(The Center Square) — Rural Pennsylvania keeps losing population, yet its home prices remain out of reach for many residents.

The exodus of people has created problems for economic growth and maintaining community alike.

“There’s a number of challenges that we face, but in Mercer County, none is more important than the 1% population loss that we’ve faced every year for the last 30 years,” Rod Wilt, executive director of the Penn-Northwest Development Corporation, told the House GOP Policy Committee during a Wednesday hearing. “We have fewer young families at this time than we’ve had at any time in the last 50 years.”

All school districts have had significant drops in enrollments, he said, as the area deals with a “massive labor shortage.”

“Without targeted economic development programs and assistance to aid smaller rural counties, we’re going to continue the downward spiral of population and opportunities,” Wilt said.

Population loss is at the center of rural Pennsylvania’s problems. Prospective residents feel wary of moving there, businesses struggle to expand because they lack the workforce and the housing supply dwindles, leaving few options.

“We really believe the long-term viability of rural Pennsylvania depends upon making our counties more attractive for young people and families to live, learn, work, and play,” Wilt said. “We have more jobs than we have people to fill them, and we have more people looking for housing than we have houses to put them in. We’ve gotta address the housing situation.”

Jack Rickert, director of workforce development for Penn-Northwest, told legislators that the state government could aid those efforts. Even as someone working in economic development, Rickert said he almost moved to Ohio due to a better housing and job market.

He pointed to Kansas, which has a rural opportunity zone where new residents qualify for student loan repayment assistance or a state income tax credit as a way to encourage relocation to rural places.

When thinking about how to grow a rural economy, though, getting more housing comes first.

“We can have the best workforce development programs available, but if we do not have homes for people to live in, they cannot move here,” Re/MAX Realtor Tracy Mantzell said.

When Rep. Josh Kail, R-Beaver, asked how a housing shortage could crop up even though the population shrank, testifiers pointed to smaller family sizes, blight remediation removing houses from the market with no replacements, and fewer houses getting built. 

Permitting delays and the high cost of skilled labor also drive up prices, meaning that it’s harder to build affordable housing.

The new situation means that economic developers need to adjust.

“The old paradigm used to be that you build a business community, and the schools and the other community will build around it,” Wilt said. “This is a new world and a new age and a new story in economic development … We need to rebuild these communities and we need to do it with new housing stock.”

If more housing doesn’t get built and rural economies don’t grow, it’s not just a rural problem — it’s one that puts Pennsylvania’s national influence at risk.

“In the last 50 years, we have lost eight members of Congress,” Wilt said. “We can no longer afford another census where we lose another congressman or two congressmen. Pennsylvania’s losing our stature.”