Appeals of Allegheny County property assessments, unleashed by a lawsuit, are starting to bite into the revenues of governments, notably in already strained Mon Valley communities. Pittsburgh, meanwhile, has stayed above water, because rising residential value has outstripped slashed skyscraper tax bills — so far.

Unbalanced
How property tax assessments create winners and losers

As thousands of pending appeals threaten to upend municipal and school budgets, County Executive Sara Innamorato is taking a cautious path on one of her key campaign planks supporting routine countywide reassessments.

A reassessment would come with political costs for Innamorato and monetary costs for some individual property owners. (It could also cost her personally, by boosting the low tax bill on her Upper Lawrenceville house.) But experts say it’s the cure for a defective system that currently overtaxes some and undertaxes others.

Even with most of last year’s appeals as-yet undecided, some municipalities saw a drop in taxable assessed value in the last two years, with much of the downturn coming in Mon Valley communities that are hurting economically. Fifty of the county’s 130 municipalities lost taxable value since the start of 2022; Homestead (10%), West Homestead (6%) and Clairton (4%) saw the biggest percentages of their tax base disappear.

Property owners filed an unusually large number of assessment appeals last year. That’s because a court ordered a change in the math used to calculate assessments determined by appeals, making it more favorable to owners.

Owners of large commercial buildings appealed en masse and are expected to win significant cuts to their assessed values, lowering their tax bills. Already, three of the dozens of Downtown towers have won appeals and seen significant tax relief. 

When big property owners saw the new tax math, “they jumped on it,” said Dominick Gambino, a local government consultant who managed the county’s assessment office from 2001 to 2003. He added that yet another change in the tax math, taking effect this year, could cause a fresh round of appeals.

While Pittsburgh’s assessed value rose 1.87% from 2022 to 2024, a PublicSource review found, a decline has already begun Downtown. 

Assessed value in the city’s 2nd Ward, which spans much of Downtown and the Strip District, dropped 3.73% during that time period, shedding more than $112 million in assessed value. Using current tax rates — measured in mills — that $112 million represents more than $900,000 in lost tax revenue for the city and $1.2 million for the city school district. And appeals for dozens more commercial properties are still pending. 

So far, value has increased enough in residential neighborhoods to make up for Downtown’s problems. The 6th Ward, in Lower Lawrenceville, saw a whopping 30% increase in assessed value ($130.2 million in taxable value). The 5th (Hill District), 16th (South Hills) and 17th (South Side) wards each increased between 9% and 13%.

But the math is unlikely to favor taxing bodies for much longer.

Looming crisis

The successful Downtown appeals are “just the beginning” of the wave of assessment cuts Downtown, said Chris Briem, a regional economist at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Social and Urban Research. “I think what’s in the news of late of the percentage declines in these big buildings are probably typical of what most Downtown buildings will get in the short term.”

Six-figure tax bill decreases for dozens of commercial properties would have a devastating effect on the city and school district. The city is facing a razor-thin budget in the near future with an operating surplus of just a few million dollars. The school district is already operating at a deficit and is considering plans to close school buildings to cut costs.  

“One way or the other, property values Downtown are coming down,” Briem said. “It’s probably going to force a millage increase on everyone else.” That would effectively raise tax bills on property owners throughout the city to make up for the lost revenue coming from Downtown.

While Downtown owners will see lower tax bills, Briem said they are hardly winners in the situation. 

“They’ve lost, they’ve lost a lot and they’re going to keep losing,” Briem said, because decreased demand for office space since the start of the pandemic has crushed commercial building revenue. The assessment cuts are “reflecting that reality.”

Pittsburgh Public Schools solicitor sounded the alarm in a January interview.

“If these large reductions that have occurred Downtown and will continue to occur, they simply do not have financial wherewithal to sustain that,” solicitor Ira Weiss said.

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey’s office took a less dire tone. 

“Budget wise, the team forecasted the possibility of reduced real estate tax revenue,” said city press secretary Olga George. “Currently, Finance and [the Office of Management and Budget] are watching how real estate collections are processing.”

The mayor’s 2024 budget does not forecast a drop in real estate tax revenue. This year’s budget plans for a number slightly higher than last year’s, and the city’s five-year plan projects increases each year.

George said the city is assessing new valuations and deciding whether to contest them in court. 

Peter McDevitt, the budget director for Pittsburgh City Council, said it’s too early and there are too many variables to “hit the panic button,” but the city could eventually be forced to find new revenue or cut services. “Raising millage is not the only avenue, but it’s the most viable one” to raise revenue, he said. 

The county’s $1.1 billion operating budget, which relies on property taxes for around 37% of its revenue, is not in danger of a shortfall, according to county spokesperson Abigail Gardner.

Reassessment vs. ratios

Experts including Briem and Gambino say the fix for the county’s assessment woes lies in conducting routine, countywide reassessments — a concept Innamorato has endorsed, as long as it can be done with new protections for vulnerable taxpayers. 

Gardner confirmed that Innamorato continues to believe “that a reassessment would be a more fair and equitable way to determine values,” adding that “there are no immediate plans to engage in a reassessment.” The real estate market is shifting, she wrote in response to questions, prompting “a reimagining of how to keep our Downtown thriving.”

The last time the county reassessed all its properties was in 2013,after a judge ordered then-County Executive Rich Fitzgerald to do so. Fitzgerald never did so again.

Pennsylvania allows counties to leave decades-old assessments in place, subject to appeals where there’s evidence of rising value. 

In counties that use this “base-year” approach, properties without improvements or recent sales generally keep the same assessments each year. Where there’s evidence of a change in value, the owner or a taxing body can file an appeal.

