Harrisburg, PA – A few weeks ago, Governor Josh Shapiro sat down with Harrisburg native and former Eagles running back LeSean McCoy to celebrate the grand opening of JMB Gardens — a brand new 41-unit affordable housing community built in the heart of the neighborhood where McCoy grew up.
Developed by McCoy’s firm, Vice Capital, and named after his grandparents, JMB Gardens is already changing lives in Uptown Harrisburg. Built across 29 previously vacant parcels, the $16.7 million development includes one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments — several of which are ADA accessible — and was made possible in part by more than $1.3 million in state support through the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA).
This project reflects the Shapiro Administration’s broader commitment to making housing more affordable and accessible. Since taking office, Governor Shapiro has nearly doubled the Commonwealth’s investment in the PHARE program — which helped fund JMB Gardens — and his 2025–26 budget proposal calls for the largest overall housing investment in Pennsylvania history.
That includes new funding to help families repair aging homes, support first-time homebuyers with closing costs, and build more affordable housing faster. It builds on the Governor’s Housing Action Plan and major bipartisan progress made in last year’s budget.
McCoy and Vice Capital are already moving forward with more developments in Harrisburg — including a new mixed-use project just a few blocks away.
Watch Governor Shapiro’s conversation with McCoy here.
Historic Housing Investments Under the Shapiro Administration
Since Governor Shapiro took office, PHARE-funded housing projects have increased by 55 percent — with more than 1,000 projects funded to build or repair over 8,200 housing units across the Commonwealth. The latest round of PHARE funding announced in June will create 270 new affordable housing units, preserve or rehabilitate 2,050 existing units, build 56 new single-family homes, provide housing assistance to more than 13,900 families, and deliver housing counseling and financial education to over 11,400 households. At least $49 million — or 67 percent — of PHARE funding this cycle will support projects serving households earning less than 50 percent of the area median income.
Governor Shapiro’s 2024–25 bipartisan budget made major strides to address Pennsylvania’s housing crisis — nearly doubling the Commonwealth’s commitment to affordable housing by raising the PHARE Fund cap from $60 million to $100 million per year by 2027. Building on that progress, the Governor’s 2025–26 budget proposal calls for an additional $10 million increase in PHARE funding by 2028–29, raising the cap to $110 million and delivering the largest overall housing investment in Pennsylvania history.
The Governor’s budget proposal this year also includes:
- $50 million for a new statewide housing repair fund to help homeowners fix aging homes
- $10 million to help first-time homebuyers with closing costs
- Targeted eviction record sealing reform to improve access to housing and employment
- New investments to strengthen local zoning and permitting capacity and speed up home construction
- Establishing an Interagency Council on Homelessness to improve coordination of services and support unhoused Pennsylvanians
In September 2024, Governor Shapiro signed Executive Order 2024-03, creating Pennsylvania’s first-ever comprehensive Housing Action Plan to expand affordable housing, address homelessness, and make the Commonwealth more competitive. The plan is guiding efforts to increase housing availability, affordability, and quality through a multi-agency approach that brings together state, local, and federal partners with stakeholders across the public and private sectors.
Pennsylvania is currently short more than 100,000 housing units, and nearly 60 percent of homes were built before 1970. Meanwhile, the number of renters in Pennsylvania has grown by nearly 200,000 households since 2010 — even as the supply of low-cost rentals has declined.
Read more about Governor Shapiro’s 2025-26 budget proposal. Explore the Governor's 2025-26 Budget in Brief here, or visit shapirobudget.pa.gov to learn more.
# # #