During fiscal year 2026, the City of Providence completed 988 housing units and permitted 726 new residential units, according to the City’s 2026 Housing Progress Report released August ahead of the mayoral primaries. Of the new units, around 40% were designated to be affordable.
“By removing barriers to development, investing directly in affordable housing and putting underused public properties back to work, we are creating more housing choices for Providence neighbors,” Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said in a press release.
“Statewide, there is still work to do to ensure that more Rhode Islanders — particularly those with the greatest affordability challenges — can access and remain in housing they can afford,” Deborah Goddard, R.I. secretary of housing, wrote in an email to The Herald. “But Providence is leading by example, and we are proud of the progress made.”
Housing affordability was a key issue in Wednesday’s Democratic mayoral primary election, which saw State Rep. David Morales MPA’19 claim victory over Smiley. Earlier this year, Smiley vetoed a proposed 4% rent ordinance for the City; Smiley consistently champions the development of new housing over rent stabilization as the solution to the housing crisis. Morales, by contrast, has been a vocal supporter of rent stabilization in Providence.
Josh Estrella, director of communications for the City of Providence, wrote in an email to The Herald that Smiley’s earlier veto was out of concern that the rent stabilization “ordinance would have worsened the housing affordability crisis,” mentioning negative outcomes in cities that have implemented similar ordinances.
“The Smiley Administration has consistently raised concerns that this ordinance lacks a clear, workable implementation plan and would have shifted the tax burden onto single-family homeowners while driving rents higher overall,” Estrella wrote, adding that Smiley “has instead taken a disciplined, results-driven approach to lowering housing costs.”
To address the ongoing affordability gap, “Providence should continue to focus on producing and preserving affordable homes while strengthening protections that help residents remain stably housed,” Melina Lodge — executive director of the Housing Network of Rhode Island, a coalition of organizations that seeks to expand the supply of affordable homes in the state — wrote in an email to The Herald.
Emily Freedman, director of Providence Housing and Human Services, attributed the city’s housing insecurity to “decades of underbuilding.” She wrote that “too few homes have left residents competing for limited supply, contributing to rising rents and home prices.”
According to the report, the City completed almost double the number of homes as it did the previous fiscal year.
Through the Providence Housing Trust Fund, the city committed over $58.7 million to affordable housing projects from FY23 to FY26, according to the report, converting empty and underutilized properties. The city also renewed affordability restrictions and for existing homes, providing over $750,000 in preservation investment and issuing 76 rehabilitation loans.
In addition, the City’s eviction defense program secured housing for over 2,500 residents. Providence also expanded partnerships with programs like Crossroads Rhode Island and the East Bay Community Action Program, which work to provide long-term housing for those experiencing homelessness.
“Providence is making meaningful progress on several of the priorities outlined in Housing 2030,” Rhode Island’s state housing plan, Goddard wrote. These goals include permitting 15,000 new housing units and 2,250 affordable rental homes by 2030.
Affordable housing for residents with earnings lower than 30% of their areas’ median incomes remains a key gap in Providence’s housing landscape, Freedman noted.
Freedman said that “federal headwinds, including Trump Administration attacks on resources like the Continuum of Care program, make this work even more challenging.” CoC is a federal initiative aimed at reducing homelessness by partnering with state-level organizations.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development wrote that there have been no reductions in CoC funding. “HUD is making more funding available than ever before,” they wrote.
Siraj Sindhu GS — executive director of Reclaim Rhode Island, a housing justice organization — said the report seemed to “obscure” the city’s ongoing housing crisis.
“This is a glossy report that ignores, in large part, the fact that for so many tenants, rents are rising rapidly,” Sindhu said.
The existing paradigm is “giving free rein to private developers to go ahead and try to maximize their profits, while giving tenants who are struggling to keep their heads above water the bare minimum,” Sindhu said.
Sindhu believes the City should shift away from “decades of privatization and deregulation” that have dominated Providence’s housing landscape and toward mixed-income social housing, rent stabilization and lasting affordability.
Carl Austin Grondin MPA ’24, press secretary for the office of Mayor Smiley, wrote that Providence’s housing policy changes in FY26 “were intended to streamline development and reduce redundant or duplicative regulations, not to deregulate housing or development in Providence.”
Kelly Ding is a senior staff writer for the community and culture beat. She is from College Station, TX and plans to concentrate in IAPA on the policy and governance track. In her free time, she loves to explore new coffee shops, curl up with a good book, and be a gym rat.
