After six weeks of consultations with 125 organisations and almost 2400 hits on the government's housing strategy discussion paper online, a summit to discuss the options will be held on October 17 at QT Hotel.

While the consultations have garnered numerous suggestions for change, summit participants will not vote on any specific measures and the government will decide later what will actually be implemented.

Instead, Housing ACT executive director Louise Gilding said, the government expected it to be a "challenging and creative day that generates new insights and 'aha' moments".

Among the ideas floated were: a public register of landlords willing to rent properties at a reduced rate, new shared equity schemes for first homebuyers, extra support for homeless Canberrans, land supply, zoning and tax issues and efforts to encourage more brown field developments.

But it is understood the government is focussed on proposals that will not involve significant funding or substantive legislative reforms, instead it wants the community and industry sectors to find solutions.

While Housing Minister Yvette Berry said there would be a small budget announcement for "preliminary work" on strategy on the day, she would not detail what it was, and would not commit to any timeline on when decisions would be made.

She said the summit was about getting people with different perspectives in the same room and while she didn't expect a consensus, she hoped it would help "find a way we can all work together" to create more affordable housing.

Ms Berry said she did want to see some "very measurable outcomes" and the summit was to ensure the wider community was part of the conversation on the strategy, which she saw as "a co-design approach".

Woden Community Services' executive Chris Redmond, who sits on the government's housing advisory committee, said the committee had looked at all proposals, but proposals that were the "low hanging fruit" were more likely to attract funding or real changes.

But he said the summit was a "great opportunity" for the different sectors of community services and industry to have a wider conversation about what could be done to increase affordable housing and address homelessness in the city.

ACT Shelter director Travis Gilbert, who also sits on the committee, said the summit was originally proposed in the Labor-Greens parliamentary agreement last year, but had now morphed into "developing ideas for a new strategy".

He said updating the policy, which is now a year out of date, started about six months before the October election last year, but had been "shelved" until after the poll and it had now taken a further six months to get to this point.

"I'm hoping it won't be a talkfest, it really needs to develop a solid charter by the end of the day, but that is a big risk, with 150 people in the room," he said.

He said the industry had been realistic and "forthright" on what ideas were not viable for developers and it had also led to some ideas being proposed the community sector had not previously.

But Mr Gilbert said a key issue that needed to be tackled was the fact that land sales were such a big revenue source for the government.

"There's always going to be a tension around delivering affordable housing while at the same delivering revenue for the government, the two don't mesh," he said.

"What that means is it's probably not economically in the government's interest to deliver across the board reductions in prices, so they'll probably be thinking "what's this niche product we'll offer"."

Ms Gilding said the summit provided a chance to "to develop a shared understanding of the complex issues involved and to identify those areas of consensus, agreement and the best ideas which will help to inform the shape of a new ACT housing strategy".