Gov. Shapiro announces $1B housing plan to spur new developments in Pennsylvania

In addition to new funding, the budget calls for reforms designed to protect renters and homeowners. Among the changes are limits on rental application fees, sealing eviction records for tenants who were never ultimately evicted, authorizing transfer-on-death deeds for primary residences and placing guardrails on annual lot rent increases in manufactured home communities.

Going from executive order to state budget-funded, however, will require an act of the legislature and buy-in from Senate Republicans who have balked at the governor’s proposed overall spending.

“The governor simply wants to spend too much money in this budget, full stop,” Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman,R-Indiana, said earlier this month.

State Sen. Vincent Hughes, D-Philadelphia, said he “looked forward” to working with both parties.

“There’ll be stuff you can do by executive order, governor, and we want to make sure that gets done,” he said. “But it’s going to be the Legislature that can make sure that all of the systematic changes get done and the money gets appropriated as well.”

Shapiro said the plan would take the commonwealth “from the bottom of the pack to being a national leader when it comes to housing construction.”

“We will reduce homelessness to the lowest levels in the entire region, and we’ll create new opportunities for millions of Pennsylvanians,” he said.

To coordinate this work, the Department of Community and Economic Development will establish Pennsylvania’s first Deputy Secretary for Housing. Rick Siger, who leads the department, said the position will focus on aligning housing efforts across agencies and driving implementation of the plan.

Val Arkoosh, secretary of the Department of Human Services, emphasized the connection between stable housing and health. Drawing on her experience as a physician in Philadelphia hospitals, she described treating patients who repeatedly cycled through emergency rooms because they lacked stable housing.

“I could prescribe antibiotics. I could prescribe insulin. But the one essential treatment I could not prescribe was a home,” Arkoosh said.

At the governor’s announcement, Philadelphia resident Eunique Carr said she and her daughter nearly became homeless after her parental partner passed away, but received legal help from Community Legal Services.

“Not only were we dealing with the loss of our loved one, but we were also in danger of losing our family home and heading for foreclosure,” Carr said. “I would like to thank Gov. Shapiro for announcing his new housing plan, including reforms to help other families going through the same hardship.”