When an appeal is filed in Allegheny County, the Board of Property Assessment Appeals and Review assigns a new fair market value. That value is multiplied by the common level ratio [CLR] to come up with an assessment.

The CLR is meant to adjust appeal-generated assessments to resemble those last set in the base year. But a lawsuit revealed that the county submitted flawed data for the calculation of the CLR, and a judge forced its reduction. 

For appeals filed in Allegheny County this year, the fair market value will be multiplied by 0.545 to determine the assessment, meaning a property with a post-appeal value of $100,000 would be assessed at $54,500. By contrast, for appeals filed in 2021, the ratio was 0.875, meaning that same property would have been assessed at $87,500. 

Property owners whose assessments were boosted in prior year appeals may appeal now, and use the lower CLR to push their assessments down. The ratio, though, won’t help owners whose property values have soared.

Your tax depends on when you bought

Despite the change in the ratio, tax bills in Allegheny County continue to be driven less by the value of the property than the date of purchase. The wild variances in assessments are evident on the streets of the current and prior county executives.

Fitzgerald arguably benefits to the tune of thousands of dollars per year from his decision not to reassess.

He bought his house in Point Breeze in 1989 for $202,000. Because the county doesn’t regularly reassess, his tax bill has remained static, even as property values have soared.

A next-door neighbor bought a similarly sized house in 2021 for $970,095. That price drew an assessment appeal by the Pittsburgh Public Schools, and a resulting fair market value of $616,000.

The neighbor’s total annual tax bill — county, city and school district — is around $3,000 higher than Fitzgerald’s.

Innamorato could lose out financially under the scenario she proposed during her campaign for executive. She has said she'd like to reassess all properties, while increasing existing tax breaks for homeowners and seniors and adding protections for longtime owner-occupants.

Innamorato bought her row house in Upper Lawrenceville for $71,000 in 2015. On the same side of the same block is a house that’s around 20% larger (though it’s not a row house). Purchased during the Lawrenceville real estate boom, it is subject to a tax bill around five times higher.

Gambino said the current system, with no reassessments and one CLR for the entire county, is unfair because different areas have appreciated at different rates since 2013 — meaning homeowners in low-appreciation markets are subject to the same ratio as those in high-appreciation areas.

The base-year system is “something Robin Hood’s evil twin would condone,” Gambino said. “All this talk about reduction and refunds, these are all symptoms of a sickness called the base-year scheme.”

Plight of boroughs

Seth Abrams feels conflicted. On a personal level, a countywide reassessment would cost him money. He bought his home 13 years ago and said it has appreciated significantly since the last time the county assessed its value.

But Abrams is the borough manager for Munhall, a place that stands to lose a lot of money in pending appeals. Just one appeal, by the Lowe’s hardware store in the Waterfront, has already cost the borough $50,000 in annual revenue, enough to wipe out a cushion he had planned for the 2024 budget.

Now, the possibility of a millage increase weighs on him as more appeals, including some from U.S. Steel, are pending.

“If [U.S. Steel] got something along the lines of what Lowe’s got and they got their assessment cut in half, that’s another $60,000 or $70,000 loss that I’m trying not to factor into things right now,” Abrams said. “That would mean that we would have to dig into the reserves, we would have to look at all of our fees and our taxes.

“People will see increased costs if this trend of losing taxable value continues.”

Despite the implications to his personal tax bill, as a professional, Abrams wants to see a reassessment. 

“I need to look out for the needs of an entire community. In Munhall, I’m looking at 5,000 or 6,000 residences. For me, I’m looking at one.”

Assessed values dropped from 2022-2024 in numerous Mon Valley communities near Munhall, showing Abrams’ problems are shared by his peers in other towns. Many of those municipalities and the adjacent school districts already have some of the county’s highest millage rates, giving them less margin to raise the levy.

Clairton will have to deal with the outcome of 32 parcels under appeals filed by U.S. Steel, which operates the Clairton Coke Works there. Clairton Mayor Rich Lattanzi told PublicSource in April that the steelmaker accounts for about one-third of its tax base, and the revenue loss from appeals could “be catastrophic for the City of Clairton.”

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.

Rich Lord is PublicSource’s managing editor, and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

This story was fact-checked by Delaney Rauscher Adams.

The post Property tax appeals erode budgets as assessment burden shifts appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

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Pittsburgh’s Downtown will soon see an expanded space dedicated to starting and accelerating Black businesses through mentorship and networking.

The Greenwood Plan, a Black-founded and Black-led nonprofit committed to advancing economic justice for Black communities through education, networking and resources, recently acquired the Pitt Building on the corner of Smithfield Street and Boulevard of the Allies through Greenwood Smithfield LLC, its subsidiary company. 

Founded in 2021 by Khamil Bailey and Samantha Black, the Greenwood Plan developed from a one-week Black entrepreneurial conference called Greenwood Week. That program began in 2018 and brought local entrepreneurs together to share experiences and resources.

“People believed that, ‘If someone comes from the same place as me and had similar hurdles, I could also do that thing,’” says Bailey, the executive director. “From that, we decided to expand into year-round programming, and that’s how the nonprofit came to be.”

The Black Business Conference, Greenwood Week, occurs each October. The conference includes networking, performances and classes that fall under five pillars of health: environmental, physical, mental, financial and spiritual. 

“It’s almost our pep rally for the year,” Bailey adds. “Everybody gets riled up about starting a business, running a business and exploring business.”

