Housing advocates to the city: Rethink your approach to housing affordability

The City of Philadelphia needs to rethink how it approaches affordable housing and how it spends its housing dollars to make sure it is helping the most vulnerable residents, according to tenants, homeowners, housing advocates, and City Council members who spoke at a Council hearing about housing funding Tuesday.

Those who testified pushed for more housing funding for the city’s lowest-income residents, more assistance for rent and home repairs, changes to city zoning rules to allow for denser housing and shared housing arrangements, more support for community development corporations that are building affordable housing, and more examination into how the city can use limited funding most effectively.

The hearing comes as City Council and housing advocates wait for Mayor Cherelle L. Parker to unveil her housing plan, which she said she will use to build and repair 30,000 units of housing across price levels during her first term. The plan is expected to be released sometime this year.

Mark Dodds, interim deputy director of the city’s Division of Housing and Community Development, said at Tuesday’s hearing that the plan “will expand affordable housing options.”

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“We look forward to continuing the work with Council to address the urgent housing needs of the communities we serve,” he said.

The push for a Council hearing focused on housing funding came from the Philadelphia Coalition for Affordable Communities, which advocates for more affordable and accessible housing. About a year and a half ago, the coalition of 78 community, disability, faith, labor, and urban agriculture organizations launched a campaign to get Philadelphia to spend more money on residents with the lowest incomes.

The coalition wants the city to spend 50% of its housing funding on residents who make less than $30,000 per year, which is almost one in three Philadelphia households.

Half of the city’s renters and one-third of its homeowners spend more than they can comfortably afford to cover housing costs, which have risen faster than wages.

The Philadelphia Coalition for Affordable Communities released a report last February that highlighted these statistics and called on the city to rethink how it spends housing funding.

Lorraine Mobley, a 76-year-old lifelong Philadelphian and retiree, said at Tuesday’s hearing that she has struggled to maintain her West Philadelphia home.

“We want to continue to have city housing programs that are beneficial to individuals earning a range of incomes, but too many of the programs are not serving Philadelphia’s most vulnerable families,” said Mobley, who is a board member with the nonprofit Rebuilding Together Philadelphia, which repairs homes.

Councilmember Rue Landau, a housing and civil rights attorney, said the city could be focusing more money on keeping people housed so it can spend less on consequences of housing instability, including homelessness, unemployment, and emergency health care.

“What we’re doing is not dramatically working at all,” Landau said. “In fact, the costs are completely out of pace with incomes right now. We have to completely rewrite this, think in different ways, reimagine the whole thing, and try something new. Because I think everybody in this room is willing to take a risk of trying something new just to see how it works.”

Mindy Watts, researcher for the Philadelphia Coalition for Affordable Communities’ report and a principal at Interface Studio, a planning and urban design firm headquartered in Philadelphia, said adjusting how the city allocates housing dollars is critical and that Council members can drive change.

Federal and local governments traditionally base income limits for housing programs on the median income for the broader Philadelphia region, which is higher than the median income in the city. Federal funding often comes with income guidelines, but Philadelphia does have some discretion when it comes to who can benefit from local housing funds.

“Our city’s housing affordability crisis is only getting worse,” Councilmember Jamie Gauthier said. “There is a desperate need for affordable housing in every corner of our city. And our main way to help those who need it the most is through maximizing our public dollars.”

She commended the Philadelphia Coalition for Affordable Communities for pushing for solutions.

In response to questions about what the city’s Division of Housing and Community Development is doing to provide housing for people in the most desperate need, Dodds, the interim deputy director, said a range of city agencies are working together to tackle the issue.

“The need is extremely great in the city and requires a lot of will and resources,” he said. “And I think those are things we’re all committed to.”

A Redfin report published last month found that the Philadelphia metropolitan area is one of the least affordable major metros for its apartment renters based on their incomes. The typical Philadelphia-area renter would have needed to make almost $75,000 to afford a typical apartment advertised for rent late last year, according to Redfin.

Philadelphia is known for being a relatively affordable place to buy a home, but in the region that Redfin defines as Philadelphia and Delaware County, the typical household needed to spend a higher share of its income to own a home for sale last year than what is considered to be affordable.

Emily Dowdall, president of policy solutions at Reinvestment Fund, a Philadelphia-based redevelopment nonprofit, said the “greatest unmet need for housing resources” is for Philadelphia households earning less than 50% of the region’s median income, which is $52,000 for a household of three.

“That’s where people are most cost-burdened, that’s where people are more likely to have home repair needs, or they’re gonna have difficulty in turning to home ownership or maintaining home ownership when taxes go up, etcetera,” she said.

Philadelphia renter Angelita Ellison told Council members about her family being pushed to sell the South Philadelphia home where generations of family members had lived because her mother couldn’t afford repairs and couldn’t get assistance.

Ellison said she is able to afford her rent of more than $1,200 only because she splits it with her sister. Ellison volunteers with the Philadelphia-based nonprofit Women’s Community Revitalization Project, which is a member of the Philadelphia Coalition for Affordable Communities.

Ellison told Council members that Philadelphia needs to change its attitude when it comes to affordable housing in recognition of the city’s position as the country’s poorest large city.

“When you have these developers building these homes that are upwards of $300,000, $500,000, who are they building those houses for?” she said. “Recognize that the city should serve all of its residents and not just folks at the highest income levels.”