Philadelphia City Council on Tuesday amended the initial budget for Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s signature housing initiative to direct more money to programs that will help the lowest-income Philadelphians, a move that sparked one of the most notable confrontations between Parker and city lawmakers since she took office almost two years ago.
The amendment, which followed a weekslong standoff between the executive and legislative branches, represents a rare act of defiance for a Council that has otherwise been largely compliant with Parker’s agenda, and it appeared at first to be a major win for Philly progressives.
But Parker is not giving up the fight, and she said Tuesday night that the amendment may have had unintended consequences that could hold up much of the housing initiative for months.
The changes to the legislation, she said, may trigger additional procedural steps that will prevent the city from issuing $400 million in bonds to fund the initiative until March or later. The mayor did not hold back from laying the blame for the delays at Council’s feet.
“The resolution that City Council passed out of the Committee of the Whole today contained language that our bond lawyers have repeatedly advised would prevent the administration from being able to issue the bonds,” Parker said in a statement. “That means homes are not being restored. It means homes are not being built or repaired.”
In an unusually blunt statement late Tuesday night, Council President Kenyatta Johnson pushed back against the administration’s analysis of the situation.
“Council’s responsibility is not to rubber-stamp legislation, but to ensure that any multi-billion-dollar public investment is legally sound and targeted to the Philadelphians who need it most,” Johnson said.
But he also vowed to have Council quickly introduce new legislation that could ameliorate the procedural problem Parker identified, tacitly conceding that additional legislation was needed hours after lawmakers approved the resolution with no mention of that possibility.
Johnson said Council would “resolve remaining legal and policy issues swiftly,” and that a new measure to legalize lawmakers’ most recent changes could be introduced this week.
Council wants “shovels in the ground” and “homes repaired,” he said, but ”refuses to rush into issuing $800 million in debt without iron-clad legal protections and clear guarantees.”
“Council members repeatedly raised concerns — directly and in good faith — about accountability, neighborhood equity, homeowner protections, and the long-term impact of the H.O.M.E legislation,” he said. “Council’s action today strengthened the H.O.M.E resolution, not sabotaged it.”
The late-night war of words between Parker and Johnson came hours after a celebratory Council committee meeting in which lawmakers took a victory lap for standing up to the administration.
After the vote, Councilmember Jamie Gauthier and Councilmember Rue Landau, respectively the chair and vice chair of the Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development and the Homeless, said the amended resolution means “working and low-income families will finally be able to get the support they need sooner.”
“With roughly $30 million in federal homelessness funding at risk, it is more important than ever that this multiyear, $800 million investment begins by prioritizing the more than 200,000 Philadelphia households on the brink of losing their homes,” Gauthier and Landau said in a joint statement, referring to a federal policy change proposed by President Donald Trump’s administration that could cost the city millions in funding for anti-homelessness programs.
Council pushes for policy changes
Parker, who has long championed the city’s “middle neighborhoods,” structured her sweeping Housing Opportunities Made Easy, or H.O.M.E, initiative to ensure that the myriad programs funded or created by the program would be available to homeowners and renters at a variety of income levels.
But Johnson — in an unexpected break from his usual alignment with Parker — stood with Gauthier and other progressives who fought to ensure the neediest city residents were prioritized in the budget resolution, which sets the first-year spending allocations for H.O.M.E. The distribution of funding must be approved by Council before the administration can issue the first of two planned $400 million tranches of city bonds that will finance much of the initiative.
Council’s Committee of the Whole, which includes all members, approved the amendment and advanced the resolution in a pair of unanimous voice votes Tuesday afternoon following hours of testimony.
The measure would now head to the Council floor for a final passage vote in the next two weeks. Parker’s statement, however, could mean Council has additional work to do before getting the measure over the finish line. Johnson’s office said the vote is still scheduled for Dec. 11.
“The majority of the members of City Council want to focus on the issues of those who are poor here in the city of Philadelphia when it comes to housing and equality,” Johnson told reporters after the vote.
