A Q&A with state Rep. Lindsay Powell

Democratic state Rep. Lindsay Powell, a member of the General Assembly’s Pennsylvania Housing Caucus, took time to talk with City & State about a slate of housing-related proposals moving through the General Assembly, and what state lawmakers can do to make home ownership and housing more attainable in the Keystone State.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for length and clarity. 

What drew you to housing issues?

For me, housing was really important as a way to build community and build neighborhoods. Growing up, our family took a lot of pride in the house that my parents bought. It took them a really long time to get there – saving up their money, repairing their credit and buying a house that became such an asset for our family. My parents ended up – after my dad lost his job – losing that house. Seeing the stability of having a house, versus not, was really illuminating. 

Back at home in Pittsburgh, I sit on the Urban Redevelopment Authority, which is our local economic development arm here in the City of Pittsburgh. For the past five or so years, I have been working on initiatives so that Pittsburghers are able to stay in their homes as renters, or purchase that first home and build their little slice of the American dream. 

Tell me about your PA Home Preservation Grant Program bill.

I’m passionate about this issue because I believe it could be transformative for many of our neighbors. The home preservation bill that we put forward with bipartisan support allows for seniors and folks with disabilities to apply for grant dollars to help them stay in their homes. These are livability and accessibility issues. Think about Grandma who needs a new roof and can’t afford it, or a person who needs a chair lift in their house so that they are able to utilize the second floor. 

Especially in places like Pittsburgh, where I’m from, our houses are incredibly old. Most of our houses were built before 1950, and that means that they need a lot of repair – and that repair can be costly. The longer that you delay that repair, the worse it gets. This program is modeled after the Whole Homes pilot that the state created using American Rescue Plan dollars, but it solidifies and expands the program. 

We worked really hard to work with stakeholders across the commonwealth to understand what went well in the first round so that we had a program that could be more effective and reach more folks – the waiting list for that pilot is about 26,000 Pennsylvanians. 

You’ve sponsored House Bill 1020: The Vacant Property Registration Act. What does this do?

Myself and Rep. Twardzik, who is the other sponsor of this bill, we started a Housing Caucus – bipartisan, hopefully soon to be bicameral. These are the types of legislation that we believe are impactful and that we can move forward with. This bill, in particular, is about blight remediation – making sure that we’re able to put vacant, blighted parcels back on the tax roll, and, more importantly, back into usefulness for the community. We’re able to hold those owners accountable and get a fee that might help the municipality do other blight remediation work – or help fund work like land banking and recycling land to go back into usefulness. 

What have the cross-party conversations been like within the Housing Caucus?

We are looking at zoning reform. No matter what member you talk to, there is a housing crisis, and it looks a little different for all of us. In this country, we're not producing enough housing that’s attainable for everyday Americans. We’re not thinking intentionally about how people age in place and how we’re creating communities for our seniors to live in the neighborhoods where they grew up. We've amassed a wonderful group of legislators that are trying to push for impactful and intentional legislation that meets those needs and meets this moment for whatever that looks like within their communities. 

One of your other pieces of legislation, House Bill 275, seeks to subsidize homeownership initiatives in Pennsylvania. How would that work?

What I really wanted to do with this legislation is to focus on households that are making that kind of “missing middle” that’s 60% to 120% of the area median income. These are working-class families, families that may have a union worker who’s making a good salary and still aren’t able to afford home-ownership programs. So our legislation kind of pushes the Department of Community and Economic Development to award grants for qualifying projects. We really want to ensure that developers consider the “missing middle.” 

I’m hopeful that with this administration and their interest in housing that we’ll be able to push our homeownership goals and have the really cutting-edge programs that make it easier for people to do that. When it comes to competition, Maryland, Ohio and all these other states have these wonderful first-time homebuyer programs. Pennsylvania should also be at the top of the list of creating homeownership dreams for our own residents.