Kentucky is in a housing crisis. We know this. Our state suffers a shortage of more than 200,000 homes and the vast majority of that gap is a lack of housing for 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 the issue, but had taken no meaningful action by the start of the 2026 legislative session.
Right now, if you have an eviction filed against you, it stays on your record forever — even if it is dismissed in court.
Welcome Home KY hoped to create a pathway for people to remove dismissed evictions from their records. This would open up housing opportunities for tens of thousands of Kentuckians. We also fought to ensure a Kentucky standard where our young people — children under the age of 18 — cannot be named in an eviction.
Through conversations with impacted people, policy groups, those working in the judicial process, and legislators, our coalition collaborated to present a bill during the 2026 General Assembly that would make our hope a reality.
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House Bill 338 would have automatically removed any new evictions dismissed by a judge from people’s records. Rep. Susan Witten, R-Louisville, alongside Rep. Stephanie Dietz, R-Edgewood, Rep. Nima Kulkarni, D-Louisville, and 14 others sponsored the bill.
The House Judiciary Committee passed it unanimously. When it moved to the House floor, the same result. Bipartisan, unanimous support. 95-0.
But, HB 338 never became a law.
HB 338 got caught up in Frankfort’s political games. To get it passed through the Senate in time, HB 338 was added to SB 9, the housing omnibus bill, which combined several housing bills into one.
Members of the House and Senate were unwilling to budge in order to prioritize commonsense housing bills like ours.
This was deeply frustrating. We played by the rules and had unanimous bipartisan support. But it wasn’t enough in the face of the 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.
For many, this work isn’t our 9 to 5. We do this because it matters — because we know the costs to ourselves, our neighbors, and our children, of not taking action.
We’re disappointed, but not discouraged. We know that people have power in this state, and we know the fight’s not over. We’ve seen what happens when folks come together to give time, resources and heart to build a Kentucky where everyone has a place to call home. It’s time our elected public servants do the same.
— Welcome Home Kentucky Coalition