The Greenwood Plan focuses on intentional resource redirection, economic justice, business growth and sustainment and socioeconomic guidance. The aim is to eliminate barriers for Black entrepreneurs.

In addition to its Greenwood Week conference, the Greenwood Plan hosts industry-specific summits and recently added an arts organizing program for creative entrepreneurs. It also provides $500 mini-grants to Black businesses to alleviate business costs.

It works with the state’s Department of General Services to help Black businesses win state contracts. It also collaborates with the Urban Redevelopment Authority and Bridgeway Capital.

Shannel Lamere first attended a Greenwood Week conference in 2019 and began doing film and photography for Greenwood. She now owns and operates Shannel Lamere Films.

“She has grown with us over the past four years,” Bailey says. “People will give their talent, their treasure and come to us when they need things that we can provide, which a lot of the time is audience.”

Permanent space for Black business acceleration

Bailey received a LinkedIn message shortly after founding the Greenwood Plan in 2021 from the manager of the America’s Club co-working space, formerly in the Pitt Building. The club was looking to bring in more diverse entrepreneurs. After a tour, the Greenwood Plan became a member.

“We found ourselves making coffee, straightening up and tidying the space, and just greeting people when they came in the door,” Bailey says. “So we took a bit of ownership in it.”

In November 2021, the Greenwood Plan took out a lease on the space, renaming it Emerald City Pittsburgh. The 12,000-foot co-working space is dedicated to boosting Black entrepreneurship and wealth. That is when Bailey learned of other vacancies in the building. 

“We thought if we’re going to fill up the vacancy, we probably should just own the building,” she adds.

The effort received $1 million from the state’s Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program. The space will become an incubation and accelerator space with commercial storefronts, mentorship programs and networking opportunities for Black business owners. 

Russell General Contracting, a Black-owned family business, is leading the consulting for renovating the building.

In addition to Emerald City, the three-story building has a Cricket Wireless store and a mutual aid nonprofit. The third floor, which is currently a gym, is slated to become an event and assembly space.

“It has vaulted ceilings and breathtaking skylights,” Bailey adds. “We always knew this would be the next space for the building because people need to get their eyes on it.”

Third-floor renovations are scheduled to begin in February. 

Pittsburgh has a rich history of Black entrepreneurship. Bailey says that is at the forefront of creating the new space and ensuring that business leaders get the support they need.

“We want to remind people of the history that has already existed here,” Bailey says. “Black entrepreneurship is not new. Out of necessity, Black entrepreneurship has thrived.

“We’re at a point now where it is necessary again for Black entrepreneurship to grow to be able to take care of the communities that exist here.”

Ethan Woodfill is a freelance journalist interested in telling the stories of people doing great things to build community and sustainability.

The post Greenwood Plan to bring business accelerator Downtown to aid Black enterprises appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

More than two weeks after a local coffee shop chain shuttered its four locations throughout Pittsburgh, the laid-off staff are still making demands of their former boss in a dispute that raises thorny legal questions.

Earlier in the month, 25 workers at Adda Coffee & Tea House learned they would be out of work just hours after announcing plans to unionize to improve their job security.

Owner Sukanta Nag, of Fox Chapel, said in a statement the decision reflected long-accumulating losses. But the employees claim it was nothing more than illegal union busting. Legal experts say the unusual circumstances could raise important labor law questions amid a resurgence of union interest.

Union begins, company ends

On Jan. 11, employees of the local coffee chain announced plans to unionize, claiming  inadequate compensation and unfair scheduling. Soon after, the company announced the immediate closures of all four locations — in Garfield, Shadyside, the North Side and the Cultural District. 

Chris Gratsch, a former barista who helped lead the union effort, said there had been many conversations with management attempting to improve working conditions and wages, but management just kept asking for more time. The employees then made their grievances public through Instagram, writing “we love our jobs, and we deserve a say in how our store is run.” 

A day prior, the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 1776 filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board [NLRB] seeking union status for 25 Adda employees. 

Adda announced on Instagram that it was closing “solely and entirely based on the financial viability of the business,” adding that it “is probably no surprise to some (or most) of you.”

Gratsch disagrees. “It’s inconceivable to think it’s anything but union busting,” he said, adding that the other employees also did not see this coming.

Nag did not respond to requests for comment.  

“We’re devastated,” Gratsch said, adding that “at the end of the day we really did love our jobs.” He said he is grateful for the community support the union has received, calling it “overwhelming in the best way.”

The former Adda employees held a press conference in Sharpsburg on Jan. 17, in front of Atithi Studios, one of Nag’s properties. Elected officials were in attendance including Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, who said he’s “going to continue to stand with the workers” until Adda provides former employees with proper severance. 

What happens next?

Legal experts say any appeal process will hinge on whether Adda’s closure can be shown to be linked to the union effort.

“If you can prove that a business shut down in response to unionization, that is a violation of the law,” said John Stember, a Pittsburgh labor and employment attorney who typically represents workers.

Mike Healey, another Pittsburgh labor attorney, said that in his experience, a company response like this is “relatively rare” but not unheard of. 

“The timing is awfully suspicious,” he added.

Next steps for the Adda workers aren’t entirely clear. Gratsch declined to share details while negotiations continue. 

“We are at the bargaining table with Sukanta in regards to the demands we made at the press conference,” he said. Those demands included severance pay, compensation for unused paid time off and the opportunity to retrieve personal items from closed Adda stores, TribLive reported.

If they don’t get what they want, they could ask the NLRB to intervene on their behalf.

