Urban Commons, Fifth Element Community Development & Consulting, and Neighborhood Partnerships have collaborated to create Housing the City: A Beginner's Guide to Vienna Social Housing, a new coursebook and accompanying curriculum with key takeaways.
The materials were designed intentionally as an open educational resource with support from the Portland Housing Bureau and produced in conjunction with an educational visit of Portland leaders to Vienna in September 2025. Housing the City is meant to help local leaders, housing providers, academic professionals, and others gain a comprehensive understanding of the history, operation, and infrastructure of Vienna's social housing system, and to learn about other housing systems that can inspire new steps towards achieving housing innovation in Portland.
We recommend starting with the Curriculum which covers key learning themes that create the foundation to Vienna's resilient housing system. From there choose chapters from the Coursebook that align with specific topics of interest.
Explore or download these new resources: