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Calls to expand $50,000 grants to homeowners for critical repairs

While most counties have not yet opened applications to homeowners, officials expect demand will far exceed the program’s initial $125 million in funding.

LANCASTER, Pa. — Legislation passed last year is taking aim at blight and hundreds of thousands of homes in desperate need of repair and weatherization.

The Whole-Home Repairs program helps assess home repair needs and find contractors and community organizations to perform the repairs.

Homeowners can be granted up to $50,000 for each unit. Small landlords can be granted a forgivable $50,000 loan per unit.

While most counties have not yet opened applications to homeowners, officials expect demand will far exceed the program’s initial $125 million in funding.

Advocates of the program held a rally on April 21 to secure more, permanent funding. They called to increase this year’s allocation to $300 million.

“We are going to increase the funding for this critical, life-saving, bipartisan, powerful and progressive program so that every person, whether they live in a red district or a blue district, is going to have a safe home,” said State Rep. Ismail Smith Wade-El (D-Lancaster).

Many Pennsylvanians are living in poor conditions. According to the United Health Foundation, 14.5% of occupied housing units in Pennsylvania have severe inadequacies, including a lack of complete kitchen facilities, lack of plumbing facilities, overcrowding or severely cost-burdened occupants. 

An estimated 280,000 occupied units have moderate to severe physical inadequacies.

In addition, Pennsylvania has some of the oldest housing stock in the country, with the median home being built in 1966.

Problems can include mold, asbestos, blown fuses, leaking pipes, drafty windows, collapsing roofs and nonworking appliances.

“Noise issues, leaky sink pipes and literal unpatched holes in the walls of some of the closets,” Duncan Hopkins, an organizer with Lancaster Stands Up, said of one of his previous apartments.

Community groups say the program can't come soon enough. 

Eligible homeowners have a household income at or below 80% of the area median income. For landlords to be eligible, they need to rent at an affordable rate and offer to extend the lease for three years at the time of the loan.

“We need to invest in those homes, especially those that need repairs to keep people safe, to keep people secure and especially to keep them in neighborhoods that they have lived in for years,” Pastor Dave Bushnell of Faith United Church of Christ said at the rally.

The measure passed last year with bipartisan support and has been praised by Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Advocates are planning another rally to support more funding on May 1 at the Capitol in Harrisburg.

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