PORTLAND, Oregon — This week, about 20 people, including three city councilors and their chiefs of staff, are heading on a taxpayer-funded work trip abroad to see how social housing works in Vienna, Austria.
Social housing, or public housing, is housing owned and operated by government or nonprofits rather than developers and property managers and where rents are set at an affordable rate. Sixty percent of Vienna’s population lives in social housing.
“We’re not planning the trip; we are joining a bunch of other civic leaders who want to learn more about Vienna’s social housing program,” Councilor Candace Avalos said Tuesday. “They are known worldwide for their social housing. This is an opportunity for us to see it in person and to experience the things that are hard when you read it on paper; it’s one thing when you can see it and talk to the leaders and talk to the people that the residents that are experiencing it to just better understand how they implement it as local government.”…