A few years back, Pennsylvania had a program that put real repair work in front of contractors: new roofs, foundation fixes, replacing old knob-and-tube wiring in houses that badly needed it. It was called Whole Home Repairs, and by most accounts it worked. Today it's sitting on the shelf, and the people who used to run it say the phone hasn't stopped ringing.
That's the picture from a report by Kate Giammarise and Tom Riese of 90.5 WESA in Pittsburgh, which WITF also carried this week.
What the Program Did
Whole Home Repairs offered low-income homeowners up to $50,000 for certain major repairs. It was funded with $125 million in federal COVID-relief money in the state's 2022-23 budget, and it launched with support from both Republicans and Democrats in Harrisburg.
Not every county took part, but state statistics show it helped about 4,000 Pennsylvania homeowners make major improvements. In Allegheny County alone, more than 250 low-income homeowners fixed up their properties, and a small number of projects there are still being finished.
Demand far outran the money. ACTION-Housing, the Pittsburgh nonprofit that administered the program locally, was able to help only about 1 in every 20 applications it received.
The calls haven't stopped. "We receive at least five calls a day from people asking if we have anything like this or if we know of anyone that does," Ian Thomas, ACTION's housing stabilization program manager, told WESA. "And right now the only answer we can give them is: 'No.'"
Thomas made the case contractors in older towns will recognize: "It's far cheaper to repair a home than to build new."
Stuck in Harrisburg
The federal COVID aid ran out long ago, and the spending hasn't been reauthorized since that first allocation. With the state facing a $5 billion deficit, support seems to have dried up among the Republicans who run the state Senate, WESA reported.
Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman said last month that "the better approach is allowing the market to efficiently, effectively, and cheaply build homes." He said the answer is streamlining construction permitting, and he worried Whole Home would "just turn into another bureaucracy."
The program still has backers on both sides. Philadelphia Democratic state Sen. Nikil Saval, one of the original sponsors, and Republican state Sen. David Argall, whose northeastern Pennsylvania district includes many former coal-mining communities, are cosponsoring a measure to bring it back. "I have a lot of older homes in some of my communities that are in desperate need of repair," Argall told WESA.
In the House, Pittsburgh Democrat Lindsay Powell and Monroeville Rep. Brandon Markosek have a companion funding bill. It passed the House 122-80 but has idled in a Senate committee ever since.
There's also a federal angle. A pilot version of the program made it into the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which Congress passed and President Trump signed this year. WESA reported the pilot's status is unclear, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development declined to comment.
Contractors Were Part of the Bottleneck
An earlier piece by the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, published by WESA last December, showed how much of this work runs through local trades. Cliff Clark, who directs community and economic development in Cameron County, said of his county's $200,000 award, "We hire local contractors and I'd say probably 80% to 90% of supplies are purchased locally as well."
He also said a shortage of contractors was part of the bottleneck, a statewide problem the program tried to address with workforce money. Under Whole Home Repairs, $4.9 million went to scholarships, training programs and more. Clark noted rising costs, too, saying a new boiler for some homes could cost as much as $20,000.
Why it matters for Contractors
Pennsylvania has a lot of old houses, and repair programs like this one turn deferred maintenance into paying jobs: roofs, foundations, wiring, heating. When the money flowed, it went to local contractors and local suppliers. When it dried up, the demand didn't go away. It just stopped getting paid for.
If you do residential repair and remodeling in Pennsylvania, this is worth watching. A revival would depend on the bill moving out of that Senate committee, and the federal pilot could eventually bring similar work, though nobody has said when.
It's also worth remembering that the program ran into the same wall many contractors face every day: not enough trained hands. Any revival will need crews ready to do the work.