Jeffrey Allegretti, affordable housing innovator, dies at 65

Jeffrey Allegretti, 65, a pioneering developer who reshaped the way Philadelphia created and maintained its supply of affordable housing, died Tuesday, March 17, after a long battle with esophageal cancer.

Mr. Allegretti devoted his career to planning, building, renovating, and maintaining housing for the city’s low-income residents. While working at the Philadelphia Housing Development Corp. in the mid-1980s, he came up with a new program to help cash-poor homeowners pay for emergency repairs. Known as Basic Systems Repair, it has kept hundreds of Philadelphia homeowners from being displaced simply because they didn’t have the money to fix a leaky roof or broken heater. Today, "that program is the cornerstone” of Philadelphia’s affordable housing strategy, said John Kromer, a former director of housing for the city and an instructor at the Fels Institute of Government.

Mr. Allegretti was fond of saying that “the most affordable home is the one that already exists,” his son, Bernardino, recalled. He understood that it was significantly cheaper for the city — and healthier for its residents and neighborhoods — to fix up existing houses than to build new subsidized homes. That approach was particularly well suited to Philadelphia, where large numbers of people, including the very poor, own their homes.

In championing renovation over new construction, Mr. Allegretti effectively rejected the ideas that had underpinned the urban renewal policies of the ’60s. For years, housing experts had pushed for the demolition of buildings — a policy known as “slum clearance” — so they could assemble large tracts of land for public housing, usually in the form of high-rise apartments. But by the time that Mr. Allegretti began working in government, many of those public housing towers had themselves become unlivable because of poor maintenance, concentrated poverty, and crime. Soon they would be demolished, too.

Like many affordable housing advocates, Mr. Allegretti drifted into the field by chance. He grew up in the Chambersburg section of Trenton, then a largely Italian neighborhood, and came to Philadelphia in the early ’70s to study political science at Temple University. While in college, he did an independent study project on gentrification. That opened his eyes about urban poverty, his son said.

After graduation, Mr. Allegretti began working for a local nonprofit called the Institute for Human Development. Despite the organization’s grand title, the group was mainly focused on teaching poor homeowners how to repair their heating systems. Mr. Allegretti was put in charge of the emergency heater repair program. He saw that such modest interventions could be a powerful tool for preserving Philadelphia’s naturally existing stock of affordable housing. He was among the first to understand the connection between building preservation, sustainability, and affordability.

At the time, not everyone was convinced that fixing one house at a time was a viable way to satisfy the demand for affordable housing. Most low-income housing programs were focused on renters, not homeowners. “He helped me expand my understanding” of the role of preservation in affordable housing, said Nora Lichtash, who runs the Women’s Community Revitalization Project, which develops housing for low-income residents, often by renovating older buildings.

In the early ’90s, Mr. Allegretti went to work for Pennrose, a private developer specializing in affordable housing, overseeing the division that managed renovations. In 1997, he founded his own affordable housing company, Innova Services, with Ben Blackburn. Based in the Point Breeze neighborhood, they became experts at turning old rowhouses into modern, energy-efficient homes for low-income residents. During the 2008 recession, they were tapped by the city to rescue hundreds of foreclosed homes.

They also built infill houses on vacant lots in Point Breeze to stabilize the neighborhood, including the award-winning South Point, designed by Onion Flats. At a time when real estate prices were soaring, those houses were targeted to low-income workers and were priced at just $200,000. They were also extremely energy-efficient. “I consider this one of the best projects we’ve ever done,” said Onion Flats architect Tim McDonald, who mainly designs market-rate housing. “Jeff challenged me on every detail.”

Mr. Allegretti’s interest in building preservation extended beyond the needs of low-income homeowners. He also became a champion of historic preservation and helped save several important houses in his Wissahickon neighborhood from demolition. He also initiated the effort that led to the creation of a historic district for a five-mile stretch of Ridge Avenue in Roxborough.

As the development boom came to his Wissahickon neighborhood, Mr. Allegretti often helped the local residents’ association craft its response to proposals. When neighbors launched a fight to remove a billboard next to the Wissahickon train station, he came up with a novel solution: He bought the land himself and took down the billboard, said Liz Robinson, a friend and fellow affordable housing advocate. “His dream was to put a park there,” she said.

“Jeff was absolutely relentless," said Robinson. “Jeff is the reason that Philly is recognized as a leader in affordable housing preservation.”

In addition to his son, Mr. Allegretti is survived by his wife, Theresa, and children Anna Lisa and Victor.

Because of the coronavirus crisis, Bernardino Allegretti said, the funeral service at St. John the Baptist church in Manayunk was private. The family hopes to hold a memorial service after the pandemic passes.