Could building more housing solve Philadelphia’s affordable housing crisis? If the answer seems obvious, you obviously haven’t dug into the question. On Monday, March 4, 2024, The Citizen gathered four housing experts — two developers, two policy specialists — and about 250 very invested guests in the ballroom of the Fitler Club to talk affordable housing solutions.
To set the scene: Philadelphia’s 25 percent poverty rate is higher than the national average. And, at approximately $250,000, our city’s AMI (Area Median Income, which, in Philly’s case, also includes some wealthier suburbs) is considerably lower than the national average of $387,000. According to the latest statistics, 45,000 low-income Philadelphians live in Philadelphia Housing Authority housing — 61,000 more are on PHA’s waitlist for housing. Something needs to be done, and soon, to ensure our supply of affordable homes meets the demand.
The panel of experts included:
- Mo Rushdy, a managing partner for the urban lifestyle developments firm the Riverwards Group, chair of the Philadelphia Accelerator Fund, head of the Building Industry Association, a board member of Land Bank and a member of Mayor Cherelle Parker’s transition team.
- Leslie Smallwood-Lewis, COO and co-founder of Mosaic Development Partners, a Philadelphia-based, minority-certified, commercial real estate development and project management company that focuses on the ground-up development and adaptive reuse of commercial properties in underserved urban communities.
- Richard Kahlenberg, the author or editor of 18 books, including Excluded: How Snob Zoning, NIMBYism and Class Bias Build the Walls We Don’t See.
- Urban policy specialist and writer Diana Lind, who publishes on urban development in her Substack The New Urban Order and in The Citizen. She’s the author of Brave New Home: Our Future in Smarter, Simpler, Happier Housing. Lind moderated the event.
Development…for Good, is presented in partnership among The Citizen, Drexel University’s Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation and Fitler Club, to consider how private development and public placemaking can reshape our city, to the benefit of all Philadelphians. The series is sponsored by Brandywine Realty Trust, Firstrust Bank and Darco Capital.
The conversation on Monday, which included questions from the audience, explored how the housing crisis relates to others aspects of city life, including wages, education and segregation; the policy barriers that prevent more developers from building more affordable projects; the importance of Black developers; the connections between housing and education and wealth generation; the opportunities for change in the new mayoral administration — and many other topics.
See the full video of the event below.
[Editor’s note: Due to a technical error, the sound in the first 12 minutes of this video is somewhat garbled. We appreciate your patience.]
See below for photos of the event.
Cocktail hour:
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