Kentucky has a housing crisis. We know this. Our state suffers a shortage of over 200,000 homes and the vast majority of this gap is a lack of housing for extremely low-income households or those who can only afford to pay $500 a month in rent.
We know that people’s wages aren’t keeping up with costs like groceries and gas, much less safe and stable housing.
The state legislature knows this too. In 2024, they created an entire housing taskforce to address this issue, but have yet to meaningfully address the crisis.
This inaction led to the creation of Welcome Home Kentucky, a coalition of 17 organizations working to build power and solve housing problems statewide. We are working for a Kentucky where everyone has a home that is safe, high quality, meets their needs, and brings them a sense of wellness and belonging.
We wanted to tackle an issue that affects thousands of Kentuckians. Evictions, specifically dismissed evictions, and prioritizing Kentucky’s youth seemed like a solid place to start.
Right now, if you ever have an eviction filed against you, it stays on your record forever–even evictions dismissed in court.
Evictions and their impact don’t have a particular demographic. From Eastern to Western Kentucky, students, retirees, parents, and everyone in between, an eviction can be a permanent barrier to someone’s ability to find future housing.
Creating a pathway forward by getting a dismissed eviction off someone's record easier would open up housing opportunities for tens of thousands of Kentuckians. Ensuring a Kentucky value and standard where our young people, under the age of 18, cannot be named in an eviction would build a healthier future.
Through conversations with impacted people, those working in the judicial process, and legislators, we collaborated to find language to present during the 2026 General Assembly that would make our hope a reality.
House Bill 338 would have automatically removed any new evictions dismissed by a judge from people’s records. Rep. Susan Witten, alongside Rep. Stephanie Dietz and Rep. Nima Kulkarnki, and fourteen others sponsored the bill.
It took a while, but once heard in the House Judiciary Committee and put to a vote, it passed unanimously. When it moved to the House floor, the same result. Bipartisan, unanimous support. 95-0.
But, HB 338 never became a law. With the early delay, the bill had less time to make it through the Senate.
To get it passed in time, HB 338 was added to SB 9 or the housing omnibus bill, which combined several housing bills into one.
Language was added at the last minute to the omnibus bill, with support of Rep. David Osborne and other legislators. The new addition would have barred local governments from placing restrictions on short-term rentals like Airbnb. Several legislators and community groups spoke out strongly against this particular addition.
But members of the House and Senate were unwilling to budge in order to prioritize commonsense housing bills like ours.
With the legislators unable to agree on SB 9 and HB 338 languishing without a Senate hearing, our hopes for automatic dismissed eviction removal passing this year died.
This was deeply frustrating. We played by the rules and had unanimous bipartisan support. But it wasn’t enough in the face of political squabbling and special interests that took precedence over everyday Kentuckians. We learned a hard lesson about just how much power it takes to cut through those interests, and we will use this lesson in our next fight.
We’re still proud of the work we did to get here: the connections we built, the skills we developed, and the lessons we’ve learned. Getting this bill as far as we did was supposed to take longer.
For many, this work isn’t our 9 to 5; we do this because it matters–because we know the stakes to ourselves, our neighbors, and our children, of not taking action.
We’re disappointed, but we aren’t discouraged. We know that people have power in this state. We’ve seen what happens when folks come together to give time, resources and knowledge to build a Kentucky where everyone has a place to call home. It’s time our elected public servants do the same.
Now that it’s the Kentucky interim session, when no votes occur but elected officials plan for the 2027 legislative session, we know more of what it will take. To start, contact your state legislators by email or phone at 1-800-372-7181 to express the urgent need for action to address Kentucky’s housing crisis.
submitted by Co-Authors Annette Hines, Breya Jones, Ashley Hommich, Nikita Perumal, Manny Tesfai