A Right Distorted? The Reconfiguration of Social Housing Policy under Portugal’s 1st Right Programme

This article examines the institutional drift of the 1st Right, Portugal's main housing programme, originally designed to guarantee the right to adequate housing for families in situations of severe deprivation. Taking the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA) as a critical case, the study employs a mixed-methods approach, combining policy and discourse analysis, financial data, and territorial mapping of local implementation. The results reveal three interlinked forms of policy deviation: (i) territorial deviation, driven by unequal municipal capacities and resource absorption; (ii) instrumental deviation, resulting from the prioritisation of rehabilitation pre-existent public housing stock over the provision of new housing; and (iii) social deviation, marked by the expansion of eligibility criteria that extend benefits to middle-income groups. Together, these dynamics demonstrate how a social rights-based housing policy can be reshaped when integrated into a financial recovery framework, such as the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP). The article contributes to international debates on housing governance by showing how multilevel financing mechanisms can reinforce territorial inequalities, reorient policy instruments, and dilute redistributive objectives. It concludes by advocating for stronger social monitoring, differentiated instruments for distinct target groups, and better temporal alignment between social policy objectives and EU funding cycles.