The homeownership rate in Philadelphia fell more than it did nationally and in other major East Coast cities over the last two decades, according to an analysis by researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
Philadelphia’s homeownership rate fell by 5.1 percentage points — from 57.5% in 2005 to 52.4% in 2023, according to the report published this month. Over the same period, the national homeownership rate dropped 1.6 percentage points to 65.3%.
Homeownership rates fell by less than 1 percentage point in Boston and New York and by 2.5 percentage points in Baltimore.
Owning a home is how most U.S. families build wealth. Philadelphia has a relatively high homeownership rate among major U.S. cities and a tradition of homeownership among households with lower incomes.
But affordability challenges in recent years have held Philadelphia back.
The city’s homeownership rate did not rise during the pandemic as it did nationally and among other cities.
The U.S. homeownership rate increased by 1.1 percentage points between 2019 and 2022. Rates in Boston and New York also rose slightly during this period. But the homeownership rate in Philadelphia fell by 1.1 percentage points.
Philadelphia Fed researchers had heard about homeownership rates increasing in many places during the pandemic, “so the big surprise was the extent to which Philadelphia was having a very different experience,” said Theresa Singleton, a coauthor of the report and senior vice president and community affairs officer at the Philadelphia Fed.
“Philadelphia’s had this long history of having affordable homeownership for so much of the population for so long,” she said. “And so seeing these numbers decline was the issue that really brought us to this topic, to revisit what are the factors contributing to this decline.”
Researchers found that owning a home has gotten more expensive, and households are increasingly burdened by debt.
Homeownership has become less affordable
“Homeownership affordability is deteriorating in Philadelphia,” said Sisi Zhang, a coauthor of the report and community development economic adviser at the Philadelphia Fed.
More than 60% of Philadelphia home sales were affordable to households with median incomes a decade ago. Now, fewer than 40% are affordable.
Home affordability varies by race and ethnicity. Philadelphia’s typical white households — those making the median income among white households — can afford up to roughly 60% of home sales. Typical Black households in Philadelphia can afford up to about 26%. And this affordability gap has widened over the last decade.
The gap between how many homes households with two earners can afford and households with fewer than two earners can afford also has widened. Non-dual-earner households used to be able to afford more homes.
In 2013, dual-earner households could afford about 90% of the homes for sale, and non-dual-earner households could afford just over 50%. In 2023, dual-earner households could afford just over 80% of homes for sale, and non-dual-earner households could afford a little more than 30%.
The report considered homeownership to be affordable if a household making the median income spends no more than 28% of that income on a mortgage, property taxes, and home insurance.
All together, these costs have more than doubled in the last decade. In 2014, the annual estimated median cost of owning a home in Philadelphia was about $8,000. That cost grew to about $21,000 in 2024.
Singleton said she was surprised at how significant the cost increases have been.
These affordability challenges exist in cities and towns across the country, but Philadelphia stands out because residents’ incomes are so low compared to other cities of similar size and economic status, Singleton said. That “brings a certain other nuance” to challenges the city faces.
Philadelphians’ debt increasingly is keeping them from buying homes or being able to comfortably afford homes, the Philadelphia Fed report found.
High debt-to-income ratios have become the most common reason that aspiring homebuyers are denied mortgages.
And even buyers who are approved for home loans have higher debt-to-income ratios than they did a few years ago.
Debt and affordability trends highlighted in the report “suggest growing financial pressures on potential and actual homebuyers, particularly low- to moderate-income families,” the authors wrote.
The Price Point compares homes listed for similar sale prices across the region to help readers set expectations about house hunting.
Looking for a new home for the new year? You’ve got options if you have the region’s typical homebuying budget.
Across the Philadelphia metropolitan area, homes sold for a median of $390,000 last month, according to the multiple listing service Bright MLS. That typical sale price is up more than 3% from last year.
Here’s what a home shopper could get with a budget like this in three different neighborhoods in the region.
