Housing and Infrastructure

Mark was a contractor who spent years designing hundreds of home improvement projects for accessibility to keep Pennsylvanians living in their homes through retirement or disability. He worked with a program that invested public healthcare dollars upfront to pay for construction and ultimately saved millions of taxpayer dollars by keeping folks living in their own homes instead of in costly nursing homes, which was the overwhelming preference of the homeowners as well. Mark has been intimately involved in publicly-funded building projects that make a difference in the most needy residents’ lives and also save money for everyone.

Mark supports the Whole Home Repairs Act introduced by Senator Nikil Saval both in its intention and approach. Providing grants and loans for homeowners, creating an infrastructure of support staff to effectively utilize pre-existing programs, and funding education in the field, the Whole Home Repairs Act is a holistic approach to keeping homes in good repair, which–in addition to being a standard-of-living issue–is a good investment, because the act builds more energy-efficient homes that cost less and use less resources to heat and cool. It also extends the life of our homes and reduces the need for more expensive repairs by investing in preventative maintenance. As Mark often says, if we don’t pay our bills, we get broken things and more bills.

Mark has also experienced the reality and the ubiquity of lead in the lives of many of our state’s residents, having worked extensively in PA’s oldest cities, including York, Harrisburg, Lancaster, Reading, and Philadelphia. Remediating lead from PA’s homes is a matter so extensive, expensive, time-consuming, and dangerous if done wrong that it requires direction and discernment from leaders in Harrisburg who understand on every level the impact of the General Assembly’s decisions on investments in our homes and neighborhoods.