More funding could be coming to a Pa. affordable housing program

Shapiro’s proposal would not increase PHARE funding to $100 million overnight, instead adding $10 million to the ceiling each year until 2028. He also proposed adding $50 million to the Whole-Home Repairs Program, a separate grant for low-income homeowners to address problems like leaking roofs, unsafe electrical wiring, and broken furnaces.

Shapiro also pitched scrapping PHARE’s current funding formula in favor of what his budget proposal calls a “guaranteed” transfer. Bonder noted, the current formula sometimes results in PHARE receiving less money than its cap allows. The guaranteed transfer would mean funds reliably hit the cap every year.

This higher sum would be overwhelmingly funded via the state’s realty transfer tax, one of several funding sources for PHARE, along with natural gas impact fees and money from the National Housing Trust Fund. Money from the transfer tax goes to several areas of the budget, including the general fund, and Bonder said the state’s current surplus means there is spending flexibility.

State House Democrats back Shapiro’s proposal as written, according to their spokesperson, Beth Rementer. But state Senate Republicans would need to be won over in budget negotiations.

The state budget was due June 30, but lawmakers are still haggling over the final package.

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for state Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Scott Martin (R., Lancaster) responded, “We do not have an update to share on that issue at this time.”

State Sen. Elder Vogel Jr. (R., Beaver), who sponsored the legislation over the past two sessions, is somewhat optimistic.

“We’re hopeful that we’re going to see a cap increase,” Vogel’s communications director, Abby Chiumento, said. “With negotiations ongoing, we don’t know what’s going to be in the final budget.”

PHARE was signed into law in 2010. The legislation that led to the program’s establishment received near-unanimous support in both chambers.

The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, which is affiliated with but not run by the state, chooses the recipients of PHARE grants. The recipients range from nonprofits to county governments.

The program “allows municipalities and localities and counties to figure out how they can best use the dollars,” said Allegheny County Executive and former Democratic state representative Sara Innamorato. “For us, it’s addressing homelessness, but if there’s a community that wants to create more first-time home buyers, they can design a program around that.”

Innamorato, who sponsored the PHARE cap increase bill in the state House when she served there, argues more funding is overdue.

“There’s many projects that are worthy that go unfunded every year,” she said. “We could always use more money to invest in addressing housing needs.”

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