When any charges are brought to the NLRB, they will first be investigated to determine their validity. Where legitimate grievances are found, the board will attempt to broker a settlement, and 90% of cases end in an agreement. But if that falters, the NLRB can issue a complaint that triggers a hearing with an NLRB administrative law judge who ultimately decides the outcome of the case – a process that could drag on for months or years.

If the Adda case reaches the NLRB, Healey said the critical questions will be: “What are the company’s plans? What are their intentions? What are their finances?” Timing, money and the nature of the closure will be important as the case moves forward, he added. 

Public records suggest one recent financial hiccup. In December, the state Department of Labor & Industry filed a lien against Adda, alleging that the company owed $1,956 in unemployment compensation fund contributions, plus interest. Court records show the company then promptly paid.

If the company is still operating in some capacity or is trying to pivot their business, that could be problematic in the eyes of the law, Healey said. The decision will largely depend on Adda’s financial records and if there is substantial proof that there had been plans or indications that they would have to shut down prior to the employees’ decision to unionize, he added. 

The NLRB’s powers include investigating alleged labor law violations, negotiating settlements of disputes, holding hearings before administrative law judges and seeking court orders against violators.

Gratsch hopes that people will not see this story as a cautionary tale for unionization.

 “Organize your workplace, this should be a shining example of why you need it,” he said.

Delaney Rauscher Adams is an editorial intern at PublicSource and can be reached at delaney@publicsource.org.

This story was fact-checked by Rich Lord.

The post After Adda Coffee closure, national board may be asked to read financial tea leaves appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

On a Tuesday afternoon in December, around a dozen public housing tenants facing eviction filled a waiting room in McKeesport, where Magisterial District Judge Eugene Riazzi asked each if they could pay their delinquent rent. 

If so, the tenant agreed to pay the amount owed, plus court costs of more than $150. Unless they pledged to pay, Riazzi ruled in favor of the McKeesport Housing Authority, starting a process that can lead to the tenant’s removal within weeks. Tenants who said they couldn’t pay were referred to a county human services worker who waited in the lobby to help them apply for rental assistance. 

A similar scene plays out on many Tuesdays in McKeesport. 

Since the end of the pandemic-era moratorium on evictions in 2021, all three housing authorities serving Allegheny County have filed numerous eviction cases, but none has done so with the same vigor and frequency as the McKeesport Housing Authority [MHA]. These legal actions come as county human service officials and advocates cement a rental assistance network created through pandemic-era federal funding that’s helping tenants of the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh and the Allegheny County Housing Authority. 

The McKeesport authority, by far the smallest of the three agencies with the fewest number of housing units, has filed 562 landlord/tenant cases against its tenants from the start of 2021 through early December. Pandemic-driven curbs on most evictions ended in 2021.

The Allegheny County Housing Authority [ACHA] filed 131 cases and the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh [HACP] filed 263 in that same time period, according to court data gathered by Anne Wright of Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab, who tracks eviction cases.  

Wright noted that tracking eviction filings for Pittsburgh’s housing authority can be difficult because the organization often uses various names when filing evictions against tenants. Eviction filings also do not necessarily correlate with actual evictions, as some tenants are able to gather the money and stay after a filing.

McKeesport Housing Authority solicitor Jim Creenan wrote in response to questions that the three housing authorities are structurally different. The MHA, he said, has limited resources, so it needs a consistent stream of federally required rent from tenants. He also noted that the authority has a “substantial waiting list” of families wanting to move into its communities.

Pittsburgh’s and Allegheny County’s housing authorities also have waiting lists for the units they manage.

County human service officials said that the Pittsburgh and county housing authorities are using partners including Just Mediation Pittsburgh to prevent evictions, while MHA has largely declined to use these resources. 

“Prior to the pandemic, the largest filers of evictions were the housing authorities, and at least two of the three housing authorities here are using mediation as a first step to avoid evictions. So that drastically reduced the number of filings we’ve seen in the county,” said Chuck Keenan, an administrator of the Office of Community Services within the Allegheny County Department of Human Services [ACDHS].

Keenan said the MHA used the county’s eviction prevention services at the beginning of 2023 to mediate around 20 tenant cases. Keenan said the housing authority has since stopped using mediation and returned to filing evictions against their tenants. 

“They’re not really using mediation as much as we would hope,” he said. “We would encourage all landlords to use mediation as an alternative to filing — including the housing authorities.” 

McKeesport’s Creenan said the authority “has entered payment plans and we have facilitated hundreds of applications for each stage of the COVID-era rental assistance.” In most cases, those tenants continued to rack up delinquencies, he said.

He added that each mediation requires hours of staff time and the resulting delays in payment did not “align with our limited resources and contributed to the arrears” owed the authority.

Fewest units, most landlord/tenant cases

Ziara Wright, a mother of two in McKeesport who is facing eviction and owes several months of rent, said she was still making partial rent payments last year before the housing authority took her to court. She fell behind in part because of a paperwork problem that led to her losing access to her food stamps, forcing her to spend more money to feed her family. 

After a ruling against her and a judgment of $2,417, she filed an appeal. The eviction process and filing for an appeal has been stressful, she said.

“You got to go through that while you’re juggling everything else. You got to pay your bills out there. You got to go to work every day,” she said. 

Speaking broadly, Creenan said that with all of the protections afforded to tenants — including appeal rights and rental assistance — only about 20% of the first-time evictions the authority files against tenants lead to a judge’s order for possession, entitling the authority to remove the tenant.

“Many tenants appear to be gaming the system,” he said, “as the number of tenants filing late appeals and other delay-type motions to the Court of Common Pleas have increased dramatically in the past two years.”   

