A bipartisan group of state lawmakers, including two from Allegheny County, want to bring back a program that helps pay for badly needed housing repairs — this time using state funds instead of federal pandemic aid. Restarting the Whole-Home Repair initiative, supporters say, could help thousands of Pennsylvanians who have been waiting for help.
“We want to make sure that our seniors and our most vulnerable Pennsylvanians have access to funds that keep them in their homes,” said Pittsburgh state Rep. Lindsay Powell, a Democratic who is sponsoring a bill in the House to restart the program under a new name.
Like a similar measure in the Senate, the proposal would set aside $50 million in next year’s budget for repairs to keep “thousands more Pennsylvanians in their homes while preventing decaying, blighted buildings in our communities,” as a memo circulated to other House members puts it.
The program aims to restart an initiative that used $125 million in federal COVID relief aid in 2022. That money helped finance repairs in 2,600 homes across the state, carried out by local developers and nonprofits who contracted with county agencies.
In Allegheny County, some of that work was done by the nonprofit ACTION Housing. Dan Sullivan, the agency’s stabilization program manager, said the county received more than 5,000 applications for help from homeowners. But its share of the federal money ran out after working on only 256 homes.
The repairs involved aren’t just “a bathroom upgrade or a new tile countertop or something like that,” said Sullivan, who toured each local home chosen for rehabilitation.They often needed new roofs, or faced problems with heating or environmental problems such as mold.
“I can pretty much guarantee that all 5,000 — plus the thousands more who never applied — need significant repairs done to their house,” Sullivan said.
Such shortfalls afflicted the program statewide, as demand greatly outstripped the funds available. By one estimate, some 18,000 people who applied were put on a waitlist for another round of funding — which so far has yet to arrive.
Repairs averaged $47,000 per home at the time, and Sullivan said that since then, many homeowners have delayed necessary repairs as the cost of materials increased.
“Home repair has been very costly since COVID — [the pandemic] really upset the market, and we haven't quite bounced back yet,” Sullivan said.
But as federal relief dollars have dried up, elected officials in Harrisburg have yet to provide state dollars to keep the program going. Previous efforts to replenish the initiative with state funds have collapsed in the Republican-controlled Senate, where legislation to provide the money has foundered.
The $51.5 billion budget that Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, has proposed for next year includes $50 million for the program. And Powell, who is vice-chair of the Housing and Community Development committee, says she’ll soon introduce a bill to authorize that spending with co-sponsors Rep. Brandon Markosek of Monroeville, the committee chair, and Rep. Tim Twardzik (R-Schuylkill). In the Senate, Nikil Saval (D-Philadelphia) and David Argall (R-Schuylkill) are sponsoring the legislation.
Such bipartisan support is necessary, and with the state budget facing a June 30 deadline, Powell said she’s optimistic the program has enough Republican support.
“Starting from a ground level in a bipartisan manner will hopefully help us mitigate some of the challenges that the bill had faced in previous sessions,” Powell said. “We think that this is a really good foundation to begin with.”
Rep. Rich Irvin, Republican chair of the Housing and Community Development committee, did not return a request for comment on the bill’s prospects within his caucus.
Sullivan, for his part, says that home-repair legislation is needed to keep housing affordable — and to keep residents in the state. Pennsylvania has some of the oldest housing stock in the country, he said, and people who can’t afford to maintain their homes often have to leave them entirely — sometimes moving in with relatives outside the state.
“These programs are paramount as we're trying to keep people in Pennsylvania,” Sullivan said. “If you can’t live in the home that you own, where do you go?”
