Republican lawmakers, including the two chairs of the Kentucky Housing Task Force, joined housing advocates Tuesday to call for legislation they say will put a dent in the state’s housing shortage.
The task force established that Kentucky needs to build hundreds of thousands of homes to combat surging prices for both owners and renters. It’s not a problem isolated to urban areas, but also persists throughout rural Kentucky, including in areas hit by devastating natural disasters.
“Everyone understands the need on the state level to do something,” said Rep. Susan Witten, a Republican co-chair on the task force.
Witten, a Louisville Republican, said she will sponsor legislation that would “modernize” the Affordable Housing Trust Fund alongside Elizabethtown GOP Rep. Steve Bratcher. The trust fund, which the General Assembly created in 1992, subsidizes housing projects for very low-income Kentuckians.
In contrast to proposed Democrat plans that call for a large lump-sum investment, the Republican bill would increase the fee put on certain real estate transactions that already finance the trust fund.
That static fee hasn’t changed in decades, leaving the trust fund with minimal cash. The Coalition for the Homeless estimates the increased fees would amount to $10 million annually going into the fund to increase housing supply. Bratcher said it’s unfair that people who work hard and “did the right things” can’t afford a home.
“You're ready to buy a house, but you can't buy a house because there's no houses available,” Bratcher said. “We want to change that. We want to be able to continue to grow this affordable housing trust fund to create a supply side intervention so people can afford attainable homes.”
The proposal is similar to one Bratcher and Witten brought in last year’s legislative session, House Bill 588, which never made it out of committee.
The housing task force made a number of other recommendations, including calling for several regulatory reforms and requiring local governments to review building plans faster.
Democrats, including Gov. Andy Beshear, have called for large one-time sums to go right into the housing trust fund. In his budget, Beshear called for $150 million for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
“Kentucky needs a big, bold investment now. It can't wait. It can't be incremental,” Beshear said in his annual State of the Commonwealth address.
Expunging dismissed evictions
Another bill Witten called for would allow dismissed evictions to be automatically sealed. These evictions, although they were dismissed in court, still show up on people’s background and credit checks and limit their housing options, she said.
Louisvillian Lexa Harley, an advocate with the Coalition for the Homeless, said she knows firsthand what dismissed evictions can mean for your ability to find future housing. Harley has faced eviction twice in her life, but both were dismissed after she was able to pay back her rent.
“But later on down the road, it's a mark, it's a stain. I used to call it a dirty little secret because it pops up on this record, and before landlords get a chance to know who you are today, you've been disqualified for what could have been circumstantial in the past,” Harley said.
She said her most recently dismissed eviction followed her when she later applied for rental properties. Applying over and over again to different properties cost her hundreds in application fees.
“I'm not saying that people that don't fulfill their obligations get a pass. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that people that do, they should be able to at the very least move on from it,” Harley said.
Red tape for religious institutions
Rep. Michael Sarge Pollock, a Republican from Campbellsville, also announced he would be filing legislation that he expects to improve Kentucky’s housing crisis. House Bill 333 — which mimics legislation that just barely failed to make it over the finish line last year — would allow religious institutions to develop affordable housing on their property, bypassing local planning and zoning rules, as long as the local legislative body approves.
“It's about empowering faith-based institutions and churches to use their land to serve these means,” Pollock said. “Houses of worship and religious organizations want to help.”
The bill has the support of the Kentucky Council of Churches. Rev. James Todd Smith said the council has long believed that everyone has the right to “affordable and safe housing.”
“We call upon the church, Christ's body in the world, to continue to care for their communities and to join in this effort,” Smith said. “Together, we may silence the ‘no’ that the poor hear so often, and can instead say ‘Yes. Yes, you deserve to have a place to live that is safe and clean and affordable.’”
This story has been updated with the latest details.
