Money for Housing, Not Police

The John Coltrane house, surrounded by a few boarded up buildings, with Comcast skyscrapers in the background

This post is part of Philly Power Research's “Beyond Policing” series. This series is continuing work that was previously led by Movement Alliance Project (MAP) over the past two years exploring how Philadelphia can invest in our communities to improve public safety instead of investing in policing. MAP's "Safety We Can Feel" campaign included a survey of 1300 Philadelphia residents and dozens of interviews on how to build strong, healthy, and safe communities.

To build safer communities, the City needs to ensure that people’s fundamental material needs are satisfied. When people lack basic necessities like housing, food, and clothing, they will be more likely to engage in potentially dangerous activities in order to fulfill these needs.

There is an ongoing housing crisis in Philly, where over 200,000 residents struggle to cover housing costs and 4,000-6,000 people may be homeless on any given night.[1] Increased City investments in eviction prevention programs, supportive housing, vacant property renovations, rent control, and tax relief for longtime, low income homeowners would go a long way toward improving community safety by helping to ensure that everyone has access to housing as a fundamental human right.

The causes of Philadelphia’s housing crisis are rooted in a long history of systemic racism - from redlining by government and financial institutions in the mid-20th Century[2] to ongoing discriminatory lending by major banks like Wells Fargo[3] [4], university and City incentives for gentrification, and exploitative practices by corporate real estate owners.

These policies and practices have made it more challenging and expensive for Black families to own homes and have contributed to patterns of racial segregation and vast inequalities in resources between different neighborhoods in the city. The effects of these patterns are borne out in wide disparities in income and life expectancies between neighborhoods.[5] For example, the life expectancy in Nicetown-Tioga, at around 64 years, is 18 years less than in eastern Center City, just a few miles away.[6]

Neighborhood

Life Expectancy for Men (2019)

Median Household Income (2019)

% of Population that Identifies as Black/African American (ACS 2020 5-year estimate)

Center City East

82.0

$80,975

8%

Nicetown-Tioga

63.9

$24,655

88%

Data from https://www.phila.gov/media/20190801133844/Neighborhood-Rankings_7_31_19.pdf and https://data.census.gov 

In recent decades, universities like Penn and Drexel have fueled rapid increases in property values in their surrounding neighborhoods through targeted investments in neighborhood public schools and homebuyer assistance programs for their employees.[7] [8] [9] The City’s 10-year property tax abatement and other tax reduction programs like Keystone Opportunity Zones have further incentivized rapid new development in gentrifying neighborhoods.[10]

While developers get tax breaks, most homeowners are facing steep rises in their property tax assessments this year, averaging 31%.[11] The City needs to prioritize tax relief for low income and longtime homeowners through increasing the homestead exemption and expanding the Longtime Owner Occupants Program (LOOP) and tax freeze programs this year.[12]

When homeowners struggle to keep up with mortgage payments and rising property taxes, property flippers swoop in to take advantage of people who need immediate cash, and then re-sell properties for tens of thousands of dollars in profit in the current red hot housing market.[13] Corporate landlords like Odin Properties and ABC Capital took advantage of the Great Recession to buy foreclosed homes in predominantly Black neighborhoods in Philadelphia and then flip or lease them at elevated prices.[14] Over the past 20 years, the median home value in Philly increased from 2½ times to 5 times the median income of Black households.[15]

As home ownership has become increasingly out of reach for many families, the number of renters has increased - 2017 was the first year that the number of renters in Philly exceeded the number of homeowners.[16] Rents are also increasing rapidly - up 11% over the past year[17] - prompting a growing need for rent control policies in Philadelphia.[18]

In a city with high poverty, few enforced tenant protections, and a historical lack of legal representation for tenants, landlords have great power to harass and evict tenants and neglect building maintenance.[19] When landlords ignore needed repairs, many renters are unaware of their rights to withhold rent or get Licenses & Inspections involved. Philadelphia passed a right to legal counsel bill for tenants in 2019, but the program has struggled to receive adequate funding.[20] Currently, the program is only available in two ZIP codes.[21]

Meanwhile, as federal funding for public housing authorities has been gutted over the past three decades, PHA’s Public Housing Program has a waitlist that is 40,000 people long and has been closed for 9 years.[22] [23]

The dangerous effects of Philly’s housing crisis can be tragically seen in the recent fire that killed 12 people in an overcrowded PHA apartment where 26 people were living in a 3-story rowhouse.[24] Precarious or substandard housing or houselessness pose direct threats to people’s safety, contribute to mental and emotional stress, and increase people’s risk of being affected by violence, COVID-19, accidents, and chronic illnesses.[25]

While COVID-era eviction moratoriums and diversion programs have been very successful in reducing the number of evictions in Philadelphia, the City’s Eviction Diversion Program is at risk as COVID relief funding from the federal government has begun to dry up.[26] [27]

Police involvement in the housing crisis primarily takes the form of protection of landlords’ property rights, enforcement of evictions, and criminalization of poverty. By clearing tent encampments and charging people for low-level loitering, panhandling, drug, or prostitution “crimes,” the police do nothing to address the root causes of poverty and merely make lives more difficult and miserable for people experiencing housing insecurity.

The hundreds of millions of dollars currently going to the Philadelphia Police Department could be much better spent on housing programs. The City’s Director of Homeless Services Liz Hersh has said that “With an additional $31 million a year, we could end chronic street homelessness.”[28] This is a mere 4% of the Police Department budget.

In interviews with Movement Alliance Project, community members identified a number of housing-related programs and policies which the City could increase funding for, which would be more effective for improving community safety than investing in policing.

What We Should Increase Funding for Instead of Policing:

[1] “Philly Is Our Home: The Freedom To Stay” housing crisis report by Center for Popular Democracy and Philly Power Research. https://onepa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/RealPhillyHousingReport.pdf 

Beyond PolicingPhilly powerresearchhousing, abatement, policing, 10-year tax abatement, eviction, landlord, tenant, property tax, homestead exemption, rent control