Gov. Josh Shapiro unveils statewide housing plan in Philadelphia

Taking a page out of perennial New York City Mayoral Candidate Jimmy McMillan’s playbook, Pennsylvania Democrats pitched a broader housing plan with a simple message: The rent is too damn high. 

Joined by state and local officials, Gov. Josh Shapiro unveiled his administration’s Housing Action Plan at a press conference Thursday morning, offering recommendations to assist renters and homeowners alike and to boost the state’s housing stock over the next decade. 

“As we all know right now, housing prices and rent are too damn high for too many,” Shapiro said at the press conference on Thursday. “The American dream of owning a home no longer feels possible for many of our neighbors, (and) half the homes in Pennsylvania are more than 50 years old, necessitating a lot of dollars to be able to keep them up to date.”

Inside the NewCourtland Apartments at Henry Avenue – a formerly vacant industrial lot in the East Falls neighborhood of Philadelphia – the Shapiro administration and lawmakers touted the recently developed complex as a prime example of a mixed-use space that could be both affordable and accessible to both young people and seniors. 

Department of Community and Economic Development Secretary Rick Siger said that “one thing we really heard” through community and stakeholder input is that “if we don’t act to make housing more available and more affordable at all levels, it’s going to continue to prevent Pennsylvanians from achieving their dreams and their opportunities.” 

Shapiro, who signed an executive order in September 2024 to create a plan to increase and preserve housing supply in the commonwealth, promoted the results of a year-plus series of community roundtables focused on addressing housing costs through a multifaceted approach. 

Shapiro said the statewide plan seeks to improve housing affordability through five components: building new housing and preserving existing housing; cutting through bureaucratic barriers and strengthening protections for tenants; increasing access to housing support programs; modernizing regulations and zoning restrictions; and increasing coordination between state and local governments in housing. 

Siger also said the plan creates the position of deputy secretary for housing within his agency, a first for the state and a move to help housing plans collaborate across agencies. 

State Rep. Tarik Khan, a Philadelphia Democrat representing the 194th district – where NewCourtland Apartments is located – was one of several legislators to make the McMillan argument. 

“I hear a lot from people that rent is too damn high, the cost of living is too damn high,” Khan said Thursday. “We have older adults who are trying to stay in the house that they live in, but they’re having difficulty because things are too expensive, and also the young folks who are trying to buy a house and they can’t afford to because it is too expensive to put down a down payment …The governor outlined the problem – we know the issue is supply.”

His fellow Philadelphia Democrat, state Rep. Jordan Harris, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, even said McMillan’s “Rent is Too Damn High Party” message “wasn’t wrong” then, in spite of the New Yorker’s electoral losses, and “ain’t wrong now.”

“Housing ain’t a Democrat or Republican issue, it ain’t a rural, urban or suburban issue – it’s an everybody issue,” Harris added. 

The announcement comes a week after Shapiro gave his annual budget address in Harrisburg, where he called for a slate of housing reforms and investments. 

In his proposed budget, Shapiro touted a new initiative, the Pennsylvania Program for Critical Infrastructure Investment, which he said could spur the development of new housing and other infrastructure projects. 

As he did again Thursday, Shapiro also asked the General Assembly during his budget address to pass a raft of reforms to the state’s housing laws – including legislation that would set a statewide cap on rental application fees, allow tenants to terminate a lease due to domestic violence, and seal eviction records for people who haven’t actually been evicted, among other changes.