Habitat Turns Vacant Brewerytown Rowhouses Into Buyer Homes

PHILADELPHIA — Four Brewerytown rowhouses that sat vacant for years are on their way to becoming affordable homes for first-time buyers through Pope Leo Village, a Habitat for Humanity initiative inspired by Pope Leo XIV.

The demolition crew that arrived this September was young. Teens and young adults worked alongside Habitat for Humanity Philadelphia staff to gut the properties on the 1400 block of North Hollywood Street, part of the program’s push to get students into volunteering, WHYY reported.

The effort traces to an anonymous donor who launched it after the election of Pope Leo XIV, a Villanova alumnus. The homes were effectively donated by the Philadelphia Housing Authority and are expected to take 18 months to renovate.

“We’re taking it all back down to the studs to then bring it back to life,” Habitat Philadelphia CEO Corinne O’Connell told WHYY. When the work is done, the homes will be sold to income-qualified households rather than converted into rentals.

The bar for buyers is set by income. Households earning up to 80 percent of the area median income, or $98,150 for a family of four, can qualify.

The rowhouses are one piece of a larger 26-home Philadelphia push. It also includes rehabilitating a triplex on North 17th Street and building a 19-unit development near 19th Street and Montgomery Avenue.

“I’m relentlessly optimistic that this is where change happens,” O’Connell said, pointing beyond the construction work to the residents who will get homes and the volunteers who help build them.