Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency Begins Work to Build More Affordable Housing | Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Harrisburg, PA - Following Governor Josh Shapiro's historic expansion of the Pennsylvania Housing Affordability and Rehabilitation Enhancement (PHARE) fund, the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA) is now opening applications to build and repair more affordable housing across Pennsylvania.

The 2024-25 bipartisan budget signed into law by Governor Shapiro brought total PHARE funding available this year to over $85 million - nearly doubling the Commonwealth's commitment to affordable housing.

"Safe, affordable housing is a key foundation for opportunity," said Governor Shapiro. "If we want kids to succeed in school, if we want people to work and build a better life, they need a place to call home. That's why we've nearly doubled the amount of funding available for PHARE - the largest, most flexible, most effective tool we have for building and repairing affordable housing - and why my Administration has a commonsense plan to build more housing, lower costs, and help more Pennsylvanians achieve the American Dream. Through our PHARE funding initiative, we will help give more Pennsylvanians the opportunity to have a safe, affordable place to call home."

Applications for PHARE funding must be submitted online through PHFA's portal at https://phare.phfa.org/ by 2:00 PM on Thursday, November 20.

Pennsylvania is currently short more than 100,000 housing units, and nearly 60 percent of homes were built before 1970. Meanwhile, the number of renters in Pennsylvania has grown by nearly 200,000 households since 2010 - even as the supply of low-cost rentals has declined.

Through investments like PHARE, the Shapiro Administration is taking action. Since Governor Shapiro took office, PHARE-funded housing projects have increased by 55 percent and over 1,000 projects have been funded to build or repair more than 8,200 housing units.

The PHARE fund has been allocating money for local housing initiatives since 2012. These funds have produced significant housing benefits during the last 13 years, including:

• 3,912 affordable housing units created or rehabilitated
• 718 potential new homebuyers receiving downpayment/closing cost assistance
• More than 11,100 families/households receiving housing counseling and financial education
• 511 households benefiting from healthy housing investment funds
• More than 22 million households in danger of homelessness assisted by PHARE-funded programming

To date, $435 million in PHARE grant awards has leveraged more than $2.3 billion from other funding sources - delivering a nearly six-to-one ratio in total funding for housing initiatives.

In June, PHFA awarded $73 million in PHARE funding to support 387 housing and community development projects across all 67 counties. That same month, Governor Shapiro and PHFA leadership visited the Lancaster City Housing Authority's Farnum Street East apartment building to highlight his Administration's strategy to expand access to safe, affordable housing across the Commonwealth.

The 2024-25 bipartisan budget made major strides to address Pennsylvania's housing crisis - nearly doubling the Commonwealth's commitment to affordable housing by raising the PHARE Fund cap from $60 million to $100 million per year by 2027. Building on that progress, the Governor's 2025-26 budget proposal calls for an additional $10 million increase in PHARE funding by 2028-29, raising the cap to $110 million and delivering the largest overall housing investment in Pennsylvania history.

In September 2024, Governor Shapiro signed Executive Order 2024-03, creating Pennsylvania's first-ever comprehensive Housing Action Plan to expand affordable housing, address homelessness, and make the Commonwealth more competitive. The plan is guiding efforts to increase housing availability, affordability, and quality through a multi-agency approach that brings together state, local, and federal partners with stakeholders across the public and private sectors.

Read more about the PHFA's Request for Proposals here.