The City of Portland, Oregon, has tapped PadSplit as a Qualified Home Sharing Provider for its new Home Sharing Pilot Program — marking the first time a municipality has formally partnered with the company and attached direct financial incentives to participation.
Launched by the Portland Housing Bureau, the 12-month pilot aims to unlock spare bedrooms across the city to ease affordability pressures and expand housing inventory without waiting years for new construction.
Under the program, eligible owner-occupant homeowners can receive $1,000 for the first bedroom rented and $500 for each additional room, provided rents remain at or below $200 per week and meet program requirements.
The goal is simple but ambitious — reduce barriers to access housing while creating units quickly and cost-effectively.
For PadSplit CEO and founder Atticus LeBlanc, Portland’s pilot represents a real-world test of a theory he has promoted for years — that existing housing stock holds untapped potential.
“The fastest, most effective way to solve this housing crisis is unquestionably moving people into bedrooms, which should not be controversial,” he told HousingWire. “And then the question is, when you have homeowners, what are the incentives that drive them to potentially fill those empty bedrooms?”
The impetus for the program traces back to Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, who previously founded the homelessness-focused nonprofit Shelter Portland and began exploring home sharing as a solution before taking office.
The city ultimately embraced PadSplit’s marketplace as a way to operationalize that idea.
PadSplit has long worked with real estate investors, but the owner-occupied model presents a different behavioral challenge.
Investors, LeBlanc noted, are typically motivated by financial returns — while homeowners may weigh privacy concerns or cultural hesitation about living with strangers.
“When I give a talk to a room full of people, I always say, ‘Raise your hand if you want to live with a stranger, if you want a stranger to rent your empty bedroom,” LeBlanc said. “You don’t see a lot of hands go up. When I ask the same people if they want to make more money, you see almost every hand go up.”
The pilot’s incentive payments are designed to bridge that gap — to make the proposition compelling enough for homeowners to reconsider unused space as potential housing inventory, LeBlanc added.
Measuring success one room at a time
The 12-month timeframe will allow city officials and PadSplit to evaluate whether financial incentives increase participation among owner occupants compared to typical inbound interest levels.
“For me, the number one question is, will people do it?” LeBlanc said. “Do people actually respond to this $1,000 for a first room incentive and $500 for each additional room? If yes, great, pour more fuel on the fire. If no, then you probably need to experiment with something else.”
Because investors tend to scale faster — often adding multiple homes over time — the owner-occupied channel isn’t expected to immediately produce the same level of inventory growth. But LeBlanc sees participation rates as the key barometer.
“Is your participation rate among owner-occupants higher in Portland as a result of this program than it would be otherwise?” he asked. “For me, that’s really the major barometer of success.”
U.S. Army veteran Leon Orange turned a sharp rent increase and job loss into an opportunity by leveraging his VA loan and the PadSplit model.
After buying a four-bedroom Orlando home with zero down, he added a fifth bedroom, rented out four rooms through PadSplit and lived in the fifth himself. The rental income covered his mortgage and expenses, allowing him to live rent-free while generating additional monthly cash flow.
Within two years, Leon purchased a second PadSplit home, expanded to 10 rooms, built equity and launched his own creative business — transforming housing instability into financial momentum and long-term stability, LeBlanc said.
Beyond participation, PadSplit tracks outcomes such as resident savings and employment stability. The company reports that residents typically save more than $300 per month compared to traditional housing options — with 83% maintaining employment.
The median resident income is around $32,000, with an average age of 44. Residents include frontline workers, retirees, individuals on disability and people transitioning from homelessness.
A Complement — not a competitor — to traditional housing
PadSplit positions itself as complementary to traditional multifamily and single-family rental operators rather than a competitor.
The model centers on private bedrooms within shared homes, with all-inclusive weekly pricing, no security deposit, no minimum credit score requirement and no long-term lease.
LeBlanc emphasized that the company works across housing types — from retirees renting spare bedrooms to small investors, builders and even apartment operators.
“I really think of PadSplit as just a tool in the toolkit for housing providers,” he said. “If you are maybe an aging senior who is house rich and cash poor that needs to generate additional income from renting out one or two or more room, it’s a solution for you. My great grandmother actually did exactly this in Pikesville, Maryland.
“If you are a small- to medium-size real estate investor with a handful of properties, it’s a way that you can generate higher income and significant social impact.”
The model has also attracted builders constructing purpose-built homes designed for co-living layouts.
In other markets, PadSplit has seen conversions from short-term rental operators exiting platforms like Airbnb amid regulatory pressure or fluctuating demand.
Rather than sitting vacant, those homes can transition into longer-term shared housing, LeBlanc said.
Apartment and multifamily operators are another emerging segment. While studios cannot easily accommodate multiple renters, vacancy pressures have prompted some operators to list furnished, all-inclusive units on the platform to reduce downtime.
“Where we excel is we fill units really, really quickly — less than eight days from listing to fill on average, which is blazingly fast for the apartment industry,” said LeBlanc. “So as long as those multifamily operators are willing to provide all-inclusive furnished listings, they can absolutely list on PadSplit, and we can probably fill those listings much more quickly than they could otherwise.
“Just that difference in vacancy loss is a huge boon for a lot of those providers who are otherwise struggling with occupancy.”
PadSplit’s broader mission
Founded in 2017, PadSplit was born from LeBlanc’s desire to create scalable impact.
“What we do as a marketplace is straightforward,” he said. “We provide access to private rooms and shared homes for the 50% of Americans who can’t afford the rent. We look to other marketplace models that have grown and scaled. The goal was always taking a meaningful bite out of the housing crisis. Specifically, the mission is to help solve the affordable housing shortage one room at a time, while leveraging housing as a vehicle for financial empowerment.”
Today, the company operates more than 31,000 rooms across over 35 U.S. markets and has housed more than 70,000 people — all without federal subsidies.
Portland’s pilot will test whether modest public investment can accelerate that approach.
If the incentives spur homeowner participation and increase available rooms, LeBlanc believes the model could scale well beyond one city — offering a replicable path to expand inventory, lower costs and create stability for thousands more residents.
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