The Portuguese Report

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.