About 968,000 mostly residential customers of large electric, gas and water utilities were more than 30 days past due on their bills at the end of November, up 34% from a year ago, according to reports filed with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission. They owed more than $808 million, up 70% from the previous year. | From: The Inquirer (Read more.)
Among the changes in the works for the program funded by Congress as part of a $900 billion COVID relief package passed in December, are new income requirements and a three-month standard term for aid. | From: PlanPhilly (Read more.)
In remediating a defunct refinery, a developer promises a first-of-its-kind partnership that opens a pathway into skilled professions for Philadelphia public school students. | From: Next City (Read more.)
The deal was simple: Property mogul Chris Rahn got to buy a bundle of 22 vacant, publicly owned lots on the cheap. In exchange, records show he was expected to build homes for the financially needy on eight of them. Five years on, most of those 22 lots — including one of the parcels where he’d agreed to build affordable housing — have been developed into apartments pulling in big rent checks. That’s because the officials who arranged the sale let him shirk his end of the bargain. | From: The Inquirer (Read more.)
The quarantine space (for people who’ve already tested positive) is still operating, as opposed to the recently closed prevention space for people at risk. But the funding used to pay for it is not flexible, said city spokesperson Mike Dunn. | From: Billy Penn (Read more.)
A private prison company runs one of the temporary sites where residents are being relocated. | From: Billy Penn (Read more.)
Landlords who didn’t participate in Philadelphia’s pandemic rental assistance program were dissuaded by bureaucratic red tape and uncertainty, concerns about the amount of money they could collect, and strained relationships with tenants, according to a report released Monday by the Housing Initiative at Penn and the Philadelphia-based redevelopment nonprofit Reinvestment Fund. | From: The Inquirer (Read more.)
In September, when a deluge of landlord-tenant disputes were filed as Gov. Tom Wolf lifted the state’s moratorium on evictions, the Friends Association began aiding struggling families that otherwise would have faced a housing crisis alone. | From: The Inquirer (Read more.)
The team of researchers convened by Gauthier found that more than half of all renters in the West Philadelphia district spend more than a third of their income on rent — the federal definition of cost-burdened and the housing set aside by the city as affordable remains out of reach for many of these renters. | From: PlanPhilly (Read more.)
Many Philly residents have increased financial distress to COVID-19. Here’s one way the Water Department wants to help. | From: Green Philly (Read more.)
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