Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s housing initiative is back on track.
In its first meeting of the year, City Council on Thursday reapproved a bill to authorize the administration to issue $800 million in bonds to fund the Housing Opportunities Made Easy, or H.O.M.E., initiative.
Parker wasted no time, signing the bill into law at a news conference Thursday afternoon to fast-track the process for the city to sell the first $400 million tranche of bonds in late March or early April. The administration plans to sell the second $400 million in 2027.
“We are signing into law the largest and most significant investment in housing in the city of Philadelphia’s history, a $2 billion plan that will create and preserve 30,000 units of housing here in the city of Philadelphia,” Parker said, citing a sum for H.O.M.E.’s budget that also includes other funding steams and the value of city-owned land the administration hopes to redevelop into housing through the plan.
In March 2025, when Parker unveiled her housing plan — with the goal of helping the city build or preserve 30,000 units of housing in her first term — she wanted to issue the bonds that fall. Council initially approved the bond authorization and other legislation related to H.O.M.E. in June.
But in the fall, lawmakers made significant changes to a related piece of legislation — which details the $277 million first-year budget for spending the bond proceeds — that triggered a redo of the bond bill.
The most notable changes, championed by progressive Councilmembers Jamie Gauthier and Rue Landau, lowered the income thresholds for some of the programs funded by H.O.M.E. to prioritize lower-income Philadelphians.
Parker opposed the amendment, and administration officials testified that H.O.M.E. was meant to serve residents at a variety of income levels, including middle-class households that are struggling but often make too much to qualify for government support programs.
But Council members argued that even with the new infusion of funds, Philadelphia’s resources are too limited to help the city’s hundreds of thousands of impoverished residents — let alone aid middle-income residents as well.
“City Council demonstrated through its actions — not just its words — that it’s serious about putting City Hall to work for communities that have too often been left behind,” Gauthier, Landau, and their allies said in a group statement Thursday.
The dispute proved to be the most significant public disagreement to date between Parker and Council President Kenyatta Johnson, who sided with Gauthier and Landau.
The changes required Council to pass an updated bond authorization before moving forward because the previously adopted version no longer aligned with the language in the budget resolution. Lawmakers ran out of time to pass the new bond bill before adjourning for their winter break in December.
They approved it unanimously on Thursday.
A couple of hours later, Johnson and Parker profusely praised each other at the bill-signing ceremony, going out of their way to show that their strong working relationship remains intact now that the conflict was behind them.
“My commitment is to make sure that our 100th, first woman, mayor is successful,” Johnson said.
The moment of congeniality was a stark contrast to the dynamic between the two late last year.
Parker at one point said Council’s delay “means homes are not being restored” and “homes are not being built or repaired.” Johnson fired back, “Council’s responsibility is not to rubber-stamp legislation.”
But on Thursday, there was enough feel-good energy between the mayor and Council that it extended beyond Johnson to members who have more frequently clashed with the administration.
Gauthier and Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, who questioned the mayor’s agenda last year over concerns that she was taking out too much debt for housing, also stood alongside the mayor at Thursday’s news conference.
After the delays to her agenda at the end of last year, the mayor appears to be trying to regain control of the narrative this week. Thursday’s bill-signing ceremony marked Parker’s third major update related to H.O.M.E. in three days.
On Tuesday, she announced that her administration was partnering with the city’s building trades unions and the Philadelphia Housing Authority to redevelop the Brith Sholom House, a notoriously dilapidated senior facility that closed in 2024, into affordable housing for seniors.
And on Wednesday, she laid out a vision to build a modular housing manufacturing facility on the long-vacant Logan Triangle tract in North Philadelphia. The city issued a request for information from developers potentially interested in building such factories in the city, with a deadline in late March.
Parker on Thursday only indirectly responded to a question about how many units could be built or repaired in the two years left in her term.
But she said that her administration is working on a second package of zoning legislation to accelerate home construction in Philadelphia, and that she is working with Council to speed 1,000 properties through the land bank.
She also expects Gov. Josh Shapiro, at his forthcoming budget address, to announce state-level housing reforms that would help “as it relates to streamlining state processes [to] run more efficiently.”
Staff writer Anna Orso contributed to this article.
