There is a difference between a place where you live and a place you call home.
You can live anywhere. It might be a mansion or a tent. It could be one room with a bed or 2,000 square feet with two bathrooms and an attached garage. It might be just for the night, for the semester or for years.
But that doesn’t always make it home.
Home is different. Home is about comfort and familiarity. Sometimes you carry that with you, no matter where you are. But sometimes it is something that comes with the safety, security and longevity of ownership.
Perhaps that is the difference between a housing program and one that encourages and facilitates home ownership.
Housing programs are vitally needed. They are critical in a time when people are still recovering from the rent problems of the height of the pandemic. Even apart from that, inflation is spiking rental prices and leading to shortages of available property in some areas. Housing programs are necessary to help find people new places to live or keep them in the ones they have.
But home ownership programs are a way to take the next step. They can do more than just apply the first aid of helping with security deposits or eviction notices. They help connect people to homes where they have ownership.
A new program from Pittsburgh’s Urban Redevelopment Authority called OwnPGH partners with the Pittsburgh Housing Authority to help low-income, first-time homebuyers through a mix of up to $50,000 grants and $40,000 zero-interest loans.
The marriage of housing agency and redevelopment is a match made in heaven because it promotes each other’s best interests. A neighborhood — and thus a city — improves with invested residents. It is easier to be invested with a home you own rather than just a place where you live and can leave.