Local housing advocates urge inexpensive mediation before court filings. Landlord/tenant complaints result in fees and legal stains that can hurt the tenant’s ability to find rental housing in the future. 

The McKeesport Housing Authority has 1,021 housing units, and last year it filed a landlord/tenant case for roughly 1 out of every 4 of its housing units. In contrast, the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh brought cases against around 4.6% of its tenants, or about 1 in 20. The county’s housing authority, with 3,839 units, filed cases against 2.6% of its tenants last year. 

MHA’s Executive Director Steve Bucklew declined to discuss its eviction policies with PublicSource and WESA, citing unspecified, ongoing litigation. He referred reporters to a published report by the Public Housing Authorities Directors Association, citing ongoing rent collection difficulties for housing authorities. 

In an interview with PublicSource in 2022, with pandemic-era rental aid expiring, Bucklew said too many tenants were delinquent in their rent. 

“We’ve never experienced delinquencies like this,” he said at the time. “There’s groups trying to delay evictions, but I feel that the only way the message will be communicated to tenants that they have to pay rent is by filing evictions.”

Pittsburgh and Allegheny leaning against eviction

The county Department of Human Services has been working with ACTION-Housing, Rent Help PGH and Just Mediation, among others, to divert landlord/tenant disputes to mediation, rather than court.

The county and those agencies have learned a lot since 2021, when pandemic-driven rental assistance started, said Keenan. He said the county in 2023 provided rental assistance to more than 1,100 households, totaling upward of $14 million, whereas pre-pandemic spending was $2 million to $3 million a year.

Pittsburgh and Allegheny County’s housing authorities try to avoid court.  

“Eviction prevention has become a standard operating procedure for the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh,” said Anthony Ceoffe, senior director of asset management for HACP.

Ceoffe said HACP worked with Just Mediation Pittsburgh and Rent Help Pittsburgh to help mediate cases with its tenants who are facing problems paying their rent. As a result, he said, the authority didn’t evict any tenants in 2023 because of nonpayment of rent. (Some evictions did take place for issues including safety violations, he said.) 

Ceoffe said the authority also has used a partnership with a third party to connect its tenants to budgeting classes, financial literacy and ongoing case management.

“So just because somebody has received rental assistance, that does not mean that the eviction prevention coordinators are done with them,” Ceoffe said. 

Landlords and tenants in mediation have access to available rental assistance — so landlords are still able to eventually get the funds owed to them. 

HACP officials said the book “Evicted,” work by local foundations and advocates, and lessons from the pandemic have contributed to a shift away from eviction filings.

“We are in the business of providing housing,” said Michelle Sandidge, chief community affairs officer for HACP. “To evict a bunch of people just … adds to the homeless situation. That is not something that we’re trying to do.” 

Rich Stephenson, chief operating officer for the Allegheny County Housing Authority, said the agency has invested money and time in preventing evictions through mediation and financial literacy classes for tenants.

“We try to identify the problem,” Stephenson said, “because if someone’s behind in their rent, there’s usually an underlying problem.”

Eric Jankiewicz is PublicSource’s economic development reporter, and can be reached at ericj@publicsource.org or on Twitter @ericjankiewicz.

Kate Giammarise is a reporter at 90.5 WESA, Pittsburgh’s NPR News Station, covering housing and social services.

This story was fact-checked by Rich Lord.

The post Small housing authority files far more evictions than larger Pittsburgh-area agencies appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

A few months prior to my 20th birthday, as I was waiting and hoping that my younger brother would wake up from his cancer-induced coma, I found out I had been accepted at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia.

Since age 16, I had been working at a Giant Eagle to help support my family. Neither of my parents had bachelor’s degrees and there were zero expectations in my house that I’d go to college. I figured that if I didn’t go to college soon, I’d never get the hell out of that stock room and away from the chronic back pain it inflicted. I had applied to the only two colleges I knew anything about, WJU (now Wheeling University) and the later-discredited Art Institute of Pittsburgh, intending to enroll at whichever accepted me first, if either of them did.

I had missed nearly 115 days in high school, some of which were due to an emergency medical condition greatly worsened by doctors’ refusal to listen to my mum or me, resulting in an amputation. Other times I skipped because of how I was treated at school. I’d been tardy nearly 95 times, had countless detentions, and graduated with a 2.07 GPA and a 470 on my SAT.

A school staff member used to tell me that my “kind of people don’t go to college” and most of my peers at my suburban, Catholic high school either ignored me completely, called me and my family “poor white trash,” or mocked my appearance and heavy Pittsburgh accent. All throughout high-school, I was called lazy, stupid and ignorant by other students and even by several teachers. When I showed up for school, I’d sometimes deal with it by sneaking a swig of booze or popping Valiums that my mum gave me.

Fifteen years after that acceptance letter from WJU came through, I’m a data analyst, dedicated to understanding and addressing poverty, segregation, affordable housing and community violence.

On the way, I’ve developed a clear understanding that white poverty tends not to come with the additional, deep racism-based challenges that often come with Black poverty – though white poverty can be similarly grinding in places like rural Appalachia, the deep rural South and parts of the Rust Belt. But that understanding didn’t happen overnight. I’ve learned that while racial disparities are stark on their own, they’re often intertwined with class and other identities. 

Given this, when policymakers work to address challenges like poverty, they must be aware of the ways race, class, gender and other identities intersect so that they can tailor solutions to address the different challenges that tend to be experienced by different groups — including low-income white people.

