Amendments to the Home Rule Charter — essentially the city’s constitution — must be adopted by City Council and then approved by voters.
This year’s primary ballot has three proposed amendments. They would create an office that advocates for homeless individuals and families; boost spending on affordable housing; and create a new prison oversight office and board.
Every voter will see the questions on their ballot, even non-party-affiliated residents who do not vote on candidates in the primary.
Residents can vote in person at their polling sites on May 20, or register for and send in a mail ballot by May 13.
Question #1
“Should the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter be amended to create the Office of Homeless Services Ombudsperson to assist residents experiencing homelessness, help provide fair access to essential resources, improve quality of life in the shelter system, investigate client complaints, and provide oversight and recommendations to the City’s providers of homeless services?”
What it means
The new ombudsperson office would advocate for people experiencing homelessness and their families, investigate client grievances and provide oversight and recommendations to the Managing Director’s office, according to Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson, who sponsored a bill putting the measure on the ballot.
The office would be able to conduct investigations and subpoena testimony and records, she said. It would have a $500,000 budget in 2025, according to the Committee of Seventy.
Richardson said she introduced the bill after finding that the city’s Office of Homeless Services “significantly mismanaged its budget and has consistently provided poor quality of service.” Unhoused Philadelphians have faced hurdles to getting emergency shelter and faced retaliation for speaking out, she said.
Question #2
“Should the Home Rule Charter be amended to increase the minimum amount that must be appropriated for spending on Housing Trust Fund purposes in the City’s operating budget each year?”
What it means
This measure would require the city to put more money toward programs that build and maintain affordable housing.
The city has an incentive program for developers that is meant to boost the production of affordable homes. Developers can build denser housing, with more units or floor space, if they agree to either include a certain number of affordable units or make a payment to the city’s Housing Trust Fund.
The Housing Trust Fund supports production of low-cost homes, home repairs and assistance for families at risk of becoming homeless.
The incentive program generated $43 million from 2019 to 2023. However, mayoral administrations have been putting those payments into the city’s General Fund and not spending them on housing, according to Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, who proposed the ballot question.
The ballot measure would require those payments to go into the Housing Trust Fund, in addition to a separate annual contribution that is already required by the Charter. Officials said the change would cost the General Fund about $5 million a year.
The proposed rule is opposed by the Parker administration. It would “bind the hands” of any mayor, especially during budget negotiations, by creating another fixed cost similar to the city’s pension obligations, Finance Director Rob Dubow said last year.
Question #3
“Shall the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter be amended to provide for the creation of an independent Philadelphia Prison Community Oversight Board and Office of Prison Oversight and to further authorize City Council to determine the composition, powers and duties of the Board and Office?”
What it means
This is the latest of several attempts over the years to improve transparency and oversight of the prison system, with the goal of remedying often deplorable conditions at the city’s four correctional facilities.
Previous such efforts included a Board of Trustees and the subsequent Prison Advisory Board, which operated from 2014 to 2023. Both were widely considered powerless and ineffective.
The prison system has been plagued by severe understaffing, overcrowding, escapes, poor health and safety conditions, and the deaths of prisoners from drug withdrawal and other causes. It’s been repeatedly sued over those conditions and been subject to court decrees for 32 of the past 43 years, according to Thomas Innes, director of prison advocacy at the Defender Association of Philadelphia.
Last year a federal judge ordered the city to set aside $25 million to increase prison staffing, increase prisoner access to healthcare and reduce crowding.
If approved, the ballot measure would create the Office of Prison Oversight within the Office of Chief Public Safety Director, along with a nine-member Oversight Board. The new office’s budget would be at least 0.45% of the Department of Prison budget, or about $1.3 million, according to Councilmember Isaiah Thomas’s office.
Four of the board members would be appointed by the mayor, four by the City Council president, and one by the city controller. They must be city residents who don’t work for the prisons, Sheriff’s Office or the police department, and at least one member must have been previously incarcerated.
The Prison Oversight office would be authorized to conduct investigations and have access to the prisons and their databases and documents, according to the City Council bill putting the measure on the ballot. In the future the Council could also give the office the power to retain legal counsel.
The Oversight Board would meet at least monthly and could recommend investigations and other actions by the oversight office.
Editor’s note: The Homeless Services Ombudsperson’s budget was added to the article. Budget information for the Prison Oversight office has been corrected.
