Test Drive Our New Site! We have some improvements in the works that we're excited for you to experience. Click here to try our new, faster, mobile friendly beta site. We will be maintaining our current version of the site thru the end of 2024, so you can switch back as our improvements continue.
Legislation Quick Search
Advanced Search
Pennsylvania State Senate
04/28/2024 09:51 AM
Pennsylvania State Senate
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/CSM/showMemoPublic.cfm?chamber=S&SPick=20230&cosponId=42319
Share:
Home / Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda

Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda

Subscribe to PaLegis Notifications
NEW!

Subscribe to receive notifications of new Co-Sponsorship Memos circulated

By Member | By Date | Keyword Search


Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2023 - 2024 Regular Session

MEMORANDUM

Posted: March 19, 2024 09:49 AM
From: Senator Vincent J. Hughes and Sen. Jay Costa
To: All Senate members
Subject: Recapitalization of the Housing Options Program (HOP)
 
In the near future, we plan on introducing legislation to recapitalize the Housing Options Program (HOP).

HOP was created as part of the Fiscal Year 2022-2023 budget with three goals: (1) expand the number of available affordable housing units, (2) preserve expiring affordable units, and (3) convert existing properties to affordable housing units.  Thanks to resources provided to the Commonwealth from the Biden Administration, HOP was initially capitalized with $100 million of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars. 

The program was run through the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA) and designed to “help continue affordable housing production in the Commonwealth.”  The funds were not intended to be used in conjunction with current or anticipated federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) applications but were meant as a complement to existing Federal resources relating to development of affordable housing.

According to Harvard’s State of the Nation’s Housing report, the supply of low-cost rentals across the United States fell by 3.9 million units over the last decade.  The National Low Income Housing Coalition found that there is a shortfall of over 250,000 affordable and available rental units for extremely low income renters.

PHFA received more than 138 applications requesting more than $225 million.  Due to the lack of sufficient resources, PHFA was only able to award funds to 66 housing projects, including 11 emergency repair projects.  These funds preserved or built more than 3,000 affordable units across the Commonwealth.

Our legislation would recapitalize HOP with $100 million each fiscal year for the next five years beginning with the 2024-2025 fiscal year.

Please contact our offices if you have any questions.


Introduced as SB1168