“When I am able to find somewhere where I have a good landlord – and I feel like they care about me as a tenant and take care of maintenance requests and things like that in a timely manner ­– I definitely want to keep that as long as possible. It makes it hard when you do have an eviction filing to be able to even find that relationship.”

Governor Shapiro’s 2025-26 proposed budget includes commonsense solutions to problems facing Pennsylvanians, like expanding access to safe, affordable housing and removing unfair barriers to finding a home.

Harrisburg, PA – Governor Josh Shapiro’s 2025-26 budget proposal includes commonsense solutions to the problems facing Pennsylvanians, including proposals to expand access safe, affordable housing by automatically sealing eviction records for individuals who were never legally evicted. This proposal, modeled after Pennsylvania’s Clean Slate Law, will eliminate an unfair barrier that prevents thousands of Pennsylvanians from securing housing due to erroneous or dismissed eviction filings.

In his budget address, Governor Shapiro called on the General Assembly to work with him to address this problem. Under the Governor's proposal, eviction filings would be automatically sealed if no eviction occurred, preventing unfair housing discrimination, and reducing economic hardship for Pennsylvanians. 

Click here to watch Haley Passione, a Pittsburgh resident, share her experience with an eviction filing that made it difficult to secure stable housing – even though she was never actually evicted – and read the transcript below.

TRANSCRIPT

“My name is Haley Passione, and I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

I've lived in this home for about a year now. I moved in March of 2024. I live here with my dog, and for me, I work from home, and I spend most of my time here. Home is kind of everything and having somewhere where I feel safe and secure and feel like I can accomplish all of the things I need to accomplish is really important. 

In 2019-2020, I actually had a landlord who tried to evict me. Finding housing is always kind of a stressful process because I've had that experience of a landlord filing against me and now having an eviction filing on my record for anyone to see – it makes it a really stressful and anxiety-inducing process. When I am able to find somewhere where I have a good landlord, and I feel like they care about me as a tenant and take care of maintenance requests and things like that in a timely manner ­– I definitely want to keep that as long as possible. It makes it hard when you do have an eviction filing to be able to even find that relationship. And I'm thankful that I have found that at this point 

There are over 10,000 evictions filed across the Commonwealth every single year, and not all of those end in eviction, not all of those end in a judgment against the person it was filed against. A landlord can file an eviction for a lot of reasons, whether it's legitimate or not. We see landlords make mistakes – they’re human, too. They don't always file because someone actually owes them money, sometimes it’s just an accounting error.

Just that security of something gets filed, it gets resolved, and a tenant being able to move forward from that without worrying about it being on their record forever, I think it’s going to be life changing for thousands of tenants and families in the Commonwealth.”