Pennsylvania addresses statewide housing crisis with new action plan

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has released its first-ever comprehensive Housing Action Plan (HAP), a bipartisan effort to address housing needs across the state. 

The official publication outlines nearly thirty initiatives designed to build and preserve homes, modernize housing regulations and zoning rules and remove barriers that have historically prevented residents from finding stable housing. 

Housing costs have risen at a rate significantly faster than wages, resulting in over a million households spending 30% of their income on housing while the state’s housing stock has half of its homes more than 50 years old. Projections indicate that Pennsylvania will have a severe housing shortage by 2035 without intervention, with the need to build at least 450,000 homes to meet demand. To address this crisis, the HAP outlines five core goals: 

• Build and preserve Pennsylvania’s housing stock, increasing housing production while protecting and reinvesting in existing homes. 
• Expand housing opportunities for all Pennsylvanians by breaking down barriers and increasing access to quality housing for first-time homebuyers, renters, older adults, people with disabilities and underserved communities. 
• Provide pathways to housing stabilization and sustainability by preventing evictions and foreclosures, addressing homelessness, protecting survivors of domestic violence and strengthening fair housing enforcement. 
• Modernize Pennsylvania’s housing development regulations, cutting red tape and modernizing permitting and zoning processes to reduce costs and make Pennsylvania the most affordable state in the region. 
• Improve coordination and accountability across agencies, strengthen housing leadership, enhance data sharing and make programs easier to navigate. 

The governor’s proposed 2026 through 2027 budget already pioneers some of the first actions needed for successful implementation of the HAP, including creating a $1 billion program to fund infrastructure projects. The Critical Infrastructure Investment Fund will help advance projects that build and preserve houses, bring new energy generation onto the grid and upgrade school and municipal facilities. 

The budget also implements several measures to protect renters and promote housing stability, including also caps rental application fees tied to the actual cost of screening and prohibiting fees before potential tenants view the property. Tenants will retain the right to terminate leases due to domestic violence without financial retribution. 

In addition, the state guarantees that eviction records will be sealed for those who were not actually evicted and promotes reforms regulating how criminal history may be considered in rental decisions. Millions will be invested in connecting those experiencing homelessness or housing instability with qualified support. 

The state will further mitigate housing cost spikes and protect residents by limiting annual lot rent increases while requiring advance notice of said increases. The budget includes measures to streamline options for passing property onto heirs and update the Municipalities Planning Code to reduce regulatory barriers and enhance permitting processes. 

To support these endeavors, the governor announced that Pennsylvania will create a deputy secretary for housing to implement the HAP and coordinate housing policies. The HAP and budget build on years of work to address the housing crisis after the state funneled millions into housing construction, repair and weatherization, provision of legal counsel for people being evicted and strengthening programs to provide emergency housing for people who are homeless and families at risk of displacement. 

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