A key pillar of Penn’s West Philadelphia Initiatives is improving the quality of housing and encouraging homeownership. Penn’s campus borders on tree-lined residential neighborhoods that include prewar apartment buildings, brick row houses, ornate Victorian twins and grand single-family homes. But by the mid-1990s, many once thriving blocks were suffering from years of neglect.

In response, Penn committed its resources and expertise to upgrade the housing stock and lure new homeowners into University City. Working with community associations, other institutions and private investors, Penn invested in new-home buying and home improvement incentives to faculty and staff while also expanding housing options.

There are measurable results between 1998 and 2004:

• 386 Penn faculty and staff have purchased homes in University City, with 40% of homes being purchased for less than $100,000.
• 146 Penn affiliates have taken advantage of incentives to improve home exteriors.
• The University itself rehabbed 20 vacant properties and returned them to the homeownership market.
• Penn raised more than $50 million in capital to create a Neighborhood Housing Preservation and Development Fund.

Penn’s efforts to improve housing and expand homeownership include:

• Supporting Home Ownership through Mortgage Incentives
• Rehabbing Distressed Properties
• Maintaining Moderate Rental Housing Options
• Creating New Market Rental Opportunities

Supporting Home Ownership through Mortgage Incentives
Penn created valuable new programs to encourage its own faculty and staff to purchase homes within West Philadelphia. These include:

Guaranteed Mortgage Program – The University helps eligible employees to apply for home financing of one- or two-unit family homes, priced up to $333,700 located in a wide area of West Philadelphia. The mortgages can include up to 120 percent of the purchase price of the property to help pay for closing costs, or up to 15 percent of the purchase price to help pay for home improvements.

Enhanced Mortgage Program – The University provides financial incentives to Penn employees who purchase homes in a designated area in West Philadelphia. Beginning in 2004, this area extends to 52nd Street to the west, Haverford Avenue to the north and the Schuylkill River to the east and south. Under the program, Penn faculty and staff receive a $7,500 forgivable cash loan for new purchases within these boundaries. These loans can be used for a down payment, to buy down points, or for interior or exterior home improvements. A homebuyer may also use the loan to convert a property from a multifamily to a single-family home.

Existing homeowners may apply for a $7,500 loan for improvements to houses valued at $75,000 or less.

Loans through the Enhanced Mortgage Program are forgiven after the purchaser has lived in the home for seven years.

Since March of 1998, when the University began the Enhanced Mortgage Program, 386 Penn affiliates have bought homes in University City, 40 percent of which sold for less than $100,000. 146 Penn affiliates have taken advantage of the home improvement program. Penn’s Office of Community Housing provides help on locating homes in the area, along with financial counseling, education on the home-buying process, mortgage pre-approval, as well as lists of approved contractors for home renovations.

For more details on Penn’s Guaranteed Mortgage and Enhanced Mortgage programs, go to: http://www.business-services.upenn.edu/communityhousing/.

Rehabbing Distressed Properties
University officials working on the West Philadelphia Initiatives found that in many cases, otherwise stable blocks of University City were marred by individual properties in serious disrepair, affecting both quality of life and property values for the entire block. In response, Penn acquired and invested in gut renovation of such distressed properties, and then resold them to an increasingly competitive housing market. Since 1998, 20 properties have been rehabbed and returned to private home ownership.

Maintaining Moderate Rental Housing Options
The University has raised more than $50 million in capital to create the Neighborhood Housing Preservation and Development Fund, which will protect a large and critical inventory of moderate cost housing for students and the community alike. Penn’s own $5 million investment in the Fund has leveraged over $40 million in equity and debt from four other partners. The Fund now owns and operates more than 200 rental units, helping ensure that as University City attracts more homeowners, it also continues to provide quality, affordable rental options for students, faculty, staff and local residents.

New Rental Apartments
The University brought on a leading private developer of former industrial buildings to create a new 282-unit apartment/retail/office complex in a former General Electric factory at 31st and Walnut streets just east of the campus. Dranoff Properties developed the property under a long-term lease with the University, investing $55 million to recreate the structure as “The Left Bank.” The building, which also houses Penn’s Facilities and Real Estate Department in the 300,000-square-foot lower level, has appealed to many renters because of its close proximity to Amtrak’s 30th Street Station and other major transportation hubs, as well as Philadelphia’s Center City. The Left Bank has brought a new population to an area of West Philadelphia that for decades has been without residential life.