The Lancaster City Housing Authority is making a pitch for up to $2 million in state grant funding for exterior renovations to its properties, plus another $1 million for its nonprofit affiliate, Partners With Purpose, to do the same.
The properties badly need a facelift, authority Executive Director Barbara Wilson said, and the authority doesn’t have the resources itself: While it receives some money for maintenance and renovation from the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development, there are always critical infrastructure repairs that take precedence.
“We never have money to be able to improve the facades,” she said. Doing so would benefit not only residents but the surrounding community.
The money would come from Pennsylvania’s Local Share Account program. At its meeting last week, City Council signed off on resolutions authorizing the mayor’s office and Department of Administrative Services to submit three separate grant applications for $1 million, the maximum LSA award.
Two are being submitted on behalf of the housing authority: One for its Church Street Towers and Farnum Street East high-rises, the other for Franklin Terrace and Susquehanna Court, which are townhome developments.
All told, the four sites provide 469 units of affordable housing. The funding would go toward repairing and replacing brick exteriors and vinyl siding, replacing windows and repairing porches.
The third grant application is for Partners With Purpose. It would go toward renovating up to 33 of the 95 “scattered site” houses that the nonprofit took over from the authority last year. The portfolio ranges from one-bedroom to five-bedroom buildings and total 469 apartment units in all, located throughout the four quadrants of the city.
Partners With Purpose anticipates spending about $30,000 per building and would target the ones most in need of repair, said Wilson, who serves as the organization’s president. The work would vary from property to property and could include new roofs or roof repairs as well as new siding, painting and landscaping.
The LSA program is highly competitive. Not all applicants receive funding, and those that do may receive less than they request. Once the authority and Partners With Purpose know the outcomes of their applications, they will be able to develop detailed renovation plans and timetables. If needed, they will look at incorporating additional funding sources, Wilson said.
The Local Share Account program is funded with taxes on the gaming industry. Initially limited to jurisdictions with casinos, it was expanded statewide a few years ago.
Applications must be submitted by government entities or authorities, although they may do so on behalf of nonprofits. Funded projects must contribute to a community’s quality of life.
In 2023, Lancaster submitted 17 Local Share Account grant applications: 16 for local nonprofits and one for itself. All of those applications remain pending, city Director of Administrative Services Tina Campbell said.
Awards are decided by the Commonwealth Financing Authority. Its board is scheduled to meet Nov. 19, and decisions on the 2023 applications could be finalized then, or they could be pushed back further, she said.
Since the pandemic, Lancaster city government has underwritten renovation work by both the housing authority and Partners With Purpose, allocating a total of nearly $2 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds. It provided $1.05 million to the authority for roof and HVAC repairs; and allocations of $500,000 and $400,000 for property rehab work to Partners With Purpose.