A poor kid’s response to ‘white privilege’

My parents moved us from Carrick to Brookline when I was little, in hopes of keeping us away from gun violence. They sacrificed what little money they had, “robbed Peter to pay Paul,” and had us kids write letters pleading for financial aid to the Catholic bishop of Pittsburgh to attend Seton La Salle High School in Mount Lebanon. They wanted us to be safe and get a Catholic education, and had concerns about us going to Brashear High, which was Brookline’s Pittsburgh Public Schools feeder school.

Still, I didn’t always feel very safe at Seton or in my own home during much of high school. My parents did, and do, many loving things for me but also repeated the cycles of abuse they themselves were exposed to. Outside of the bullying and isolation at school, I was exposed to significant trauma in my home. As a result, our house was frequently visited by police. 

Police also had a tendency for following me around stores and harassing me. Once, an officer even kicked in a stall door that bashed into my head when someone falsely accused me of doing drugs in a carnival bathroom.

When the time came to start at WJU, my Pell Grant and other financial aid left a few thousand in tuition to pay. Around the same time, my dad lost his job and never regained full-time employment. We only hung on to the house because of Obama’s unemployment extension, my mum’s disability and my younger brother’s Supplemental Security Income from having cancer. But they didn’t have anything to help me, so I asked the priest who baptized me at the now-closed Saint Canice in Knoxville to lend me the money, and he did. My dad and brother dropped me off at WJU with a single pillow, my guitar and one backpack full of clothes.

Adapting to being a college student was hard at first. I spent the first few weeks trying to collect unemployment from the just-closed Giant Eagle where I had worked, and hearing about the problems at home on my flip phone. Academically, I didn’t know what paragraph breaks were, so my first submitted essay was a single wall of text. I went through college without a computer. 

But I made lifelong friends immediately. The son of an unemployed electrician, I felt included among classmates who were the sons and daughters of coal miners and tradesmen. Many of the professors were from Appalachia and cared deeply about first-generation college students. I had a bed again (my mattress at home got maggots, so I’d been sleeping on the floor) and a meal plan, which meant I didn’t have to worry about food stamps running out or having to steal food from Giant Eagle to eat lunch.

Given my life experiences and how hard (and lucky) my road to college was, when a middle-class white student in my psychology class said something like, “white people don’t experience real poverty,” I pushed back. And when they then told me to “check my white privilege,” I could barely keep from blurting out: “What the fuck did you just say?” Comments like that initially made me allergic to conversations about privilege.

Blaming poor people for poverty

I was slightly above, at or below the poverty line from birth until age 29, so my understanding of the advantages of being white came slowly and through meaningful exposure to people with different perspectives and life experiences.

It came through self-reflection on what I’d seen in my own life, a growing understanding of what many of my poor Black peers faced, and, importantly, an intersectional and non-shame-based approach to conversations about privilege and the history of discrimination in the United States. 

This all culminated in a major belief change in 2014, when I read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “The Case for Reparations,” which affected me because it was coming from a Black man who grew up poor and reflected data, plus experiences, that connected with mine. 

Building off much of the existing research cited in Coates’ essay, Opportunity Insights of Harvard released a landmark study on race and income mobility. It found that when accounting for race, class and gender, poor Black and Indigenous Americans had significantly lower average incomes in adulthood when compared to their poor white and Asian peers, and poor Latinos fell somewhere in the middle.

While the study shows that lower-income people of all races tend to do worse than their peers of the same race who did not grow up in poverty, it also makes clear that class alone doesn’t explain gaps between the outcomes of poor children of different races. The study proposed two primary factors: racial bias against Black people and the neighborhood context in which low-income Black children tend to grow up. 

Here in Allegheny County, 73% of poor Black families reside in our higher need census tracts, along with 22% of poor white families and 14% of poor Asian families. Poor white and Asian families mostly reside in lower-need working-class and middle-class neighborhoods, unlike their poor Black peers.

As I wrote in a previous essay for PublicSource, our neighborhoods look the way they do because of the causes (structural racism) and consequences of persistent racial and economic segregation, in addition to the massive impact of deindustrialization. While I grew up poor, I did so primarily in a low-poverty, working-class, relatively safe neighborhood. Most of my poor Black peers are disproportionately exposed to concentrated poverty and gun violence and I strongly argue we cannot ignore them. Exposure to gun violence may be one of the most important factors that explain why neighborhoods matter in affecting life outcomes.

Despite being low-income, and after moving us from rental to rental, my parents were able to get a mortgage for our house in Brookline, an easier lift because they are white. Government programs kept the family afloat. Additionally, attending a college like WJU and meeting mentors there who held me to high expectations and supported me undeniably helped me eventually rise out of poverty. While the classism I faced throughout middle and high school was challenging (and would have been even harder if I was poor and Black), getting to attend a low-poverty school was still of huge benefit to my social mobility. 

While it took tremendous efforts to go from lifelong poverty to middle-class researcher, I rose out of poverty not because I worked any harder or was any smarter than poor peers, but because I was exposed to enough protective factors and got lucky at various points in my life.

With all this context in mind, I still think it’s important to talk about and understand white poverty in its own right and in a way that doesn’t invalidate and dismiss its challenges, especially in the current political reality. 

In my experience, politicians on the political right — from former poor people like Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance to generationally wealthy people like Donald Trump — tend to exploit poor white people when they are politically useful, but otherwise demonize them and do little to address poverty. And people on the political left tend to acknowledge the systemic drivers of poverty for every marginalized group except poor white people, but at least they tend to support the social safety net more broadly. 