Lower Merion condo in star location
Wolverton & Co., a Montgomery County-based real estate company, sells and manages a lot of condos in the area of West Montgomery Avenue in the Haverford section of Lower Merion Township.
“I call that stretch the golden mile of Haverford as it relates to condominiums,” said Will Wolverton, owner and broker of record at Wolverton & Co. “It’s a very desirable area.”
There are restaurants and national and local stores, including at the nearby Haverford Square and Suburban Square shopping centers. Condo residents can walk to SEPTA’s Haverford station to catch Regional Rail trains. The Merion Cricket Club offers sports facilities and hosts dinners and galas.
One condo currently for sale in the area is a two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit at Haverford Hunt Club, a building with 16 units on four floors. Condos there include both one-bedroom and two-bedroom units.
The building is about 45 years old but has been “thoughtfully updated” in both looks and critical infrastructure, such as the elevator and the roof, Wolverton said.
The condo for sale gets a lot of natural light, he said. And it’s on the top floor, so buyers won’t have upstairs neighbors. It also has a private balcony and a reserved space in the property’s parking lot.
The last several serious buyers have been most interested in the neighborhood, Wolverton said.
“It’s a very good property,” he said, “and a great location.”
This home in the Mayfair neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia stands out in a few ways, said listing agent Xiao Zhen Zhao, who works throughout this section of the city, as well as Fishtown and Northern Liberties.
The open kitchen is “very unique” for the area and includes bar seating, said Zhao, an agent with Legacy Landmark Realty.
The primary bedroom has a private bathroom, which isn’t common in older homes in Northeast Philadelphia, she said. A lot of houses have only one full bathroom, she said. One of the bathrooms features a skylight and pink tiles on the walls.
And the home is “a bigger twin,” she said. It spans 1,868 square feet.
The home has a backyard and a walk-out finished basement, which has a half bathroom. It also has a garage and driveway.
The twin is in an area of the city where houses are more affordable and parking is easy. It’s within walking distance of schools. It’s minutes from stores and restaurants along Cottman Avenue, and it’s right off Pennypack Park.
Potential buyers have liked the layout of the home and also the look of it, Zhao said.
Potential buyers touring this Colonial in Camden County have fallen for its charm, said real estate agent Evangeline Gambardella. “Because it is a very charming space.”
The living room features a brick fireplace and a large window that lets in natural light and frames views of the front yard.
The layout is more open than in a traditional Colonial, especially in this area of Gloucester Township, said Gambardella, a real estate agent with the Mike McCann Team, which is an affiliate of Keller Williams.
The owners have recently updated the property. The home has new landscaping, a roof that is about 4 years old, a new fence, and a new heating, cooling, and ventilation system.
“It presents a really lovely value for its price point,” she said.
The home’s kitchen includes an island with seating. And a door in the formal dining room opens to the deck, which has a retractable awning.
Home shoppers who have visited the property like its spacious backyard and its location. It is minutes from the Gloucester Premium Outlets and the Deptford Mall, has easy access to major highways, and is close to parks and restaurants.
The home’s unfinished basement also is a “huge selling point for a lot of people” who want to decide what to do with the space, Gambardella said.
This year, renters were burdened by housing costs, pessimistic about the economy, and less likely to say homeownership is part of the American dream, according to a survey by the national rental listing platform Zumper.
Zumper surveyed more than 6,000 renters across the country as part of its annual report about the state of renting. The report gets at renters’ feelings and behaviors and evolving trends.
Affordability remains a challenge for renters, even as more apartments flooded markets in recent years, giving renters more options and negotiating power and cooling rent growth. In Philadelphia, the median asking rent in December for a one-bedroom home — $1,490 — was down about 2% from the same time last year, according to Zumper.
The report also gives insights into what renters want. Almost one in five renters who were surveyed said access to outdoor space is a top-three priority when choosing a home. About one in four renters said eco-friendly features were important.
And almost half of renters — 45% — said they have pets, from cats and dogs to lizards and iguanas. In an analysis published last year, Zillow found that landlords who allow pets rent their homes faster.
