BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Earlier this month, LehighValleyNews.com reported on significant rent increases forcing tenants from an apartment complex in the City of Bethlehem.
Tenants at Oak Hollow Apartments said the rent hikes forced them to look elsewhere for housing, while the complex’s owner said the increases reflect market rates.
This week on Lehigh Valley Political Pulse, host Tom Shortell and political scientist Chris Borick discuss the political implications of affordable housing.
“It is an absolutely enormous issue,” Borick said. “That’s not hyperbole. It’s something that has risen in terms of salience in America to levels that I haven’t seen in my lifetime … this issue is enormously important.”
Calling housing a “fundamental need,” Borick said it’s been an issue “consistently at the top of individuals’ minds over the last five to seven years."
He said the contrast of where we were and where we are now in the housing and rental crisis has made the topic even more significant.
“Right here and right now, it is a major, major concern,” he said.
Shortell pointed out that Pennsylvania doesn’t have any statewide laws regulating how much landlords can raise rents. He asked Borick if there was any serious appetite in Harrisburg to change that.
Borick said it's been tradition for the state to defer to local municipalities for housing and land use issues, and lawmakers have always been reluctant to go "too heavy" in terms of regulating what municipalities can do with housing.
The rent factor in the Lehigh Valley is contributing to the local homelessness crisis, Shortell said, highlighting how Allentown officials recently ordered a homeless encampment cleared along the Jordan Creek.
Critics argue this isn’t solving the problem, just moving it.
For more on the issue, watch this week’s episode of Political Pulse in the video player above.