Recent research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that social liberals, when prompted to reflect on white privilege, had reduced sympathy for poor white people and were more likely to blame them over external causes for their challenges. Liberals showed higher levels of sympathy for other poor groups. On the other hand, conservatives expressed low levels of sympathy for all low-income people. My experience is that neither political conservatives nor liberals tend to look at the very real external causes of white poverty. They blame poor white people for supposed personal failures.

Addressing learned biases and better understanding privilege, call for an intersectional approach that acknowledges how different, intersecting identities shape our experiences and outcomes. If a conversation or research study doesn’t minimally include the intersecting realities of race, class and gender, then that conversation or research is insufficient and incomplete. Just as poor Black people tend to experience additional hardships to those experienced by upper-income Black people, being poor and white is incredibly distinct from being upper income and white, so looking at race alone is not enough.

There also is a lack of understanding of the volume of white people who experience poverty. Here in Allegheny County, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the white poverty rate in 2022 was 8% and the Black poverty rate was 31%, which reflects the realities of structural racism. At the same time, there are more poor white people in the county than any other group: more than 73,000 poor white people and around 43,000 poor Black people. Nationally, most poor people are white, with over 17 million white, non-Hispanic people living in poverty. 

Policymakers have to understand the full scope of poverty and how it intersects with race to properly address disparities across groups and serve all those in need. 

Closely intertwined with the enduring reality of racism in America is the enduring reality of classism, reflected in the slur “white trash.” As documented in Nancy Isenberg’s book “White Trash,” people coming to the New World from England during the colonial era weren’t primarily escaping religious persecution and the monarchy, but rather shipped over because British elites saw America as a trash bin for England’s poor when starvation, incarceration or war didn’t dispose of them.

Surrounded by populations of white people brought over as indentured servants and Black people transported into slavery, wealthy whites, terrified of a united rebellion, have exploited the construct of race to divide and control poor people since the colonial era. According to Isenberg, the general landlessness of America’s white rural poor, meanwhile, led to a series of slurs that are still openly used to this day: waste people, redneck, hillbilly, white trash, clay eater, cracker and trailer trash, as just some common examples. Given how often I still hear them used, they seem to be considered acceptable, even on the political left. 

Throughout America’s history, poverty has been wrongly viewed as hereditary, not the result of structural barriers. As part of the eugenics movement of the early 1900s, forced sterilization was used to control “undesirable” populations, which included women of color and poor white women. And while discriminatory voting, housing, lending and land use laws throughout U.S history took clear aims at disenfranchising Black people, they also impact poor people of any race, though not equally.

Such thinking has seeped into political discourse on all sides, with poor white people viewed as part of a group of deplorables. Even today, most of the discourse on the 2016 election results blames poor and working class white people for the election of Donald Trump, even though exit polls show he was mostly elected by middle- and upper-income white people.

Statistical truths, individual experiences

In 2022, West Virginia — where my classmate had denied white poverty — was 90% white and the third-poorest state. Its second-poorest county, McDowell, is 90% white and has the state’s highest suicide rate, America’s highest opioid overdose rate among counties according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the nation’s lowest county life expectancy, the latter statistic on par with Iraq. 

Here in Allegheny County, most Black people live in our higher-need neighborhoods, which is not true of any other racial or ethnic group. At the same time, there are nearly as many white people in our higher-need neighborhoods as Black people — around 76,000 white people and around 82,000 Black people. While need is most concentrated in our Black neighborhoods,  there is also high need in mixed-but-majority-white neighborhoods in Pittsburgh’s South Hilltop, McKees Rocks and steel towns throughout the Mon Valley. These are neighborhoods where low-to-moderate-income people of different races are exposed to challenges like gun violence,  pollution, economic isolation, food deserts, transportation barriers and more, a fact that may get overlooked. 

I was poor or near poor from birth until about six years ago, when I landed my career as a researcher after graduating from Carnegie Mellon’s Heinz College (an aggressive culture shock for me given that two-thirds of students come from the top fifth of the income distribution). Despite my own economic mobility, the consequences of poverty and trauma still impact me to this day. I also have had to deal with years of people invalidating my experiences or demonstrating a lack of empathy toward poor white people. 

This approach didn’t work in teaching me about the reality of racism, and it doesn’t help build coalitions across race and class to abolish structural racism, classism and other forms of discrimination. But exposure to intersectionality and approaches that combine empathetic listening with highlighting our shared humanity did and do work, and as a result, I’ve dedicated my adult life to addressing the causes and consequences of persistent racial and economic segregation.

We need to recognize and separate statistical truths from individual ones. One should never assume what someone’s life experience is without getting to know them. Individual experiences can and do stray from statistical averages. If someone has a bias or a lack of understanding about how intersecting identities tend to shape outcomes, we should educate in a way that acknowledges these identities and expose people to these ideas in ways that are effective, not confrontational.

We should care about eradicating poverty for people of all races, with an understanding that individuals from different groups tend to require different levels of support, given the reality of structural discrimination. To do that, we need diverse anti-poverty coalitions across race and class, not silos. 

Nick Cotter is a researcher with Allegheny County and the creator of the Pittsburgh Neighborhood Project. He can be reached at pittsburghneighborhoodproject@gmail.com. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author alone. This piece does not reflect official views of the Allegheny County Department of Human Services. You can follow the Pittsburgh Neighborhood Project here.

The post From poor white roots to intersectional anti-poverty solutions for all appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

This story was originally published by Technical.ly, a news partner of PublicSource. You can sign up for their newsletters at technical.ly/subscribe.

In the final weeks of 2023 and first weeks of 2024, Technical.ly asked Pittsburgh founders and execs what trends they were anticipating for the local tech space.