Here are three takeaways from Zumper’s report on the state of renting in 2025.
Renters are struggling
Roughly three in five surveyed renters are cost burdened. That means they spend more than 30% of their income on rent. But the average renter said they spend 40%.
Renters don’t feel great about the economy. Four in five said they are uncertain or not confident about it, and about two-thirds said they think the country is in a recession.
One in five renters said they moved to lower their cost of living.
Almost three in four renters said they save 15% of their income or less every month. About one in four have student loans, and almost half have credit card debt. That all makes it difficult to cover emergencies or save for future plans, such as homeownership.
Three in four renters said 2025 was not a good time to buy a home.
Fewer renters dream of homeownership
In 2021, 27% of surveyed renters said homeownership was not part of the American dream. That share has grown to 34% this year.
And now 60% of renters say the new American dream means being “untethered” from homeownership, Zumper’s report said. And 30% of renters said they do not ever plan to buy a home.
These shifts “reflect both economic pressures and changing cultural values,” according to Zumper’s report.
The older that surveyed renters were, the less likely they were to say they would ever buy a home. Baby boomers also were the generation least likely to say that homeownership is part of the American dream.
The top five cities that renters said they were moving to include one in the Northeast and two in California.
The most popular city for a move was Los Angeles. Zumper cited the city’s climate and residents’ lifestyles.
Next on the list was Atlanta, followed by New York City, San Francisco, and Charlotte, N.C.
The report said Atlanta and Charlotte offer growing job markets and affordability compared to other coastal cities. It said New York’s high rents were probably why the city wasn’t higher on renters’ list.
And renters were attracted to San Francisco in part because of its tech scene.
After a shift to remote work during the pandemic, more workers now need to go into an office at least some of the time. In 2021, Zumper’s survey found that about 25% of renters only worked from home. That share is down to 12%.
So it’s not a surprise that renters said they were moving to cities that are major job centers. A commute was the third-most-cited deciding factor for renters’ locations.
Out of the 50 largest metropolitan areas, the Philadelphia region is where minimum-wage earners must work the most hours to afford rent.
Two workers who make Pennsylvania’s $7.25 minimum hourly wage would each have to work 96 hours per week to afford the Philadelphia metropolitan area’s median asking rent of $1,739 in November, according to an analysis by Realtor.com.
Only five of the top 50 metros have rents that are affordable without overtime for a household in which two workers make the minimum wage. In all five metros, the minimum wage is above the federal floor of $7.25, and the median rent is lower than the median across the 50 metros.
The most affordable metro is Buffalo, N.Y., where two workers making the state’s minimum wage of $15.50 would need to work only 30 hours per week each to afford the region’s median asking rent of $1,176 in November.
Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com, noted that demand for workers often pushes the lowest actual starting wages above mandated minimums. But in areas with high costs of living, even wages driven higher by market forces or increases to the state minimum don’t close “the affordability gap.”
“It’s a clear signal that housing costs continue to pose a massive hurdle for those at the bottom of the pay scale,” Berner said in a statement.
Rents were considered affordable if they were no more than 30% of renters’ income.
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Nationwide, rents have moderated in recent years. But in November, the median rent across the top 50 metros was still 17% higher than just before the pandemic in November 2019.
Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com, pointed out that some states’ minimum wages are scheduled to increase in the new year, which “will help to improve affordability for the most burdened households.”
“While the challenge remains immense, particularly in high-cost areas, the number of metros where two minimum-wage earners can afford a typical rental without working overtime will grow in 2026, a positive sign,” she said in a statement.
Two metros are set to join these ranks next year: Detroit, where the minimum wage is scheduled to increase from $10.56 to $13.73; and Jacksonville, Fla., where the minimum wage will increase from $13 to $15.
The number of hours people need to work will drop most in Florida metros. Two minimum-wage workers living together in Tampa would each need to work 45 hours per week in 2026 to afford the median asking rent. That’s down seven hours from this year.
