Join the Pennsylvania Housing Choices Coalition

The Pennsylvania Housing Choices Coalition is a new advocacy coalition of organizations from across the Commonwealth convened by 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania. We are coming together to support common-sense bipartisan statewide legislation that will bring about more attainable housing choices for all Pennsylvanians.

We support building more starter homes, workforce housing, and transit-accessible housing in the right places close to jobs and opportunities. Our coalition will be asking state lawmakers to support legislative changes that remove barriers to creating more attainable age-friendly housing choices in communities across Pennsylvania.

What We Believe

• Housing is a basic human need, and everyone should have a safe and affordable place to live

• More housing and more neighbors are a benefit, not a cost

• A diverse state requires a diversity of housing choices at all price points

• Fairness requires every community to do their part to provide more housing

• Our housing challenges are regional – each town’s policy decisions impact those nearby – which requires action from both state and local governments to solve.

The Problem

Pennsylvania is facing a severe shortage of housing all across the Commonwealth that is harming our economy and the livelihood of our communities.

According to the 2022 ‘Housing Underproduction’ report from Up for Growth, Pennsylvania has a housing gap of around 98,000 housing units due to cumulative underproduction since 2012. Six metropolitan regions in Pennsylvania rank in the top 100 underproducing regions, including Philadelphia (89,949 units), Lancaster (8,268), Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton (8,138), York-Hanover (6,298), Reading (5,774), and East Stroudsburg (4,142).

This housing shortage is causing gridlock throughout the housing landscape, creating cascading social problems for PA residents, and requiring urgent action from our state elected officials.

• Rising housing costs are eating up workers’ wages as they spend more and more of their paychecks on mortgage payments and rent

• The shortage of housing close to job centers results in longer commutes, wasted personal time, and more unnecessary pollution

• Seniors can’t find quality housing that meets their needs to age in place in their communities

• Empty-nesters can’t find housing in their communities to downsize from larger family homes

• Young families can’t find housing close to their parents and grandparents

• Young adults can’t move out of their parents’ homes, and delay starting their independent lives

• Even the cheapest housing available is becoming too expensive for the lowest earners, contributing to rising homelessness

The Solution

The housing shortage persists in large part because of exclusionary zoning and land use rules designed to suppress the construction of less expensive housing types. The Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) has been calling attention to the role these policies play in inhibiting affordable housing in their report “Reducing Land Use Barriers to Affordable Housing”, last updated in 2015.

Despite widespread knowledge of these common policy barriers, little action has been taken to challenge them outside of a handful of municipal jurisdictions with exceptionally motivated and courageous policymakers. With over 2,500 municipal governments operating throughout Pennsylvania – each of whose decisions impact municipalities nearby – winning majorities for change town-by-town is not a viable solution to the housing shortage, which is why our campaign is seeking to pass statewide zoning standards to raise the standard for everyone.

We are calling on the Pennsylvania legislature to pass legislation that would

• Restore ‘Missing Middle’ housing choices by re-legalizing duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes in larger municipalities across the state.

• Bring back starter homes by allowing houses to be built and sold on more modest plots of land.

• Allow more housing near jobs by legalizing apartments and mixed-use buildings in commercial areas.

• Legalize accessory dwellings aka ‘granny flats’ and make it easy for homeowners to build and rent them out in their backyards.

• Remove housing veto points, streamlining approval processes that currently add years and huge costs to building needed new homes.

These policies would create common-sense standards for larger cities and towns to follow in their zoning codes – instituting workforce and affordable housing best practices while giving municipalities a solid floor from which to innovate.

We believe that by legalizing homes of all shapes and sizes, especially in places with existing infrastructure and public transportation, the Pennsylvania state government can improve residents’ quality of life, grow more jobs and population, reduce the inconvenience and impact of long commutes, reduce pollution from transportation and buildings, boost the economy in older walkable downtowns and suburbs, and increase access to housing in high-opportunity neighborhoods and school districts across the Commonwealth.

How Your Organization Can Join

Fill out our short online form to join the coalition, or send an email to sreidenbaugh@10000friends.org and jgeeting@10000friends.org with your organization’s name, logo, and the individual(s) who should be your point of contact.

Coalition members will be invited to participate in weekly virtual meetings, Days of Action in Harrisburg, media appearances, and smaller group meetings with legislators and other coalition partners or prospective partners as needed. If you're not sure if your organization can sign on for compliance reasons, please let us know so we can discuss it together.