RHLS Executive Director, Dina Schlossberg, joined colleagues from the housing advocacy community to testify at a Philadelphia City Council hearing on the expiring affordable housing contracts in the city. The preservation of affordable housing in Philadelphia is a vital issue that grows more urgent each year.
In her testimony, Dina pointed out that if there was more enforcement of ‘source of income’ discrimination, matched with an additional rental subsidy from the city, more low income residents could secure housing. Read her entire testimony below:
Testimony By Dina Schlossberg
Executive Director, Regional Housing Legal Services
Philadelphia City Council
Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development and Homeless
Resolution Number 211029
Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning. My name is Dina Schlossberg. I am the Executive Director of Regional Housing Legal Services.
I would like to thank Council Member Gauthier and the Cosponsors to this Resolution, for their interest in housing affordability and for the recognition that preservation of existing subsidized affordable housing is at a critical juncture for the city.
Regional Housing Legal Services is a unique organization. We are a statewide nonprofit law firm and legal aid program. Our mission is to work to create housing and economic opportunity in under-served communities in Pennsylvania and to effect systematic change for the benefit of lower-income households statewide. We are not litigators; rather we focus on innovative project and policy solutions to help create sustainable, equitable communities that provide safe, stable and affordable homes for all persons. We especially focus our work on developing and preserving housing for households and individuals who are lower income.
We also provide legal representation to nonprofit organizations who are engaged in affordable housing development and preservation, and equitable development, including many, many, nonprofit and community development organizations involved in and committed to housing affordability in Philadelphia. We have a deep expertise in housing development regulatory systems and financing structures. We understand the mechanics of affordable housing development, and the myriad issues that encompass these systems. We do this work because we believe that housing is fundamental, and that all people regardless of income have the right to safe, affordable homes in neighborhoods of choice. We also do this work because we recognize the racial and economic inequities that are embedded in the laws and policies of the American housing system and strive to find ways to redress these inequities.
As recognized by Resolution No.
This need to preserve affordable subsidized rental housing is not unique to Philadelphia. Throughout the state it is estimated that as of 2021, 7,607 publicly supported rental homes with affordability restrictions are expiring in the next five years. (iii) This is an issue that needs to be addressed in a comprehensive strategic manner here and statewide.
As a municipality, we need to galvanize around strategies to preserve existing affordable subsidized housing. Much of the subsidized housing at risk in Philadelphia is in neighborhoods such as West Philadelphia that are experiencing deep economic and demographic changes. This is an equity issue at its core. Residents who are lower income who live in historically Black gentrifying neighborhoods who are forced to relocate due to gentrification and displacement tend to move to poorer, non gentrifying neighborhoods within the city, thereby exacerbating racial segregation and inequality. (iv)
Regional Housing was a founding member of the Philadelphia Preservation Network. We endorse the testimony of our partners, LISC and CLS and that of Vince O’Donnell who is a national expert on housing preservation, and the testimony of Rasheedah Phillips, who is a national expert on all things housing!
Among the strategies that was described in the testimony of Andrew Frishkoff of LISC, is a regulatory framework to support and encourage the preservation of existing subsidized affordable housing. We believe laws should make sure to serve and support the rights of people who are often underrepresented and marginalized due to their race or their economic status.
In 2019, the regulations subcommittee of the Preservation Network promoted a regulatory scheme that would provide a coordinated approach to preserving existing subsidized affordable housing development. This regulatory scheme requires that owners of existing affordable subsidized rental housing developments provide notice of their intent to “opt out” of this regulatory framework. The goal of this notice is to provide the parties granted the notice, ample time to locate a new proposed owner (Right of First Offer), who will then acquire the development, with the promise of maintaining affordability into the future. If no such proposed owner comes forward, the existing owner is free to
market the property, subject to the right for an affordable housing developer to “match the purchase price” of a market rate offer, should one then exist (Matched Agreement of Sale). This mechanism is essential to create a path to preserve existing subsidized affordable housing.
We are appreciative of Council for passage in 2019 of Bill No. O 190860-A which established the beginnings of a regulatory framework that would allow for an organized and structured response to owners of an existing federally subsidized development’s notice of intent to “opt out” of this regulatory framework. We encourage City Council to go further and to adopt regulations that will enable qualified nonprofit and for-profit entities to be provided an opportunity for “Right of First Offer” and equally important, a “Matched Agreement of Sale” to match a bona fide offer if the qualified nonprofit or for profit commits to a renewed extended period of affordability.
This proposed regulatory framework is not novel or unique. A form of this regulatory framework has been adopted by many other municipal jurisdictions, including such places as Chicago, Illinois; Washington DC; Santa Cruz, California; and Denver, Colorado.
I welcome the opportunity to discuss this regulatory framework with Council as part of a comprehensive approach to addressing housing preservation in Philadelphia. Thank you for the opportunity to provide this testimony. I welcome any questions you may have.
i The State of Housing Affordability in Philadelphia | The Pew Charitable Trusts (pewtrusts.org)
ii Id.
iii https://preservationdatabase.org/pa
iv Unequal Displacement: Gentrification, Racial Stratification, and Residential Destinations in Philadelphia,
American Journal of Sociology ( https:/www-journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10.1086/711015)
icon is courtesy of DinosoftLab from the Noun Project