Almost 20 years after the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) moved out of its Center City headquarters, a long-promised mixed-income tower will finally begin construction early next year.
The 14-story building is being built by Philadelphia developer Alterra Property Group, which may also manage the site after it opens. PHA will hold a 99-year ground lease on the property at2012 Chestnut St., which will be its only affordable building in Center City.
“It’s a multifamily, mixed-use, mixed-income building in a high opportunity neighborhood,” said Kelvin Jeremiah, president and CEO of PHA.
It “would afford residents a huge opportunity to live in an area that has access to transportation, employment opportunities, and a whole host of amenities literally right outside of their building entrance,” he said.
The tower will have 121 apartments, 40% of which will be rented at market rate with the rest targeted at tenants below 80% of area median income (or almost $83,000 for a three-person household). It will have 28 studios, 63 one-bedroom, and 30 two-bedroom units.
It also will have 2,000 square feet of commercial space, parking available off-site, and amenities that include a roof deck. The project was designed by JKRP Architects.
“I’m looking to break ground in Q1 of next year,” said Mark Cartella, Alterra’s senior vice president of development and construction. “It’s been a long time coming, so we’re excited to finally be going vertical here.”
What took so long?
PHA moved out of its Chestnut Street headquarters in January 2008, leaving a four-story husk. The agency cycled through numerous plans for the property, including a new headquarters and selling the land to a private developer.
The partnership with Alterra began in 2016. At that time, the project would have had 200 units, a majority of them market rate, and the developer would have held the 99-year ground lease on the property.
But neighborhood pushback and the resulting negotiations delayed the proposal until 2020. Then the pandemic caused more chaos, followed by a spike in construction costs and elevated interest rates that killed the original financing plan.
That led to a new strategy in which PHA issued bonds backed by the future rents of the market-rate units to help pay for the project, along with additional funds from federal housing programs, and a $2 million boost promised by Council President Kenyatta Johnson from funds available through Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s Housing Opportunities Made Easy (H.O.M.E.) initiative.
“By adding high-quality, affordable apartments alongside retail space in the area, this project helps ensure that our downtown remains vibrant, diverse, and accessible to working families and individuals,” Johnson said in a statement.
“The PHA project will also help deliver a more inclusive Center City that reflects the full spectrum and diversity of Philadelphia’s residents,” he said.
A rendering of the roof deck planned for the new mixed-income building proposed by PHA and Alterra.
The 95-year-old headquarters was demolished in early 2024, but groundbreaking has been delayed in the current unpredictable national economic and political environment.
“You can probably sum that all up with it’s just general uncertainty with the change of[presidential]administration, as well as just getting through the design development process with a lot of folks having input,” said Cartella of Alterra.
“This is a little bit beyond the [usual] design development process with Alterra,” he said. “It’s more stringent than what we typically have to go through.”
Jeremiah has repeatedly expressed concerns about how long the development process can take in Philadelphia, especially in combination with federal guidelines and requirements.
But as this process nears its end — 18 years after the move, 10 years since bringing on Alterra, and two since demolition — he is feeling optimistic.
“It is the first PHA built development in Center City,” said Jeremiah. “That’s going to be a signature project for me, for the city, for affordable housing.”
Zillow’s list of the most popular real estate markets of 2025 is dominated by midsize cities in the Midwest. But one large city ranked in the top 20: Philadelphia.
The main driver of popularity is housing affordability, which helped push Philadelphia up the list.
The city also remains popular because of its central location on the East Coast between major job hubs such as New York and Washington. And Philadelphia is a place people want to be for its culture, restaurants, and music and arts scenes, said Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at Zillow.
But “that affordability can’t be overstated,” he said.
“Relatively more affordable markets are really seeing more rapid home value appreciation and more traffic on Zillow,” he said. The company considered these factors, as well as the number of days properties took to sell this year, to rank the popularity of cities.
