{"id":111788,"date":"2022-04-14T22:35:54","date_gmt":"2022-04-15T02:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=111788"},"modified":"2022-04-14T22:35:54","modified_gmt":"2022-04-15T02:35:54","slug":"freeman-bill-addressing-blight-homelessness-approved-by-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=111788","title":{"rendered":"Freeman bill addressing blight, homelessness approved by committee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b><strong>HARRISBURG, April 14 \u2013\u00a0<\/strong><\/b>Legislation that would help communities turn blighted properties into affordable housing options was approved Tuesday by the House Urban Affairs Committee, according to the bill\u2019s author state Rep. Robert Freeman.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA study conducted by the Joint State Government Commission concluded that one of the primary causes of homelessness in Pennsylvania is a lack of affordable housing,\u201d said Freeman, D-Northampton. \u201cSimultaneously, here in the Lehigh Valley, and communities across the commonwealth, blight has turned troubled properties into liabilities. My legislation would provide a\u00a0substantive solution tailored to the unique needs we\u2019re facing in Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to Freeman, his legislation (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.legis.state.pa.us\/cfdocs\/billInfo\/bill_history.cfm?syear=2021&amp;sind=0&amp;body=H&amp;type=B&amp;bn=960\">H.B. 960<\/a><u>)<\/u>, which was amended into H.B. 2209 at the committee meeting, would\u00a0provide a directive to municipal land banks to convert a portion of the blighted properties they acquire into housing for the homeless.<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, it would\u00a0expand the powers of land banks to enter into partnerships with organizations in the private sector to create local solutions to address the lack of housing for the homeless population within their community and exempt all land bank transactions from both state and local realty transfer taxes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy legislation would address a real need in our communities and is an important consideration in dealing with affordable housing issues,\u201d Freeman said. &#8220;I am optimistic that the resulting bill approved by the committee this week will continue to move along in the process toward becoming law.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>An estimated\u00a015,000 Pennsylvanians experience homelessness (either being on the streets, doubled up with family or friends, or in shelters) on any given day.<\/p>\n<p>The proposal now moves to the full House for consideration.<\/p>\n<p>Information provided to TVL by:<br \/>\nTom Andrews<br \/>\nHouse Democratic Communications Office<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HARRISBURG, April 14 \u2013\u00a0Legislation that would help communities turn blighted properties into affordable housing options was approved Tuesday by the House Urban Affairs Committee, according to the bill\u2019s author state &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=111788\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Freeman bill addressing blight, homelessness approved by committee<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111789,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69,5738,482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-valley","category-northampton-county","category-press-release-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Freeman.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111788"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/111789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}