There are many sides to the housing crisis. While rental prices in cities get a lot of attention, the rising costs of homeownership in rural and suburban areas have also swelled.
In Pennsylvania, where about 60 percent of all homes were built before 1970 (and roughly half of those were built before 1940), one in three voters say their utility bills are “unaffordable.” Almost half of the homeowners in the same poll said that they would struggle to pay for a critical home repair, like a leaking roof.
Recognizing those struggles, legislators in Harrisburg created the Whole-Home Repairs program (WHR) in 2022. Utilizing $125 million of federal pandemic relief funds, WHR provides statewide assistance — on average, $19,000 per home — to low-income and middle-income homeowners to make critical improvements on their properties. Administered through county agencies, the program has been wildly popular, with a waitlist of more than 18,000 people at present.
It’s been such a successful program that, earlier this year, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators introduced a bill that would effectively replicate the WHR model nationally.
However, Republicans in Harrisburg have blocked two attempts to sustainably fund WHR in the past few years. The would-be funding for WHR was a casualty of broader fights over spending increases between the parties. Last year, for example, GOP leaders cited “the substantial investments made for education” as a reason for WHR “getting lost in the shuffle” of the state budget. As a result, without more funding, the high demand for the program will exhaust its coffers in the near future.
But in February, Governor Josh Shapiro revived hopes for the future of state-funded home repairs. In his budget proposal, Shapiro included $50 million for an unnamed home improvement initiative. Months later, details are finally emerging of what the program may look like. On May 29, a bipartisan and bicameral group of legislators introduced a memo outlining the PA Home Preservation Program — which, much like its predecessor, WHR, aims to make home repairs affordable and in turn, build generational wealth, improve the health and safety of PA residents, and keep communities whole.
“This is about preserving homes for future generations, preventing displacement, and preventing abandonment. We already lose thousands of homes across the state in rural, urban, and suburban areas due to a lack of maintenance.” — State Senator Nikil Saval
“There’s so much we gain economically and socially from helping people to stay in their homes,” says State Senator Nikil Saval (D-Philadelphia), who was the driving force behind WHR. “The PA Home Preservation Program is basically to help low-income and working-class homeowners stay in their homes and ensure that issues — such as deferred maintenance, the inability to adapt homes to changing physical needs [of the owners], and utility bills — don’t keep you from maintaining and preserving your home.”
The program may still face an uphill battle in the legislature, as indicated by a comment to Spotlight PA from Kate Flessner, a spokesperson for state senate Republicans in March that, “With such a large demand for new spending and unrealistic consideration as to the impact for future years, at this point it’s hard to see how such a program could be funded.”
Still, ahead of a June 30 deadline for the state government to pass a new budget, Saval is optimistic that PA Home Preservation Program will be included in this year’s appropriation’s cycle. We caught up with the Senator hours after he participated in a large rally for transit funding in Harrisburg, which drew hundreds of people. He spoke to The Citizen on his Amtrak train back to Philly about the particulars of this new program. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
You’ve introduced a memo for the new housing repairs program, which has Republican co-sponsors in both the House and Senate. What’s the status on an actual bill?
We’re pretty close to having a draft legislation that we’ve worked on with our legislative colleagues in both chambers and the Governor’s administration. Along with my co-sponsors, we’re building support in both parties right now.
Senate Republicans have repeatedly scuttled efforts to funnel state dollars into the WHR Program in the past two legislative sessions. What gives you confidence that this time will be different?
The PA Home Preservation Program is being introduced with bipartisan support in both the Senate and the House, and we’ve focused our efforts on what’s possible with available state dollars and within the capabilities of individual counties. That this is an effort that reaches across the aisle shows some continued support for home preservation and repair programs that can tackle the persistent housing crisis that’s harmed communities throughout our Commonwealth — in rural areas, small towns, and big cities alike.
Why should the state fund this new housing preservation program now?
There are lots of reasons why a home repairs program is an effective use of taxpayer dollars. One, it has demonstrable economic benefits in preserving a stable tax base in communities where people are losing their homes due to deferred maintenance. This is about preserving homes for future generations, preventing displacement, and preventing abandonment. We already lose thousands of homes across the state in rural, urban, and suburban areas due to a lack of maintenance. That’s a pretty common phenomena, especially with an older housing stock like ours in PA. And so thousands of constituents have been served or want to be served by this program across political boundaries and all kinds of geographies.