In many of the top 10 most popular markets, the median home value in November was less than $350,000. These markets are near growing job markets or sit along key commuter routes and are small enough to offer a sense of community, according to Zillow.
Homes in the most popular markets tend to go under contract in days instead of weeks. And they’re growing in value.
Most of the cities on the top 20 most popular list — with the exception of No. 19 Philadelphia — range in population from about 100,000 to 300,000 people.
In Philadelphia, the median home value in November — about $230,000 — was up almost 3% from last year, and homes for sale took a median of 20 days to go under contract this year. And more searches for Philadelphia listings on Zillow are coming from outside the region, which shows broad interest.
Allentown was the only city in Pennsylvania to make Zillow’s top-10 list of popular markets this year.
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Lessons from the list
A lot of the smaller cities on Zillow’s most popular list arenear big, more expensive cities.
For example, the most popular market this year — and the second most popular last year — is Rockford, Ill., which is 90 miles outside Chicago. Residents can access a large job center without paying big-city home prices.
Rockford is popular with out-of-town home shoppers, and homes went under contract within just five days this year. It was one of the fastest-moving markets on Zillow’s list.
Divounguy expects buyers will continue to be attracted to more affordable markets that have homes available to buy and will move away from expensive marketswhere fewer homes are built.
“Philadelphia, because it’s so attractive, needs to continue to build housing,” he said. “It needs to keep up with the interest people have to live in the area.”
Albany, N.Y., is the third most popular city on Zillow’s 2025 list and the most popular in the Northeast.
The most popular small town on the list — defined as a place with no more than 20,000 people — is Lake Forest, Ill., which is 30 minutes outside Chicago. Zillow said the town’s proximity to a big city, historic charm, and position along Lake Michigan make this market attractive for homebuyers.
Among cities with more than 250,000 residents, Toledo, Ohio, is most popular. The median home value is an affordable $126,000, and it’s on the tip of Lake Erie.
For the second year in a row, Portland, Maine, is Zillow’s most popular vacation town. The company said Portland’s historic architecture, food, and arts scene attract homebuyers.
Bullhead City, Ariz., is the most popular retirement town and draws residents with warm temperatures and outdoor recreation along the Colorado River, Zillow said.
And Normal, Ill., the site of Illinois State University, is the most popular college town. Zillow cited its revitalized shopping and dining district. State College, home to Penn State, is a runner-up.
Another former religious building is being redeveloped into apartments, with an assist from a law City Council passed in 2019 to preserve large, neighborhood-scale historic buildings like churches.
The former St. John’s Baptist Church at 13th and Tasker Streets is slated to house 26 rental units. The church dates to 1892 and is currently vacant.
The developer is Annex Investments II, owned by Drew Palmer, and the design of the remodel is by Philadelphia-based Toner Architects.
The church, which sits at the northeastern corner of the Miracle on 13th Street block, is zoned for single-family residential.
But the 2019 law passed by district Councilmember Mark Squilla makes it easier to convert “special use properties” — such as churches or theaters — to new uses no matter their underlying zoning, if the building is historically protected.
St. John’s Baptist Church was added to the local Register of Historic Places in 2020 after the advocacy group Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia nominated it.
The bill was passed following the St. Laurentius debacle in Fishtown, where a handful of neighbors managed to delay a redevelopment project with lawsuits until the building was in poor enough shape that it had to be razed.
The 2019 law makes such legal warfare more difficult to wage.
These new zoning laws are “facilitating an increasing number of adaptive reuse projects of historically designated properties, preserving them while returning them to productive, taxpaying use and strengthening their surrounding neighborhoods,” said Paul Steinke, who leads the Preservation Alliance.
On Tuesday the project was given a preliminary review by the Architectural Committee, which advises the Historical Commission.
As part of the conversion, the developer wants to insert additional floors to the church building, which is beyond the Historical Commission’s jurisdiction. The plan also includes adding large dormers to the roof to allow more light into the future residences and replacing the dilapidated slate roof with asphalt.
