Gov. Josh Shapiro earmarked $50 million for the state program in his proposed budget, but the request quietly disappeared after a monthslong impasse that concluded earlier this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Sen. Nikil Saval (D-Philadelphia) introduces a \u201cShelter First\u201d bill at a Nov. 18, 2025 press conference. (Whitney Downard\/Pennsylvania Capital-Star)<\/p>\n
\u201cOur best guess is that there were a lot of funding priorities in this budget and when it came to coming up with the funding number, they did not find money for this program,\u201d said Saval. \u201cFrankly, they didn\u2019t find money for virtually any housing program, and that\u2019s really unfortunate given the nature and scale of the housing crisis.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A similar, federal effort dubbed the ROAD to Housing Bill<\/a> is still moving as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, which passed the U.S. Senate in October. The Whole-Home Repairs Act under that proposal<\/a> would allow the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to establish a five-year pilot program to offer grants and forgivable loans to low- and moderate-income homeowners alongside qualified landlords.\u00a0<\/p>\n Program details<\/p>\n Only a sliver of the 17,000 applicants \u2014 3,965 homeowners \u2014 got a share of the $125 million Whole Home Repairs Program\u2019s funding, according to the state Department of Community and Economic Development.<\/p>\n Just three counties have spent all of their program funds before the Jan. 31, 2026 deadline: Bradford, Cameron and McKean.\u00a0<\/p>\n SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE<\/a><\/p>\n Cliff Clark, the director of Cameron County Community and Economic Development, oversaw how the $200,000 awarded to his county was spent. He said the funding quickly went to four homes on an existing housing repair list maintained by the county.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur housing stock is old. That\u2019s not to say it\u2019s deteriorated, but it\u2019s old,\u201d said Clark. \u201cOne of our goals is to try to improve the housing stock \u2026 we\u2019re doing, I think, a very good job making houses that aren\u2019t otherwise marketable, desirable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The program limited individual home projects to $50,000, a number Clark said could be higher if a similar effort is approved on the state level. For example, he noted a new boiler for some homes could cost as much as $20,000.<\/p>\n \u201cCosts have increased so much that we\u2019re only able to do about half of the homes we used to be able to do. I used to do 10 to 12 homes a year and now I\u2019m doing about five. So if you\u2019re number 50 on my waiting list, you\u2019ve got a 10-year wait,\u201d said Clark.\u00a0<\/p>\n Part of the bottleneck in the county is due to a shortage of contractors, Clark said, which is a statewide problem meant to be addressed with workforce development funds. Under Whole Home Repair, $4.9 million has been spent on scholarships, training programs and more<\/a>.<\/p>\n Tom Stark, speaking on behalf of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, told the Capital-Star workforce development was a difficult component for many counties, particularly those that didn\u2019t have existing workforce programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWith the trades, in general, finding workforce in a timely fashion and getting a contractor out there to actually conduct the work?\u201d Stark said. \u201cThere aren\u2019t as many out there as there used to be.\u201d<\/p>\n What other funding is out there?<\/p>\n Prior to Whole Home Repair, Stark said counties had access to a variety of different assistance programs \u2014 both state and federal. He highlighted the commonwealth\u2019s Weatherization Assistance Program<\/a> as one used to make homes more energy efficient.\u00a0<\/p>\n For example, replacing windows under the initiative was a popular use of funds, but had its shortcomings.<\/p>\n \u201cThe challenge is if you go to a home and they need a window repair, but you know they need a roof first, there really wasn\u2019t funding for that,\u201d Stark said. \u201cWhole Homes came in to fill that gap.\u201d<\/p>\n He said that funds for landlords were \u201cunderutilized,\u201d noting the additional requirements. To qualify for a forgivable loan of up to $50,000, landlords must own no more than five properties and no more than 15 rental units<\/a>.<\/p>\n The unit\u2019s current tenant must also get a three-year lease extension and annual rent increases cannot exceed 3%. In addition to owning the unit for at least 15 years, landlords must not have any serious code violations during that time.\u00a0<\/p>\n By the numbers:<\/p>\n Roughly $3.7 million, or 3%, of the initial $125 million allocation went to the state for administrative costs, leaving $121.3 million to be distributed to counties, according to the state Department of Community and Economic Development.<\/p>\n Of that $121.3 million, $89.6 million has been committed to the following categories:<\/p>\n $75.7 million in homeowner grants (including small landlords)<\/p>\n $5.9 million on provision and enhancement\u00a0<\/p>\n $3.2 million on county-level administrative costs<\/p>\n $4.9 million on workforce development<\/p>\n Clark said Cameron County also receives grant funding from HUD\u2019s HOME Investment Partnerships Program, which allocates billions of dollars for affordable housing across the nation. HOME can cover housing repairs, but restricts some repairs on homes in floodplains and requires an environmental review.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Whole Homes Repair program had neither restriction, Clark said, nor did it enforce HUD\u2019s minimum standards for repairs \u2014 a benchmark Clark said he still followed for his county\u2019s projects and believed should be implemented for others.<\/p>\n Overall, he called the WHRP \u201ca very easy program to administer\u201d and an \u201ceconomic driver\u201d for his community.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe get $200,000 and all of that money goes right back into the economy,\u201d he said. \u201cWe hire local contractors and I\u2019d say probably 80% to 90% of supplies are purchased locally as well.\u201d<\/p>\n The state\u2019s proposed home preservation program could become more important if federal funding gets cut. The Trump administration has proposed zeroing out funding for the HOME program<\/a>, meaning that communities could miss out on funds for future repairs or affordable housing initiatives.<\/p>\n