Housing First, but first housing
Photography source: Bart Ter Haar on Unsplash
Housing First works, but only if there is housing
Through Jorge Costa’s story, we will explore how the lack of affordable housing is both a barrier to solutions and a driver of the problem, and why we need urgent, practical action.
What can we learn from those who lived through homelessness?
Jorge Costa wrote a collection of chronicles in the newspaper Mensagem de Lisboa about his transition from a stable job as a technician to becoming homeless. Fortunately, he was then able to escape the situation thanks to the Housing First programme in Lisbon.
While Housing First programmes in the city successfully support hundreds of people, many more could benefit from it. The reason there aren't more participants is simple yet structural: there is not enough housing available.
Housing unaffordability is exacerbating the homelessness crisis in two ways:
- There is not enough housing available for Housing First services.
- More people become homeless due to a lack of affordable long-term housing.
Moved by Jorge's story, as I work on social housing and Housing First, I am sharing my thoughts on these complex challenges and will use Jorge's words to bring colour to this complex crisis.
We can’t let what works fall apart
Why does this world seem unable to understand that a human being without a house to sleep in, without a shower to wash himself, without food to eat, and with dirty clothes, can’t change their life?
— Jorge Costa
After spending nine months on the streets of Lisbon, Jorge eventually found a stable solution when he met NPISA (Núcleo de Planeamento e Intervenção Sem Abrigo) and AEIPS (Associação para o Estudo e Integração Psicossocial), which helped him enter the Housing First programme.
Housing First provides people experiencing homelessness with immediate access to permanent housing, without preconditions, alongside tailored support. It is the most studied and consistently effective model for ending chronic homelessness.
Homelessness is a complex social problem, but when there is a proven, humane, and evidence-based solution, I believe we have the duty to protect it. Housing First is that solution, and it works. In Lisbon, 9 out of 10 beneficiaries of the programme don't return to the streets.
The Municipality of Lisbon and the Institute of Social Security fund 400 Housing First placements, for which Housing First operators must find suitable houses in the private rental market. But there aren't 400 homes available, because there isn't enough housing with these conditions in the private rental market. The model can't succeed without houses.
To guarantee exclusive housing for Housing First, we launched the Housing First Fund I. But it is not enough. Even as we work to preserve Housing First, we must prevent people like Jorge from falling into homelessness.
Avoiding people from falling into homelessness: housing as a prevention mechanism
There’s always the first day as a homeless person. But this process starts much earlier. It started the day the company I worked for went bankrupt. Today, I understand that was the beginning. And let no one think that it takes some huge catastrophe to end up homeless. The fall is quick. Especially for a man my age, over fifty.
— Jorge Costa
When Jorge's company went bankrupt, he lost his job. Then he lost his apartment. And then he had to move to a small rented room in Alverca. When he couldn't pay rent, he packed two bags and went to Gare do Oriente. That's how quickly it happens.
I'm currently looking for a house to rent, a T2 or T3, preferably in Lisbon, to share with friends. If it has been hard for me to find a home, imagine the challenges faced by Jorge, who had no one to reach out to, couldn't find anyone who would hire him at his age, and had a very strict timeline to find a room.
Housing First is a solution to homelessness, but it's not a solution to the broader housing crisis. With housing prices as they are — a record high in acquisitions as well as in rentals — more and more people will end up living on the street.
The international evidence is clear: as rents rise faster than incomes, homelessness increases too. In Lisbon, in the last 10 years, rental prices have tripled, and the number of homeless people has tripled as well. Rent prices are not the only reason a person becomes homeless, but they accelerate it. The best prevention for homelessness is stable, affordable housing.
National programmes like Primeiro Direito and Habitação a Custos Controlados (HCC) point in the right direction. But we have to ask: if the tools and the funding exist, why aren't they being used more? Is it bureaucracy? Poor communication? Weak incentives? Lack of local capacity?
Whatever the reason, they are not delivering housing at the scale needed.
1. Enabling people to pay rent on time
Finally, the day arrived. The ultimatum. Pay the three months’ rent or leave the room. I didn’t even have money to eat, let alone pay rent. One night, carried by shame, I quietly left my host’s house. Shame, yes. Because I believe anyone feels ashamed of poverty — ashamed to admit being miserable. The next morning, I was sitting at the train station, heading to Gare do Oriente in Lisbon, with two bags and no plan. Just clothes, no money, and no idea what to do.
— Jorge Costa
Portugal is a country of homeowners, which makes the housing market less flexible, especially during crises or demographic shifts. Approximately 37% of the Portuguese population resides in under-occupied houses.
The rental market has also been struggling, resulting in extremely high effort rates for renters. In 2025, to cover rent in Lisbon, 116% of the average salary is needed.
What can we do when looking at the characteristics of our housing market?
- Make it easier to share housing across generations or economic backgrounds — as we're beginning to try.
- Create incentives to reconfigure large apartments into smaller, affordable units — such as in England's permitted conversions.
- Reinforce rent support — following Germany's lead, which led to a decrease in effort rates, especially in high-pressure areas.
