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Commission cites HUD assessment and housing shortfall as concern for charter review
Summary
Commissioners discussed a HUD-contracted fair-housing assessment that reportedly found city procedures act as barriers to fair housing and cited a shortfall of housing units; members said the issue should inform the charter-review outreach and equity planning.
Commissioners raised the findings of a HUD-contracted assessment (identified in the meeting as work by "Hailstone") that recommended the city address economic and procedural barriers to fair housing. The chair described the report as serious and said the assessment estimated Reading needed roughly 5,000 housing units by last year.
The chair also flagged homelessness and housing instability figures, saying local homelessness had increased substantially since 2010 and that federal ARP funds the city received had not been directed to housing at scale. Commissioners said the Fair Housing assessment and the city's Equity Plan (2024–2028) should be considered background material as the commission frames outreach and potential charter amendments that bear on housing policy and equitable access.
Commissioners did not vote or adopt specific housing recommendations in this session; instead they called for the commission to consider housing and equity documents as background for future questions and outreach to affected populations. The commission did not receive or present the full Hailstone/HUD report during the meeting; members cited the assessment orally and discussed next steps for incorporating its findings into the charter review process.
Next steps: commissioners signaled intent to review the cited HUD assessment and the Equity Plan, and to factor housing equity concerns into survey outreach and question design. No formal action or policy change was taken at this meeting.
