PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Andrea Foster is a renter from West Philadelphia and is among many in the city who see a deep need for the next mayor to build more affordable homes.
"We need to get this funding in so that these buildings can be built and people can move in, which will stop a lot," Foster said. "It will at least help a lot of the homelessness that's going on in the city."
The Philadelphia Housing Authority says the affordable housing situation in the city has reached a crisis point. In addition to the long waitlists, many contracts for existing affordable options are set to expire. As West Philly homeowner Cheryl Smalls says, much of the city's housing stock is deteriorating faster than it's being fixed.
"Many have homes that are paid for or have been passed down, but they need repairs that they can't afford," Smalls said.
So, what's the next mayor to do?
At a forum this week, resident leaders asked the candidates how they would support housing preservation and revitalize distressed communities while keeping them affordable. Rebecca Rhynhart alluded to the programs that are already in place.
"The city has these programs that people don't know about because the city puts it on their website. And that's not enough. We need to go out and knock on doors and help people," Rhynhart explained.
Cherelle Parker disagreed.
"The idea that we're going to door-knock our way through a process without systematically determining how we're going to communicate with residents of the City of Philadelphia is absurd. I will establish community councils – a mayor's community council," she said.
The candidates were also asked how they would help residents obtain affordable housing and pay for it. Jeff Brown is among the many who have pointed to the city's land bank program, which has thousands of abandoned properties.
"I would like to sell those houses either directly to homeowners, help lower-income families buy those homes or sell them to Black and brown developers to let them build their business to develop them as affordable housing," he said.
Amen Brown pointed to the need for residents to be more self-sufficient.
"What we need to do for our residents is give them access to good government, jobs, training, things of that nature," he said. "That's how we make it affordable for our families to be able to pay their rent."
Residents agree that more needs to be done in the next administration to keep, preserve and build more affordable homes, as homeownership is the gateway to generational wealth.
Jaqueline McDowell, a Scattered Site housing resident, says more public assistance is critical.
"I would like to see us keep public housing and keep it moving. There's a lot of different things in different programs. But I would like to see public housing stay around for a while," McDowell said.
Alan Domb and Helen Gym did not attend the forum, but Gym wants to expand resources and strengthen protections for renters to end poverty-based evictions once and for all, and Domb would like the city to incentivize landlords so units can stay affordable and not turn into market-rate apartments when their contracts expire.
