By
CHARLOTTE KEITH/Spotlight PA
In an effort to better monitor the supply of affordable housing, Pennsylvania will create a searchable database of properties that are required to offer discounted rents and track when those requirements expire.The database, which was included in the state budget deal that lawmakers passed in July, is intended to bring more transparency to an issue that could affect thousands of Pennsylvanians who live in properties that are subsidized by state and federal programs. The programs typically require at least some of the units to remain affordable for a certain period of time, which can last decades.When those restrictions expire, however, property owners can decide to increase rents to reflect market rates, or sell the building, potentially forcing residents to move.Over the next five years, affordability restrictions for more than 9,700 units in Pennsylvania will expire, according to the National Housing Preservation Database, which includes information on over a dozen federal programs.
Because different state agencies manage different programs, Pennsylvania has lacked a consistent approach to tracking properties where affordability requirements are due to expire — a problem noted in the wide-ranging housing plan that Gov. Josh Shapiro unveiled in March.“If the state doesn’t know the breadth of the problem, it can’t begin to address solutions,” said Dina Schlossberg, executive director of Regional Housing Legal Services, a nonprofit law firm.