The proposed new dormers can be seen in this rendering, lining the church’s roof.
The Architectural Committee objected to both of those exterior changes.
“The dormers are pretty significant on this, and we’re looking to find a way to make those more subtle,” said Nan Gutterman, who sits on the committee.
Sara Shonk Pochedly of Toner Architects noted the dormers are the same size as those added to other redeveloped churches reviewed by the Architectural Committee, but this building is smaller in size so the new additions look larger.
Because this was a preliminary review meeting, the committee did not indicate how it would vote to advise the larger commission.
“We always appreciate when a church is given another life,” said Justin Detwiler, who sits on the Architectural Committee. “Thank you and your applicant for doing that and being sensitive. These are not easy projects.”
Palmer did not attend the committee meeting and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ian Toner of Toner Architects declined an interview request at this early stage in the development process.
Eight years after the Philadelphia arts community learned it could lose the 7,000-square-foot mosaic that for decades wrapped around an Old City building, the structure’s current owner has started to demolish it.
The fate of the building was the subject of an almost six-year legal battle. Artists and preservationists wanted to save the building. Neighbors opposed a developer’s plans to preserve it.
That developer — architect and building owner Shimi Zakin of Atrium Design Group — had proposed constructing apartments above the mural with a design The Inquirer’s architecture critic called “a terrific work of architecture.”
Zakin received a permit from the city in September to tear down the building. He plans to replace it with 85 apartments and about 6,000 square feet of commercial space. The new building would be six stories and 65 feet tall.
A digger operator walking through inside of the former Painted Bride building, Old City Philadelphia, Monday, December 8, 2025.
Zakin did not respond to a request for comment about the start of demolition at the site. In September, he told The Inquirer: “We are moving forward with an amazing project at an amazing location.”
He estimated that his apartment building would take about 2½ years to complete.
For now, a black wooden fence surrounds the former Painted Bride building while demolition equipment tears out its insides, and the walls await their turn.
During a combative hearing on legislation related to Parker’s signature housing initiative, Council President Kenyatta Johnson on Wednesday afternoon refused to allow a vote on an amendment brought by the Parker administration and instead advanced Council’s version of the proposal over the mayor’s objections.
In a voice vote, Council’s Committee on Fiscal Stability and Intergovernmental Cooperation approved its own changes to the legislation — authorizing the city to take out $800 million in city bonds to fund Parker’s Housing Opportunities Made Easy, or H.O.M.E., initiative — without considering the mayor’s requested tweaks.
Councilmembers Brian O’Neill, Anthony Phillips, and Curtis Jones Jr. signaled their support for Parker’s vision by voting against the measure, which now heads to the Council floor for a final passage vote or further amendments, either of which could come as soon as January.
It is unclear how Johnson’s handling of H.O.M.E. will change the tight working relationship Parker and Johnson have maintained since both took office in January 2024. Wednesday’s vote marked their most contentious public disagreement during their tenures. Both officials still agree on many policy goals and have plenty to gain politically from maintaining their alliance.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker stands beside Council President Kenyatta Johnson (left) after finishing her budget address to City Council in Philadelphia City Hall on Thursday, March 13, 2025.
The dispute between Parker and Council centers on income eligibility thresholds for two of the housing programs that will be funded by bond proceeds: the Basic Systems Repair Program (BSRP), which provides funding for needed home improvements to eligible owners who might be displaced by costly repairs, and the Adaptive Modification Program (AMP), which funds projects to improve mobility for permanently disabled renters and homeowners.
“The whole debate over income eligibility limits for BSRP and Adaptive Modifications is to make sure that we leave no working Philadelphian and no qualifying Philly rowhome owner excluded from these vital programs,” Parker said in a statement Wednesday. “If we don’t save Philly rowhomes, we’re going to become a city of used-to-be neighborhoods, blocks that used to be nice but now are showing signs of age and decline. I will not allow that to happen — not on my watch as Mayor of Philadelphia.”
Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, who chairs the Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development and the Homeless, said Wednesday’s vote sent the message “that Council takes its job seriously as a steward of taxpayer money in the city of Philadelphia, that we are not here to just rubber-stamp in a proposal, that we’re here to work together.”
Change in fortunes for Parker
Wednesday’s vote appears to mark the first instance of Parker’s hard-line negotiating tactics failing her since she took office. Even when she could not get negotiating counterparts to bend to her will in the past, Parker has largely prevailed.
And in July, when the largest union for city workers went on strike to try to squeeze larger raises out of the administration, Parker stuck to her guns amid increasing pressure to fold as trash piled up across the city and 911 wait times grew longer. The union ultimately folded after an eight-day work stoppage with a new contract that closely aligned with Parker’s last offer before the strike began.
But this time, Parker appears to be out of options to prevent Council from getting its way because she cannot veto another key piece of legislation to keep the housing initiative in motion that needs to pass before the city can issue the bonds. That measure — a resolution setting the first-year budget for H.O.M.E. that received preliminary approval in a Council committee last week — could see final approval as soon as Thursday.
“We’ve got to take care of the people who are most in need, but we can’t penalize the people who are going to work every day, pay their taxes, contribute to the city, and they can’t benefit from home improvement programs,” she said.
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker speaks to the crowd at The Church of Christian Compassion in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood of West Philadelphia on Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025. Parker visited 10 churches in Philadelphia on Sunday to share details about her H.O.M.E. housing plan.
That maneuver did not appear to go over well with lawmakers, who likely did not appreciate the mayor encouraging their constituents to oppose Council’s version of the plan.
Even before chief of staff Tiffany W. Thurman presented Parker’s amendment at Wednesday’s hearing, lawmakers sounded off, with Gauthier saying the administration was spreading “misinformation” and Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke calling Parker’s approach “Trumpian.”
“It was in response to misinformation being spread during that tour,” said Gauthier, who, along with fellow progressive Councilmember Rue Landau, led the charge to lower the income eligibility thresholds included in H.O.M.E.
Gauthier noted that Council’s version of the bill still increases those thresholds beyond what is offered in existing programs.
“Obviously, the mayor, all of us, have the right to go and talk to our constituents,” she said, “but we have to be operating from a fact-based perspective, and telling folks that the Council proposal excludes them is not factual.”
No vote on Parker amendment
The legislative process for approving the city bond issuance — the centerpiece of Parker’s H.O.M.E. initiative, which she first proposed in March — has been long and tortured.
Council initially approved the bond authorization in June, but lawmakers at that time inserted a provision requiring the administration to get their approval for annual budget resolutions determining how the proceeds will be spent.
Johnson delayed a vote on the first H.O.M.E. budget resolution for months before allowing it to be approved last week by the Committee of the Whole. But lawmakers made major changes over the mayor’s objections, including granting themselves the right to set income thresholds for the initiative’s programs.
It was the first sign that Council was serious about enacting its own ideas even if Parker was not on board and, in Council’s view, would not negotiate. In a twist, lawmakers took their latest stand Wednesday at a time when the mayor’s team came to the table with a significant, albeit last-minute, counteroffer.
Council’s changes to the eligibility requirements for BSRP and AMP would require 90% of the H.O.M.E. bond proceeds for those programs to be spent on households making 60% of Philadelphia’s area median income, which is about $71,640 for a family of four.
Thurman on Tuesday proposed a compromise in which only 60% of bond money would be set aside for those households. She told lawmakers that Parker, in part, wants to ensure H.O.M.E. helps city workers, who are required to live in Philadelphia but often struggle to make ends meet on municipal salaries. (Parker pointed to the H.O.M.E. plan during the strike as evidence she backed city workers despite opposing higher wages.)
Johnson responded that he hopes “one day our city workers are getting paid enough where they don’t have to sign up” for assistance programs.
“You know as well as I do we agree,” Thurman replied, prompting Johnson to cut her off.
