Portland is at a crossroads. Our housing crisis has been decades in the making, driven by rising costs, stagnant wages, and a lack of public investment. As a socialist and a City Councilor, I ran on a platform that made social housing the centerpiece of my campaign. One year into my term, I’m thrilled to say we are making real progress toward a publicly owned, permanently affordable housing model that has the potential to transform how we think about housing in Maine.
On February 25, 2025, the Housing and Economic Development Committee unanimously passed a Social Housing Task Force Resolution, moving it forward for a full City Council vote. City staff are working with the Greater Portland Council of Governments (GPCOG) to secure grant funding that will support the development of this initiative.
We’re in good company. The concept of social housing is gaining traction across the country. Seattle voters recently approved a social housing program, and cities from California to Maryland are revisiting the idea of public housing as a solution to their affordability crises. Right here in Maine, the town of Rockland is taking a giant step toward municipal-led housing by considering a local bond initiative to finance affordable homes, demonstrating that cities across the state are beginning to recognize that the private market alone will never meet our housing needs.
The question before us is not whether we can afford social housing but whether we can afford not to invest in it.
The Housing Crisis is a Manufactured Scarcity
For decades, we have been told that the only way to build affordable housing is to offer tax breaks to private developers. Yet despite pouring billions into these programs nationwide, housing remains unaffordable for a growing number of people, and Maine is no exception. The state needs 84,000 new homes by 2030 just to meet demand, but current production rates are falling well short. The private market has never built enough housing to meet the needs of low- and middle-income people because there is no financial incentive to do so.
The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), the primary federal program for affordable housing, is not actually a housing program at all—it is a tax shelter system for banks and corporations. Instead of directly funding housing, LIHTC hands out tax credits to developers, who then sell them to banks and investors. By the time these credits pass through multiple layers of financial syndication, a significant portion of the money has already been siphoned away by intermediaries, consultants, and financial institutions before a single unit is built.
This is the Great Housing Heist, a system where public money, meant for affordable housing, is laundered through Wall Street before it reaches the people who need homes. What we end up with is an overpriced, slow-moving system that produces far fewer units than we need at higher costs than we can afford. Worse still, after 15 to 30 years, the affordability restrictions expire, allowing landlords to flip subsidized units to market rate. The public pays to create affordable housing, only to see it disappear, while banks and corporate investors walk away with tax breaks.
This is not an accident; it is the intended function of a system designed to enrich financial institutions while keeping housing supply artificially constrained.
Disinvestment and Demolition of Public Housing
There was a time in this country when public housing was seen as a civic responsibility rather than a last resort. In the mid-20th century, cities built publicly owned housing at scale, providing stable homes for working-class families. Portland had its own public housing developments, which housed veterans returning from World War II and families working in the city’s once-thriving industrial sector. These homes were safe, decent, and affordable, and they worked because they were not tied to speculative real estate markets.
This model did not fail on its own; it was deliberately dismantled. In the 1970s and 1980s, under pressure from real estate interests, the federal government cut off funding for public housing construction, forcing cities to either sell their housing stock to private landlords or allow it to fall into disrepair. Public housing was not inherently flawed; it was systematically defunded and stigmatized in order to justify the shift toward privatized, investor-driven models like LIHTC.
In Portland, entire working-class neighborhoods were demolished in the name of “urban renewal,” displacing families and gutting the city’s affordable housing stock. Instead of replacing these units, local and federal policies favored tax credit schemes and Section 8 vouchers, which rely on the private market to house people rather than ensuring public control over housing itself. Today, we are living with the consequences of that decision. Housing is no longer seen as a public good but as a commodity to be bought and sold for profit, leaving renters at the mercy of market forces and corporate landlords.
Portland’s Responsibility: Build Here, or Face the Consequences
Maine needs 84,000 new homes by 2030, and Portland has a responsibility to build a significant portion of that housing. As the state’s largest city, we have the infrastructure, transit, and economic base to absorb the most growth. If we don’t take on this responsibility, housing demand will spill into surrounding towns, accelerating suburban sprawl, increasing traffic congestion, and pushing development further from jobs, schools, and public services. The result will be longer commutes, higher emissions, and an even greater reliance on cars, outcomes that are bad for working people and bad for the planet.
Regrettably, the opposite has happened. While Cumberland County’s population has grown by 61% since 1970, Portland has barely grown at all. Our population peaked at 77,000 in 1950, and since 1970 we have increased by only 5%, while towns like Scarborough have exploded by over 200%. If Portland had kept pace with the region’s growth, we would have well over 100,000 people living here today, meaning we would have a stronger labor market, more workers to support our businesses, and a more vibrant local economy. Instead, our failure to build enough housing has pushed growth into the suburbs, leaving Portland with slower economic expansion while forcing workers to live farther and farther away from where the jobs are.
We should not let this trend continue. If we want Portland to be a strong worker-centered city with a robust labor market and thriving economy, we must build the housing necessary to support that vision. Social housing is the tool that can get us there, allowing us to grow in a way that is affordable, sustainable, and equitable.
Social housing is not a competitor to private and non-profit development; it is the missing piece in our housing production puzzle. Our current system is fragmented: market rate housing developers face financing constraints that limit their ability to build workforce and middle-income housing, while affordable housing developers rely on limited tax credit allocations that cannot scale to meet the need. Social housing can fill the gap, producing housing at lower costs by leveraging public financing and land while providing long-term stability and affordability. This model is not about replacing private or non-profit efforts but about expanding our ability to house people in a way that the market alone cannot.
The fight for social housing in Portland is just beginning. The Social Housing Task Force Resolution is moving forward to a full City Council vote, and we need the public to show up. This is a moment for action, not just conversation. If you believe that housing should be a public good, not a financial asset, now is the time to make your voice heard.
Testify at City Council meetings. Submit public comments in favor of the resolution. Write letters to the editor, educating the public about what social housing is and why it’s necessary. Talk to your neighbors and organize support. We cannot let the same failed policies dictate our future. Portland must lead on this issue, for us and for the rest of Maine. The future of housing is public.
