City leaders universally agree Portland is facing a crisis when it comes to homelessness and housing affordability. Their ideas on solving the problems, however, seem starkly at odds. With recent revelations that the city has $106 million in unspent housing funds, progressives are calling for spending on social housing. Others, including the mayor, appear far more hesitant.
With social housing, local governments aim to remove the profit motive from this human need by creating a housing supply that’s independent from market forces. The Alliance for Housing Justice defines it as “a public option for housing. It is permanently and deeply affordable, under community control, and most importantly, exists outside of the speculative real estate market.”
Vienna is the quintessential example of social housing in practice. Rent in Vienna is dramatically more affordable when compared to other large European cities. Advocates often attribute this to the fact that social housing makes up over 40% of the city’s housing stock…