ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Two seven-figure grants are set to help restore some critically needed affordable housing units in the city.
The Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh gave $1.2 million to Allentown Housing Authority's plans to build eight apartments on an empty lot in the 400 block of North Sixth Street.
City crews five years ago demolished a building with several apartments after it became a blighted property. Crews could soon start work on The Lofts at 6th Street.
And the team behind a project to revamp 20 affordable units on Gordon Street walked away with a $1.2 million ceremonial check Friday.
“Everybody wants to be here. There’s a lot of people who want to be in Allentown. The supply [of housing] needs to catch up.”Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk
Local officials, bankers and others gathered at Finanta Credit Union’s downtown Allentown office for the celebration and check ceremony Friday.
The units are meant to serve low-income people with mental health concerns.
Valley Housing Development Corporation plans to install a fire sprinkler system and new kitchens, baths and flooring. The project also includes replacing the building's exterior features, such as windows, doors and the roof.
Allentown was designated as a “blueprint community” by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh alongside Easton’s South Side, Reading and several other areas in Pennsylvania.
The Blueprint Communities initiative works to build communities’ capacity to develop and implement a revitalization plan by training local representatives over a 10-year period.
'A lot of work to do'
Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk said his city is facing a housing crisis in part because of its desirability.
“Everybody wants to be here,” Tuerk said Friday. “There’s a lot of people who want to be in Allentown. The supply [of housing] needs to catch up.”
The city has about 1,900 fewer units than it needs to meet the current need for housing, according to the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission.
That gap could balloon past 5,000 units without significant intervention, the commission has said.
“We have a lot of work to do in Allentown to build to meet that demand,” Tuerk said.
U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Lehigh/Northampton, credited officials at Friday gathering with the leadership as integral to the projects’ launch and future success.
Allentown once was “a refuge for affordability, especially when it comes to housing. We need to bring it back, better than ever.”U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Lehigh/Northampton
“It couldn’t happen without the entire team effort joining together,” Mackenzie said.
The first-term congressman highlighted “steep increases” in housing costs throughout the United States since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, with rents climbing 29% nationwide.
“But in Allentown, we saw that the crisis was especially severe, with rents increasing 45 percent and home prices surging 64 percent,” Mackenzie said.
The city once was “a refuge for affordability, especially when it comes to housing,” he said.
“We need to bring it back, better than ever.”
Mackenzie called the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh’s investments a “prime example” of the “common sense steps” lawmakers, advocates and businesses are taking “to try to improve the high-quality affording housing supply right here in our local community.”
“This kind of local, on-the-ground work is where the problem will be solved,” he said.
