The study focuses on a particular example of the housing history of Budapest. The Soroksári Street model dwellings, established in 1896, seemed to have found an isolated though remarkable solution to the housing problem. Housing shortage was a permanent and acute social problem of Budapest at the turn of the century. The council, pressed by many, refused any direct involvement in social housing projects, and shifted the responsibility of establishing healthy workers’ colonies to the factories. Almost all contemporaries suggested that the housing shortage must be solved by establishing non-profit housing societies but, in spite of every municipal and public effort, no such company was founded. Author claims that the ambitious Homeless Shelter Society met this long-felt want by extending its activity to philantropic model housing for the labourer. The Masonic-based Homeless Shelter Society (Hajléktalanok Menhelye Egylet) was fund by high rank officials, businessmen and intellectuals in 1881, initially in order to provide accomodation for the roofless in shelters. The establishment of their shelters followed the international patterns of non-profit housing societies: they were built on municipal lots, of municipal money and under municipal control. The charity applied the same structure to the model blocks which consisted of 96 apartments and several outbuildings. The investment was supported by a unique municipal loan and tax exemption. Author claims that public involvement, however weak it was, must not be disregarded in the history of social housing of Budapest. The study argues that the financial construction of non-profit housing societies was originally applied to homeless shelters in Budapest, but later on it was also suitable for social housing.