Brett Smiley, Mayor of Providence, RI: “We don’t aspire to be a place that only certain people can afford to be”
The Mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, has spoken out about the housing crisis affecting the U.S. under Donald Trump.
Another day, another Donald. The perpetual memos in newsrooms around the country and the world recycle themselves in furious fashion to keep up with the churn and keep in line with just what’s going on.
If it’s not Epstein, which is apparently “pretty boring stuff”, it’s ICE, or East Wing demolition, or gold paint, or something else flooding the news feed in order to take us away from the fact that hard-working Americans are struggling every day to make ends meet.
Facing a worsening housing situation, Rhode Island Mayor Brett Smiley has made it his “urgent” priority that Providence become affordable to everyone, not just a privileged few that Trump is prioritising with his policies.
“We don’t aspire to be a place that only certain people can afford to be”
Over the past two years, Smiley’s office has directed more than US$55 million into the Providence Housing Trust Fund to support long-term affordable housing initiatives. “Last year we ranked on a couple of the lists as having some of the fastest growing rents in the country,” Smiley reported. “We don’t aspire to be a place that only certain people can afford to be.”
On his advice to New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who has shaped his campaign around the word ‘affordability’, Smiley said: “If a problem is complex, be wary of simple solutions. The approach we’re taking in Providence is… robust and comprehensive... We are not doing just one thing. We’re making sure we don’t lose any of our existing housing so that we’re not taking one step forward with new construction, but then two steps backwards by having old affordable properties come offline. And we’re providing protections for tenants because we know that they need it.”
These funds are being used to create new units, modernise aging housing stock, and back mixed-income developments across the city.
As well as this, Smiley has also been a champion of zoning reforms and streamlined permitting processes, which make it easier and faster for developers to build affordable housing. Statistics show that the city has issued nearly 860 housing permits in FY 2025, with a staggering 22% of the units permanently subsidised.
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“Without new housing added to our city, affordability will remain out of reach for too many families,” Smiley said in the report. “But by combining pro-housing policies with smart investment and development efforts, Providence is already delivering results.”
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