“I’m not acknowledging you yet,” Johnson said, referring to a Council hearing procedure in which the chair must recognize speakers.
Tiffany Thurman, Mayor Parker’s chief of staff, takes questions from Council members in 2024.
Parker’s latest offer, which came months into the standoff over H.O.M.E., appears to have been too little, too late.
Phillips — who voted for the Council budget resolution last week but said he has since changed his mind to support Parker’s vision — wanted to call upthe administration’s amendmentfor a vote, he said in an interview.
“This week I changed my mind because that’s where my mind really has been,” said Phillips, who represents the Northwest Philadelphia-based 9th District that Parker held when she was on Council. “The 9th District neighbors — they’ve made abundantly clear that our housing policy needs to reflect them. … They’re long-term homeowners, residents who are on fixed incomes, multigenerational families.”
Under Council rules, only Johnson can call on members to put forward amendments in committee. But instead he blocked it, prompting Jones, Parker’s most vocal ally on Council, to protest.
“We should do the right thing always, even in spite of its inconvenience and time,” Jones said during Council. “Resolutions and amendments need to be introduced so that they can get the light of day and be heard.”
Johnson said he pushed through Council’s version because the mayor’s administration did not engage with him about its new proposal ahead of the meeting.
“Just for the record … I had not officially seen any official amendment prior to this actual hearing,” Johnson said. “The administration just showed up.”
Despite Wednesday’s vote, the fight over H.O.M.E. may not be over. Councilmember Mike Driscoll, a Parker ally who voted to advance the bond authorization, signaled there may be further changes.
“I wanted to keep the HOME initiative process moving,” Driscoll said in a statement, “but still hope to influence a reasonable solution which includes program support for row home Philadelphians.”
Typical Philadelphia-area retail workers would need to make more than twice their annual wages to afford the region’s median-priced apartment, according to Redfin.
Retail workers in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, which includes Camden and Wilmington, made a median of $35,006 in 2024. But to comfortably afford the median monthly rent for an apartment in the area in October — $1,783 —they would need to make a median of $71,331, according to a report Redfin published last month.
In all 40 of the major areas Redfin analyzed, typical retail workers make less money than they need to afford the median rent for an apartment.
“As the cost of living has increased, so have the sacrifices renters must make to afford a place to live,” Daryl Fairweather, Redfin’s chief economist, said in a statement. “Since most retail workers don’t earn enough to afford the typical apartment, many are opting to share rent with a family member or friend, move far away from their job, or live in a very small space.”
A typical U.S. retail worker would have to work 83 hours per week to afford the typical apartment alone.
Renters struggling
Rents are considered affordable if they are no more than 30% of a renter’s income. A growing number of Philadelphia renters are spending more than 33% of their income and struggling to pay rent, according to Census Bureau data.
In a nationwide survey in May of about 1,600 renters, almost one in four said they regularly or greatly struggle to afford housing costs, Redfin found. Renters said they were diningout less, taking fewer vacations, and borrowing money from family and friends to pay their rent.
In Redfin’s November report, even retail workers with wages in the top 25% earn 44% less than they need to afford the median-priced apartment.
Data on rent affordability for retail workers in the Philadelphia metro area closely mirror national trends.The typical U.S. retail worker made $34,436 in 2024 but would need to make $71,172 to afford the typical apartment, priced at $1,779 in October.
Rents have gotten slightly more affordable for the typical retail worker in the last few years. Prices aren’t rising as much because of all the apartments that have been built in recent years.
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Bigger gaps in New York
Redfin analyzed wage data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and retail workers fell into three categories: cashiers, retail salespersons, and first-line retail supervisors.
The New York regionhad the biggest gap between what retail workers make and what they need to make to afford an apartment. Workers’ median annual wage was $39,185 in 2024. Workers would need to make $134,896 — almost 3½ times as much. The median apartment rent in October was $3,372.
The affordability gap for retail workers was smallest in Cleveland’s metro area — $31,982 vs. $47,654.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story misstated the definition of the study’s metro area.