- Implement alert systems to ensure that rent support arrives before eviction, rather than after, is currently done in New York. Additionally, rent emergency support should target those at a higher risk of falling into homelessness, as is being tested in the US.
If Jorge had been able to find supported rent on time, the outcome could have been different.
2. What about the obvious: the empty homes
Portugal has 723,215 vacant or unoccupied homes. Of these, 485,000 are in habitable condition. The national vacancy rate is close to 12%. In Lisbon alone, there are 48,000 empty houses, accounting for 15% of the total available housing.
There is no single reason for this situation. A mix of speculation (owners holding out for higher returns), unresolved inheritances, lack of awareness and transparency about the public housing stock, and ineffective enforcement of vacancy penalties.
Examples from other countries that are putting empty homes to use are:
- Go further in mapping idle public assets and turn them into public housing or make them available for cooperative or municipal use.
- Raise taxes (such as IMI and IRS) on vacant private homes or acquire them for social use, as in Belgium, Ireland or France.
- Subsidise renovation in private properties in exchange for long-term affordable rentals, as the EU's Affordable Housing Initiative suggests.
Utilising empty buildings for housing increases the supply for both Housing First and the affordable market.
3. We are not building enough, especially public housing
Portugal has recently seen a slight increase in the number of houses built, but this remains insufficient. In 2024, Portugal licensed 34,367 new housing units, which is less than half of what was licensed two decades ago.
Public efforts are also failing to address the most urgent housing needs. In 2024, under the Programme 1º Direito, only 7.7% of the promised houses were delivered. Under the Programme Parque Público de Habitação a Custos Acessíveis, only 2.5% of the promised houses were delivered to families.
This only aggravates our situation regarding public housing. Only roughly 2 % of Portugal’s homes are public housing. And just 1.1% are social rental — among the lowest rates in the OECD. We have just over 63,000 social rental dwellings nationwide.
Well, can nothing be done?
- Build (and renovate) more public housing, reacting to the urgency of the situation — learning from the successful Vienna model.
- Provide land to private developers for affordable rental exclusivity — as in Madrid's Plan Vive.
- Enforce affordable rental targets for private development initiatives in exchange for strengthened fiscal or compliance incentives — such as in Hamburg's strategy.
- Define social housing targets for every municipality, tied to meaningful incentives or financial consequences — following France's SRU law or Ontario's Building Faster Fund.
We should examine the success we have achieved through public housing in the past and also learn from our mistakes to ensure that public housing remains available in the long term and is not a factor in social exclusion.
4. And we’re not incentivising others to build either
One hundred per cent of Portugal’s social housing is publicly owned. There are only a few active nonprofit or cooperative housing providers in Portugal today. In the UK, 62% of social housing is provided by nonprofit organisations. In the Netherlands, that rate is 82%.
Portugal failed to build an ecosystem that allows others to help. We’ve trusted the market to do what it is not designed to do — prioritise affordable housing — while not bringing up the actors who would. Portugal had a tradition of cooperative housing in previous decades, but it let it slowly fade away. We can follow the European Commission’s recommendation of reinforcing the cooperative sector to reach affordability targets by:
- Empowering nonprofits and cooperatives to operate public housing stock under time-limited agreements - as we're seeing reappear in Lisbon.
- Building flexible partnerships between municipalities and social providers to adapt solutions to the realities of different communities, following the Netherlands' example.
If the public sector is not building and renovating enough homes for the most vulnerable, it should enable others to do it.
Long-term homelessness is a highly complex social problem that can actually be solved. And Lisbon can prove it.
Who am I, then? I don’t know. I only know how to say something I’m not sure anyone will understand: the man who was out there is not the man who is here now. Who am I? Maybe a homeless man with a home. That’s the definition that fits me best. But is it such a bad thing? The other day I found myself thinking: if we all felt misery inside us, maybe misery wouldn’t exist.
— Jorge Costa
Jorge’s story tells us that homelessness is closer than we think, that sound policy and strong safety nets can prevent it, and that evidence-based solutions and strong partnerships can address it.
Most people in long-term homelessness weren’t offered a better solution earlier. Crescer testifies that they haven’t yet met anyone in a homeless situation who didn’t want to enter a Housing First programme.
To effectively end homelessness in Lisbon, we need to:
- Guarantee housing for Housing First programmes to reach everyone who needs them.
- Prevent more people from falling into homelessness in the first place by increasing access to stable, affordable housing.
If you are interested in these topics, in supporting our work, or in simply chatting, get in touch with me at francisco@maze-impact.com.
References
https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/
https://vozoperario.pt/jornal/2025/01/14/a-fabrica-de-sem-abrigo/
https://eurocities.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/EN_Housing-First-in-Action.pdf
https://www.oecd.org/en/data/datasets/oecd-affordable-housing-database.html
https://capolicylab.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/HPU-Early-Outcomes-Report.pdf
https://amensagem.pt/2021/04/27/sem-abrigo-solucoes-peticoes-lisboa-casal-vistoso-arroios/
https://www.forbespt.com/habitacao-lisboa-foi-a-cidade-europeia-com-o-maior-crescimento-de-preco/