Mayor Cherelle Parker’s signature housing initiative is more than halfway complete. 

Her office has released the first data on the progress of its attainable housing program, showing it has skewed heavily toward preservation over production. But the mayor is pursuing a new policy to incentivize more development.

The HOME Initiative is more than 54% of the way toward the 30,000-unit goal Parker set during her campaign, according to a long-awaited portal launched this week. Of the 16,394 units counted as included in the program since January 2024, just 4,670 — or 29% — are new deliveries. The rest received funds for repairs and homeownership support.

“The most affordable home you could ever have is the home that you live in,” Parker said after a press conference about the program Wednesday. “So, home preservation, as well as the building of new, they are equally important.”

Officials believe they are on track to ultimately deliver about 13,500 new units before the end of the mayor’s term in 2028 and preserve 16,500, they said during the press conference.

Of the new units delivered so far, the portal says just under half are in areas with 50% to 80% of the region’s average median income, and another 21% are in neighborhoods with between 30% and 50% AMI.

Three council districts spanning much of North Philadelphia led the rest of the city and fielded 42% of the new units.

That included 717 units in the Seventh District covering much of Kensington, 712 in the Fifth District covering Brewerytown and Strawberry Mansion, and 549 in the Fifth District covering East Oak Lane and Olney.

The new units delivered so far through the program are equivalent to 0.6% of the city’s entire housing stock, which totaled 763,527 units in 2024. If the Parker administration’s production goals come to fruition, the metric would rise to nearly 1.8%.

“It’s faster overall to preserve the existing stock,” Chief Housing and Urban Development Officer Angela Brooks said.

The 11,724 preserved units were spread more evenly across Philly than the new ones. The Seventh District led the list with about 16%, and the Eighth District, primarily covering parts of Northwest Philly, came in second with roughly 15%.

The preservation efforts were also more heavily concentrated in deeply impoverished areas. Fifty-five percent were in neighborhoods with 30% of AMI or less, and another 28% were in areas at 30% to 50% of AMI.

Officials at the press conference shared details about new policies they are pursuing to grow the city’s housing stock, including an effort to implement a 20-year tax abatement for conversions.

Parker was particularly excited about the proposal’s potential to incentivize the redevelopment of the city’s long-abandoned schools into new affordable housing. She said about 20 properties have been vacant for between three and 30 years.

“We have an affordability crisis here in the city of Philadelphia,” Parker said. “What if we marry that challenge with these persistently vacant buildings that have gone underutilized, and we put them to their best and their highest use?”

Her plans to introduce the bill earlier this year didn’t come to fruition as the School District of Philadelphia’s plans to downsize and potentially offload real estate as a way to address budget gaps became a point of contention among lawmakers.

“That is something we are still working very hard on,” Philadelphia Department of Planning Chief of Staff John Mondlak said of the proposed abatement. “We do need cooperation from city council.”