So I think the benefits of this would be significant. We’re supporting Governor Shapiro’s $50 million proposal for a new state program and we believe it would support improvements to about 2,500 homes per year.
What’s going to be different about the program this time around?
I think we have learned some lessons about what you can do with limited funding. If you take $50 million and spread it across the entire state, it’s not much, right? We might even have counties potentially receiving less than $100,000. Currently, WHR works through a formula-driven process. And so what we want to do [with the new PA Home Preservation Program] is to make it a competitive process, and encourage consortiums of counties and municipalities to apply, so that they can collaborate across the delivery of services.
“That this is an effort that reaches across the aisle shows some continued support for home preservation and repair programs that can tackle the persistent housing crisis that’s harmed communities throughout our Commonwealth.” — State Senator Nikil Saval
It just makes more sense to have people collaborate and regionalize the program. We want to serve everyone, but with limited funding, the more effective way to serve more people is to encourage cross-county collaboration.
Homeowners making up to 80 percent of their area’s median income are eligible for WHR assistance. Will that remain the same?
The Department of Community and Economic Development, which will administer the program, will be able to set an income threshold between 80 and 120 percent of the median income for participating homeowners. [In Philly, a family of four with household income between roughly $95,000 and $143,000 would be eligible, for example.] The focus will still be targeting the lower end of that demographic, but with the competitive process, the wider range allows for more flexibility with the application.
WHR tried to address a confluence of issues — from the affordability of housing to the need for weatherization. Is that also going to be true of the new program?
The PA Home Preservation Program, like our ARPA-funded home repairs program, would support grant-making to homeowners to make changes to their home. Existing home repair programs have always been meant to be braided with this program. For example, we have a federal Weatherization Assistance Program. Sometimes, those dollars don’t reach people who are eligible, because they have deferred maintenance issues.
If your roof leaks, you will not be eligible for weatherization, because you can’t seal up the building envelope with a leaky roof that would induce mold. You know, it doesn’t work. So what WHR, at least in part, is meant to do is help you get your roof repaired, and then someone with technical assistance at the county level — or whoever’s leading the program in your area — can help you get access to weatherization dollars. Basically, it’s designed to help you access the right programs in the right order. So that would also still be consistent with the PA Home Preservation Program.
U.S. Senator Fetterman has proposed a federal version of PA’s WHR Program. Does it feel meaningful to have the model receive bipartisan recognition at the national level?
Absolutely. Senator Fetterman had been a supporter of the program while he was running for the Senate. And it was one of the earliest things that he started to work on, in collaboration with our office, when he started. It’s just interesting to note that in the current Congress, the bill advanced. And that’s with Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyoming) as the prime sponsor to the bill, along with other conservative sponsors, like Senator Dave McCormick (R-PA).
“It would be a shame to lose buildings that have lasted for, in many cases, hundreds of years. We deserve to have that passed onto future generations.” — State Senator Nikil Saval
Although we created [the WHR Program] with PA in mind, we knew it could be replicated, and we designed it specifically for that purpose. Maryland has a version of the program. Maine is exploring it. It’s been introduced in Massachusetts. We met with advocates from Illinois. But what I’d say is that the strongest recognition would be the creation of this program. I just want the dollars to reach people.
On top of being a state senator, you’re also a respected architectural writer and critic. I’m wondering if there’s a secondary benefit to this bill, as a means of preserving the state’s historic architecture?
I do think of this as a historic preservation program. Obviously, affordability, reducing utility bills, keeping people in their homes — all of those are important. But also, my wife is a historic preservationist. I care very much about historic preservation. I care about both the architectural fabric and the historic nature of the rural landscape in PA, and the connections between these two things.
People deserve preservation. They deserve to be able to stay in their homes. And historic preservation has typically meant architecturally notable buildings in wealthier areas. I think we have incredible building stock that may never be historically designated, but deserves to stay with the people who live in those homes. It would be a shame to lose buildings that have lasted for, in many cases, hundreds of years. We deserve to have that passed on to future generations.
MORE ON HOUSING FROM THE CITIZEN
