January 2024 | Message from Our Executive Director
| The Year Ahead: Previewing the Housing Alliance’s 2024 Plans To kick off 2024, I’d like to share what the Housing Alliance plans to accomplish this year. We are proud of what we have been able to get done throughout our 39 year history. I hope you know that our accomplishments are collective. We are a coalition that thrives because of your involvement, perspectives, and successes. Remember the Housing Alliance’s goal is to take on the problems that are preventing you from taking your programs to greater scale to create and sustain housing affordability. Our work includes policy advocacy, building knowledge through research and promotion of best practices, and convening and events. Here’s what we are up to this year. 1. Policy Advocacy We analyze local, state, and federal policy barriers and propose changes. We advocate for increased funding and more effective public policy. • PHARE Funding Increase Have you applied for and received a PHARE grant? If so, you have strong advocates, probably yourself included, from across the state to thank. Collectively we have succeeded in increasing PHARE’s statewide funding source by 40% and then by 50% in 2019 and 2022 respectively, and we are on the path to increase it once again this year to $100 million per year. Check out Aaron Zappia’s Legislative Progress Update to find out current status and how you can help get it over the finish line. More information about PHARE • Whole Home Repair Policy Advocacy and Peer Convenings Pennsylvania’s investment of $125 million into the first-ever statewide Whole Home Repair Program is an unprecedented opportunity to address the quality of the Commonwealth’s housing stock for both homeowners and renters, thereby improving public safety and health outcomes. The Housing Alliance has been partnering with those delivering the program at the local level to identify successes, challenges, and policy recommendations and to advocate for more funding. • Homeless Prevention We are often limited by our lack of imagination. We assume problems are too big and too complicated. But what if we told you that eviction does not have to be a given? What if we told you that even landlords can benefit from a completely different way of “doing business”, aka what happens when a tenant is behind in paying their rent? There are multiple local programs across PA and across the country that are working to help tenants avoid eviction even after a landlord has started to pursue eviction through the courts. This matters for a lot of reasons including that eviction is one of the most common pathways to homelessness. It’s time that the state invested in programs that are preventing homelessness by helping tenants and landlords resolve the conflict when a tenant is behind in paying rent. We’ll be advocating for increased funding to support evidence based practices that prevent homelessness by avoiding eviction. • Limited access to public eviction filing records We all deserve a second chance. No one should be punished for their lifetime because of previous, minor mistakes. Bankruptcy filings and missed payments are cleared from your public record after 7 years, but eviction filings are permanent—even when the issue is resolved, or a landlord does not pursue eviction. Tenants with just the eviction filing alone on their record, no matter the outcome, are often screened out when landlords have available rental units and consider new tenants. This public record never goes away. This leaves these tenants with far fewer options and they often find housing that is of poorer quality and in higher poverty neighborhoods. To give everyone a fair chance, we support forthcoming legislation that would limit access to public records when the eviction filing is withdrawn by the landlord or settled between the landlord and tenant, representing a resolution to the problem rather than an eviction. Here’s more of an explanation: An eviction filing is a complaint filed by a landlord most often because a tenant is behind in paying rent. Within 7 to 10 days, you have to appear in court before a judge who makes a decision. Before or at the court hearing, you may be able to resolve the problem by paying your landlord owed rent or at least agreeing to a payment plan. This can be enough for the landlord to not pursue eviction. (To explain the technical terms: The outcome in the court records may then be withdrawal (by landlord) or settled (by agreement between landlord and tenant.)) If you have done nothing wrong besides struggle to pay your rent, you deserve a fair chance. • We are also tracking, monitoring, and supporting several other state bills including critical zoning changes. 2. Building Knowledge through Research and Promotion of Best Practices We talk to practitioners at the local level as well as people with lived experience to understand the policies and local programs that are working and the common barriers that need to be addressed through either policy or program changes. We promote these practices to help others as they seek to improve local program delivery and practices. • Preventing Homelessness by Avoiding Eviction Eviction doesn’t happen only when a tenant “does something grossly wrong.” It mostly happens when tenants are behind on rent. Getting behind in paying rent is easy to do. 30% of renter households pay too much of their income for rent and 69% of extremely low-income renter households pay more than half of their income for rent. (National Low Income Housing Coalition) If eviction benefits *no one* not even the landlord doesn’t it make sense to find out if there is a better way to get the rent paid? We have been studying the causes and solutions and have quite a wealth of knowledge on what to do. Check out our work and resource library. • Incentivizing Private Market Landlords to Rent to Lower Income Households with the Greatest Barriers Did you know that a landlord could receive a “barrier removal” financial incentive? With such a competitive rental market, landlords often screen out households when considering new tenants for a variety of reasons. In response, local nonprofits and community partners have developed a set of strategies, including landlord financial incentives, to help those households that landlords often screen out. We have developed resources and profiled examples of financial incentives for landlords. Check out our work and our resource library. Here’s more explanation: The rental market became even more competitive after the pandemic. Rents rose at higher percentages than usual, and many landlords struggled to meet their own financial obligations, especially smaller landlords. It takes a long time and a lot of money to build new units. In the meantime, local nonprofits and community partners have developed strategies to attempt to find housing more quickly that is affordable for those households that landlords often screen out. The strategies are working. They include both financial and service incentives for landlords. The approach is to help landlords to then help the lower income households that service organizations are assisting. We’ll continue to update the resource library with concrete examples from communities across PA and the country. And we’ll soon be inviting interested parties to join a peer exchange to talk to each other about creating or expanding landlord engagement and incentives. • Creating Pathways to Greater Participation Do you know that engaging the people you serve to vote is important but don’t have the time or know what you can do? The Housing Alliance is here to help you address this barrier. We can provide you with all the resources you need to engage the people you serve to vote. We previously supported 19 organizations who increased voter turnout among low-income voters who otherwise would have been unlikely to vote. So we know this work is making an impact! We will soon be releasing information about our PA Votes initiative leading up to the 2024 Presidential election. For more information visit our website. 3. Convening & Events • Save the Date for our 2nd Rural Pennsylvania Housing Summit on June 5, 2024 at Seven Springs. On June 5, we hope you are one of the 250 expected participants in the 2nd Rural Pennsylvania Housing Summit. Thanks in advance to our Host Committee – a group of dedicated individuals helping us plan the event. Sponsorship Opportunities are available. The 2nd Annual Rural Pennsylvania Housing Summit is an opportunity to join with your peers and colleagues in raising awareness of the uniqueness of rural communities and collaborating to address barriers and challenges. • Save the Date for our 20th Homes Within Reach Conference December 4-6, 2024 at the Hershey Lodge. The 2023 conference attracted 944 participants. We were so excited to host all of you to hear about the great work that you are doing across the Commonwealth. Sponsorship for the 2024 conference is already open! Stay tuned for the Request for Workshop Proposals due out in March. If you submitted a workshop idea previously and were not accepted we strongly encourage you to submit again. We receive a lot of great ideas (and too many to accept all) and would love to consider your idea again. In partnership,  Phyllis Chamberlain Executive Director |