Whether you live in Philadelphia or Harrisburg, Pittsburgh or Reading, every Pennsylvanian deserves a safe, healthy place to call home. Yet, on any given day, tens of thousands of people across our Commonwealth experience houselessness or are on the brink of being displaced. Many more identify themselves as being housing insecure.
Pennsylvania's housing crisis is decades in the making, a consequence of poverty and depressed wages, high utility bills, racially-discriminatory housing policies, a lack of affordable housing units, and a deepening climate crisis for which our current housing stock is woefully unprepared.
PA Stands Up, together with partners across the state, is fighting for game-changing legislation that would improve housing equity and affordability, while taking on the climate crisis. We're meeting the groundswell of demand for real solutions by building momentum to pass legislation that would:
- Repair our homes. Pennsylvania has some of the oldest housing stock in the nation. The Whole-Home Repairs Fund provides $50,000 grants for homeowners and loans to small landlords with affordability restrictions so that they can make habitability repairs and upgrades for energy efficiency.
- Reduce the time tax on poor and working people. The Whole-Home Repairs Fund allocates resources for support staff to help people access the right programs in the right order to meet their needs and maximize their access to holistic repairs.
- Create clean jobs. The Whole-Home Repairs Fund provides resources to increase retention in home repair and weatherization job training programs and pre-apprenticeship programs, including cash stipends to trainees, so that our state can build up the workforce needed to meet the demand.
Our campaign is already picking up steam and generating headlines across the state. Read more about our work in these stories from the PA Spotlight, WHYY, City & State PA, Berks Weekly, and One United Lancaster.
We know there's still a lot more work to be done to pass this bill and ensure every Pennsylvanian has a safe, healthy place to call home. It's up to us to talk to our neighbors, organize our towns, and move our legislators. Here's how you can get involved:
- To join our housing team in Berks County, contact Berks Valley Stands Up organizer, Celine Schrier.
- To join our housing team in the Lehigh Valley, contact Lehigh Valley Stands Up organizer, CeCe Gerlach.
- To join our housing team in Lancaster County, contact Lancaster Stands Up organizer, Suzy Wurtz.
- To financially support the work of our Whole-Home Repairs campaign, please join one of our local chapters or make a donation to our statewide organization.