The Portuguese report

Sónia Alves, Alda Botelho Azevedo, Marco Allegra, Filipa Leite, Inês Calor and Pedro Moura Ferreira

A chapter in Social housing opportunities and challenges: Perspectives from Denmark, Germany, Portugal and Serbia, 2026, pp 49-74 from ARL – Akademie für Raumentwicklung in der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft

Abstract: This chapter examines how Portugal's housing policy has evolved over recent decades and how this trajectory has shaped the current housing crisis. It explores how core policy concepts - such as social and affordable housing - have been defined and implemented, revealing the logic and limits of the Portuguese housing regime in delivering safe, non-profit housing. By tracing shifts between state intervention and market liberalisation, it shows how policy has remained fragmented and reactive, resulting in a residual, underfunded public sector concentrated in metropolitan areas. Using national data and a case study of Braga, the chapter illustrates persistent structural problems, with a small, ageing social housing stock and mounting affordability pressures. It situates Portugal's experience within wider European trends of financialisation, territorial inequality, and the erosion of housing as a social right.

Keywords: Housing policy; social and affordable housing; sociospatial inequality; affordability crisis; Portugal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:arlaba:339566

DOI: 10.60683/kd9j-fn22

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