Housing crisis ‘the defining issue of our time,’ summit in Bethlehem told

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — There just aren’t enough places to live in the Lehigh Valley to go around.

But it’s bigger than that.

What feels like a local housing crisis is actually a “global phenomenon” across all income levels, state Rep. Josh Siegel, D-Lehigh, said at a housing summit Friday.

A general consensus from officials that morning: The Lehigh Valley needs more missing middle housing, mixed-income developments, zoning reform and landlord education.

Local, state and federal names in the homelessness advocacy, local banking, real estate and government sectors met minds at Ben Franklin Technology Partners near Lehigh University’s Mountaintop Campus, discussing where to go from here:

• The Lehigh Valley has a deficit of more than 16,000 housing units for households earning less than $25,000 
• The Valley is about 9,000 units short, with the gap growing about 1,300 annually
• Fourteen of every 100 renters in the Lehigh Valley are facing eviction
• Lehigh County’s eviction rank rates third in the state, while Northampton County ranks eighth
• Nearly half the households nationwide are cost-burdened, meaning more than 30% of the household’s income goes to living expenses
• Cost-burdened Lehigh Valley households total 192,000 — with about 60% of renters and more than 20% of homeowners as part of that demographic
• A rent increase of 50% comes with a 20% rise in the homeless population
• Increasing house prices by half is seen to come with an 11% increase in homelessness

An underbuilt region

“Housing is, I believe, the defining issue of our time, and it stems from, frankly, decades of underbuilding,” Siegel said.

A potential state solution could include zoning reform and taking another look at land use regulations, since they are “one of the driving factors” behind the housing crisis, he said.

Restrictive rulings have made it hard for single-family homes and larger developments to coexist on proper land, officials said.

That's where the missile middle housing comes in.

Think of those as stacked fourplexes, cottage courts and other styles of homes in the medium-density category. The Lehigh Valley don't have much of that type of housing.

It bridges the gap between single-family homes and large apartments in a way that doesn’t lose the neighborhood, speakers said Friday.

“Part of what we have to do is change the paradigm, change the mindset and change the public’s perception,” Siegel said.

“There’s a lot of fear, there’s a lot of uncertainty, there’s a lot of angst about what it means to accommodate, what it means to change your zoning and what it means to accommodate different types of housing stock.”

He also pitched converting vacant office space into housing, repurposing greyfields and continuing to develop with resident transit in mind.

So far, he said some state funding has benefitted emergency housing support and right-to-counsel for those facing eviction in Pennsylvania.

That includes $125 million in American Rescue Plan money that went to Whole-Home Repairs — a state Department of Community & Economic Development program specializing in habitability and safety concerns surrounding housing.

Collaborating communities

Bethlehem has brought on development officials from neighboring communities, both large and small, to take part in planning affordable housing solutions.

That's something city Deputy Director of Community Development Sara Satullo said required engagement on a regional level.

The mayors of Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton together formed the Three Cities Coalition, a joint effort in tackling local issues around climate change, housing and homelessness.

The cities’ Community and Economic Development departments also meet quarterly.

“I really just think we’ve seen kind of a change in the attitude of collaboration, and if we can keep working towards that, that’s absolutely going to be required,” Satullo said.

Lengthy inspection processes

A few panel members agreed the overall process of not only getting a property inspected but actually having the landlord fix any cited violations just takes too long.

The landlords challenging any citations can take months depending on the Magistrate's court scheduling, Satullo said.

Bethlehem rolled out a more “proactive” property registration and inspection program in 2020, Satullo said.

Properties now must be registered and licensed annually, and standard rentals are inspected once every three years on a three-year cycle while student housing is inspected each year.

The city used to work with more mom-and-pop real estate businesses, but is now dealing with more large holding firms, she said.

“A lot of these landlords have shot up a lot of property with no idea how to actually manage them, and they don’t even know what all of their holdings are,” Satullo said.

'Driving the relationship'

State Sen. Nick Miller, D-Lehigh/Northampton, vouched for the Neighborhood Assistance Program, which doubled in funding statewide to $72 million.

“It’s a good opportunity for driving the relationship between business and industries with our communities,” Miller said.

“We look at that as incentivizing investment from the private sector, and the fact that you can use that in addressing housing is an exciting opportunity.”

Jonathan Strauss, founder and developer with Cortex Residential, said he hoped for broader public knowledge about the risk a developer takes on with a major project.

That could open more avenues for collaboration, Strauss said.

“Knowing that you have a public sector or an administrative office that wants to work through those things expeditiously — correctly, but expeditiously — I think, really builds a lot of comfort for a developer to develop in a certain municipality,” Strauss said.

An Opening Doors community housing update centered around the housing crisis in Bethlehem is set for 6:30 p.m. Sept. 26 at Northampton Community College Fowler Family Southside Center.