In March, Mayor Brett Smiley announced his administration’s Housing Stabilization Package, which consists of various initiatives that aim to protect renters as the city seeks to address housing shortages. The package includes the Rental and Essential Needs Transition Fund, which aims to provide support to Providence renters “facing temporary financial hardship,” according to the press release.
The announcement came just over two months after a 4% cap on annual rent increases was proposed by the Providence City Council, which Smiley said he will veto. That ordinance made it out of committee on March 26 and will be put forward for a full City Council vote on April 2.
The proposed RENT Fund “will give renters a practical lifeline when a temporary setback” arises by providing “up to $3,000 per household for neighbors facing imminent housing loss” or other housing instability crises, according to Emily Freedman, director of the city’s Department of Housing and Human Services.
R.I. households earning less than 80% of the area median income are eligible for the program, with those earning at or below 60% of the AMI receiving priority, Freedman added.
The goal of the housing package is to help tide renters over during emergencies, said City Councilman Oscar Vargas (Ward 15), an early co-sponsor of the ordinance. “Maybe you got sick, you lose a job,” Vargas said. “That’s the thing that we want to be” able to help people get through, he added.
In 2025, a Redfin analysis found that Providence was the least affordable city for renters, The Herald previously reported.
“Average rent in Providence has gone up dramatically in recent years, whereas wages have remained largely stagnant,” said Siraj Sindhu MA’20, executive director of Reclaim Rhode Island, an advocacy group focused on housing justice.
Unlike other New England states such as Connecticut or Massachusetts, Rhode Island does not currently have a state-funded rental assistance program, according to Brenda Clement, director of HousingWorks Rhode Island.
Clement noted that policies like the RENT Fund help open up “the opportunity to think about” how “a more permanent assistance program” could be implemented.
The RENT Fund would help around 300 families, according to Smiley.
Sindhu said that while the ordinance is “not a bad policy in and of itself,” it is “deeply insufficient and not a solution” to the scale of the housing crisis in Providence.
“It is clearly an attempt by the mayor to distract the people of Providence from the fact that he’s opposed to rent stabilization,” he said.
The Smiley Administration remains committed to “support the creation and preservation of affordable homes” by “advancing policies to speed up approvals, support adaptive reuse and make it easier to build the types of housing our residents needs,” Michaela Antunes, deputy chief of staff at the City of Providence, wrote in an email to The Herald.
According to City Council spokesperson Kati Stevens, rent stabilization and the RENT Fund “go hand-in-hand,” noting that every councilmember who sponsored the rent stabilization ordinance also sponsored the RENT Fund.
While “the $800,000 in emergency assistance funds would help up to 300 Providence households,” the “rent stabilization ordinance would bring stability and predictability to tens of thousands of Providence families,” Stevens wrote.
Both the package and ordinance are “aimed at the same core objective of preventing displacement and preserving housing stability,” Freedman wrote.
“Providence’s housing crisis demands both immediate relief for families under pressure now and sustained investment in long-term solutions,” Freedman wrote. “The right balance is one where emergency assistance helps neighbors stay in place today while long-term investments increase the number of safe, affordable homes tomorrow.”
In addition to the RENT Fund, the package includes the addition of a $25 million bond to expand the Providence Housing Trust Fund, Freedman noted.
“This package takes a balanced approach” with policies “focused on people most at risk of falling through the cracks,” City Councilman John Goncalves (Ward 1), who helped spearhead the proposals alongside Smiley, wrote in an email to The Herald.
“The ordinance (for the RENT Fund) actually sunsets by 2030 so this is a million dollars annually for the next four years,” he added. “My hope is that we can adjust based on the number of applications we receive and build on it over time, whether through additional city resources, state support or partnerships, to create something more scalable.”
The RENT Fund, along with the complementary policy proposals, represent “an important first step,” Goncalves wrote.
Ava Rahman is a senior staff writer covering housing, infrastructure and transportation.