It’s unclear whether the vote represents a serious rupture in the tight relationship between Parker and Johnson, who have worked closely together since both took office in January 2024. Council approved the most important pieces of legislation Parker proposed as part of the H.O.M.E initiative earlier this year, and the changes adopted Tuesday do not alter the fundamentals of the program, which Parker hopes will achieve her goal of creating or preserving 30,000 units of housing in her first four-year term.
“We support the H.O.M.E. plan,” Johnson said. “And I think the mayor did a good job in investing close to $1 billion … in supporting the issue of housing inequality here in the city of Philadelphia. This amendment represents the will of the members. … We want to specifically focus on those who are the most least well-off, those who are poor.”
But after reading about Parker’s statement in the evening, Johnson’s attitude toward the administration sharpened. His lengthy statement included the most critical language the Council president has directed at the mayor since they were inaugurated.
Johnson rejected Parker’s claim that the legislative delays could cause the popular Basic Systems Repair Program to temporarily run out of funding, saying that there is plenty of money in the current city budget to cover shortfalls.
“Threatening residents with a shutdown of the Basic Systems Repair Program and assigning blame does not move this process forward,” he said. “Collaboration and working together does.”
The amendment increases the first-year budget for spending the bond proceeds from $194.6 million to $277.2 million. The increased price tag, however, does not represent new money in the housing budget; it merely allows the administration to spend more of the $400 million in bond proceeds in the initiative’s first year.
The changes include increases in funding for housing preservation from $29.6 million to $46.2 million, and housing production from $24.3 million to $29.5 million. Additionally, the amendment boosted funding for homelessness prevention programs from $3.8 million to $8.8 million.
But perhaps more importantly, Council altered the income eligibility levels for several programs.
Parker, for instance, had proposed that the H.O.M.E. funding for the Basic Systems Repair Program, which subsidizes critical home improvements to prevent residents from being displaced by the costs of needed repairs, be open to any homeowner who makes Philadelphia’s area median income, or AMI, which is about $119,400 for a family of four.
Council’s amendment, however, requires 90% of the new funding to go to families making 60% of AMI or less, about $71,640 for a family of four.
The administration initially planned to issue the first $400 million in bonds this fall, and Parker sent Johnson’s office a first draft of the budget resolution in July. Council then delayed the committee vote on the resolution several times as Johnson negotiated with Parker on potential changes.
The amendment adopted Tuesday appears to largely mirror Gauthier’s priorities for the spending plan, rather than a negotiated compromise, the first sign that Johnson had moved forward despite not reaching a deal with Parker.
Bond sales potentially delayed again
Parker’s plan to sell the initial round of bonds this fall appeared to be on schedule when Council in June approved the most important pieces of legislation associated with the H.O.M.E. initiative, including an $800 million bond authorization.
But lawmakers at that time inserted a provision into the bond legislation that required the administration to get Council approval of its H.O.M.E. budget each year before it can spend the bond proceeds. For the initiative’s first year, that provision means the city cannot take the bonds to market at all without Council signing off on the budget resolution, city Finance Director Rob Dubow has said.
The latest potential delay, which could set Parker’s schedule back months more, stems from the amendment approved in committee Tuesday.
Parker did not elaborate on the procedural issue that could cause the latest delay, but her comments indicated what it may be: Because the resolution, which dictates how the bond proceeds can be spent, now includes significant differences from the bond authorization bill Council approved months ago, the city may not be able to rely on the original bill as its legal basis for taking out debt and selling the bonds.
To make them align, Council may have to approve a new bond authorization bill, or abandon some of its changes to the spending resolution.
In his statement Tuesday night, Johnson indicated Council has chosen the former route.
“City Council is preparing to introduce an amendment to the H.O.M.E bond ordinance as early as this week’s Council session,” he said.
It’s unclear if the resolution could pass by the end of the year. But Johnson’s reference to the potential of the current city budget’s surplus covering shortfalls in housing programs indicates that might not be possible.
Council’s last meeting is scheduled for Dec. 11. Lawmakers can vote to suspend Council rules and fast-track legislation as needed.
This story was updated to include Council President Kenyatta Johnson’s response to Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s statement.
