The trend continued in January 2025, when a Redfin report named Providence the single least-affordable city for renters, who make up more than 60 percent of city residents. And, this month, according to apartments.com, the average rent of a 2-bedroom apartment in Providence in January 2026 is $2,603. If you go by the 30 percent rule, a tenant would need to earn $104,120 to afford that much in rent.
We are working hard on long-term solutions.
Since I became Council President in 2023, the Providence City Council has taken serious steps to address the housing shortage fueling much of the crisis. We have invested $55 million in the Housing Trust and lowered the income threshold to ensure this investment goes to those most in need. This funding has already led to hundreds of affordable new units. The Council also advanced zoning changes in the Comprehensive Plan that loosen restrictions on building denser housing, especially along transit corridors.
But building housing at the scale needed takes time, and time is not on our side. Providence families are in crisis. Navigating a full-blown rent emergency can’t wait. We need an immediate stopgap to provide stability for families living in precarity.
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That’s where rent stabilization comes in.
Today, I’m introducing an ordinance to cap standard annual rent increases at 4 percent.
We need to slow skyrocketing rents, while the policies and investments we’ve made in new construction come to fruition. We need predictability, so renters know their housing costs from year-to-year and aren’t pushed into homelessness or displaced from their neighborhoods.
And we need to do so responsibly.
That’s why the ordinance I’m introducing balances stability for renters with fair returns for property owners. It exempts new construction and installs a rent board to hear petitions for exceptions in cases of meaningful capital improvements or demonstrated extenuating circumstances that would prevent a fair return. The ordinance also automatically allows property owners to exceed 4 percent in the case of significant property tax hikes.
Recognizing that homeowners renting out the small, one-to-three unit buildings in which they live, plus one additional small building, are part of the solution, not the problem, the ordinance exempts them as well.
This commonsense approach allows us to stabilize costs for renters while maintaining our existing housing stock and supporting small neighborhood landlords, all without slowing down the development we desperately need.
I know the market won’t solve this problem on its own. Meaningful, thoughtful intervention is necessary to protect the interests of Providence families.
I’m a renter myself—a rare breed among elected officials.
In 2022, researchers from Boston University and the University of Georgia analyzed 1,800 city councilors and mayors from 190 cities, including Providence, and found that an estimated 93 percent of them own their homes. As one of the 7 percent of local officeholders who rents, I feel the challenges and the urgency for solutions. It’s my own experience, and that of my neighbors I’m proud to represent, that has led me to take this necessary step.
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Rent stabilization is about who we are as a city. Do we want Providence to be a place where you have to be upper middle class just to survive? Or do we want to be a city where artists can pursue their dreams, immigrants can build a thriving future, and union workers aren’t pushed out of the neighborhoods they built? Providence’s strength has always come from its mix—of cultures, of ideas, of people from all walks of life who care about each other and our collective success. Rent stabilization is the next chapter for Providence.
To win meaningful change that creates predictability in the rental market will require solidarity and grit. We are up against big developers and a real estate lobby that will do whatever it takes to maximize profit, even at the expense of family and neighborhood stability. But this is our city. Ours to live in, ours to love, ours to afford.
Now, the rent stabilization ordinance will be thoroughly vetted before it comes to a vote. There will be public hearings, community meetings, conversations in living rooms and on street corners. If you have concerns with aspects of it, I hope you’ll express them. And if you support it, I hope you’ll do so loudly.
Because if we raise our voices together, there is no amount of monied special interest lobbying that can stop us from keeping people in their homes.
Providence City Council President Rachel Miller represents Ward 13.