Some leaders expect regulatory bodies to emphasize cybersecurity, while others anticipate more students considering their sector as a career possibility. Now, two weeks into this new year, here’s some of what Pittsburgh founders are thinking (or hoping) will happen next.

Cybersecurity will be prioritized across industries

In 2023, cybersecurity experts told Technical.ly that even when the worst happens and companies have to downsize, they usually don’t cut corners in the area that keeps company secrets safe.

For Vigilant Ops CEO Ken Zalevsky’s part, he anticipates that regulatory agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration would take an increased interest in cybersecurity. Having worked in the field himself, Zalevsky said being vulnerable to attacks can be costly in any industry — and when it comes to healthcare, a lack of cybersecurity can compromise patient safety. The FDA requires cybersecurity measures to be built into medical devices; Zalevsky expects other industries will follow suit.

“We’re already seeing that energy and others who are trying to look at legislation and ways to make their products within their industries more secure, requiring security documentation, like the software bill of materials and others,” Zalevsky said. (Vigilant Ops makes an automation platform for the generation, maintenance and authenticated sharing of certified software bill of materials.) “I think we’ll just kind of see that trend continue as the year [progresses].”

The commercial space industry will expand

Away from healthcare and into galaxies far away, Astrobotic CEO John Thornton told Technical.ly in December that 2024 could bring the commercial space industry more NASA collaborations. He cited NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative as one indicator — especially because it’s a program the North Side space tech company is participating in via its Peregrine Mission One, which launched on Jan. 8. The team’s efforts to gather payload data have been fruitful, but due to a propellant leak on Jan. 9, the spacecraft is now expected to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

Additionally, Thornton imagined that companies might be willing to take more risks — but if the payoffs weren’t worth it, this could lead to fewer successful missions.

“One risk I see to this model’s success is that companies may be willing to bet everything on an opportunity to participate in the burgeoning space industry,” Thornton said. “If companies do this by underbidding future commercial contracts without having a strong financial footing, we may see a decline in mission success that could affect the industry as a whole.”

Robots will aid the manufacturing workforce, in more ways than one

Even when the world is in turmoil, things still need to be made. Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute Senior Outreach Manager Livia Rice said she believes the need for manufacturers will remain — yet robotics will be increasingly incorporated into the sector to fill workforce gaps. In addition to the ARM Institute’s outreach efforts, Rice expects robotics will be used to do the more dangerous parts of a given job, which will further incentivize young people to consider manufacturing as a viable career.

“I think that’s going to be a huge trend in really trying to influence the next generation of people to consider careers in manufacturing,” Rice said. “I’m sure when we were kids, no one was talking to us about manufacturing … but it really is a very vibrant career. So focusing on that, and then the integration of AI into robotics and manufacturing, I think that’s going to continue to be a very important trend.”

Autonomous ground vehicles will be used in government defense efforts

For Neya Systems Division Manager Kurt Bruck, the theme of 2024 is speed. The Warrendale-based company develops advanced autonomous solutions for unmanned systems and was recently selected for part of a $14.8 million U.S. Army contract along with Carnegie Robotics and Robotic Research Autonomous Industries. The Department of Defense, Bruck said, often needs its vehicles to go 80 miles per hour to effectively navigate jungles or forests.

Additionally, he thinks navigating with cameras as opposed to LIDAR-based navigation will become a trend due to the expense and the fragility of night vision cameras. He also imagines that drones and autonomy will become a priority in the name of speed and creating fewer risks for soldiers.

“The Department of Defense has been fielding drones for a decade, but ground vehicles have never been fielded. I’ve never seen autonomous ground vehicles actually working with soldiers, because it’s just more of a difficult, different challenge,” Bruck said. “But fielding these systems for the first time [will be] a key trend and overarching trend. I think in the next three years, we’re going to start to see many, many more autonomous brand vehicles working with soldiers and various missions being kind of like a tool in the toolbox that they use daily.”

Atiya Irvin-Mitchell is a 2022-2023 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Heinz Endowments.

The post Pittsburgh tech leaders expect more emphasis on cybersecurity, NASA collaborations and renewed interest in manufacturing jobs in 2024 appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Sara Innamorato laid out a new administration priority yesterday, allocating $500,000 to a pilot program for subsidizing child care in one of her first big moves since taking office.

The new Allegheny County executive said the region faces an “urgent crisis” in child care while announcing the funds during a tour of the Shady Lane School daycare center in Point Breeze North.

Innamorato said thousands of local families may be unable to afford care for their children in the absence of government help, which could pull parents out of the workforce and hamper economic growth.

“Child care is such a priority of my administration,” Innamorato said. “…The work will not stop today.”

The $500,000 boosts an existing county program that subsidizes child care for families making twice to three times the federal poverty level who also meet work or education eligibility requirements. The program – Allegheny County Child Care Matters – began in April 2022 using $5 million in American Rescue Plan Act [ARPA] funds allocated by the federal government to prop up day care services. 

So far, the program has subsidized care costs for 356 children. This week’s top-up will usher in 28 more who make up the current wait list, leaving some leftover funds for an unspecified number of additional children. The administration believes as many as 15,000 children may fall within the eligibility bracket.

Experts say high operational costs and staffing shortages prompted by low pay and high stress have strained the child care sector since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Pennsylvania now has nearly 600 fewer facilities than in 2020, with a net loss of 18 in Allegheny County.

The county established the Department of Children Initiatives [DCI] in 2021 to shore up an industry reeling from the pandemic and got to work distributing relief funds directly to care providers. Out of that later flowed the Child Care Matters program in conjunction with the Early Learning Resource Center.

While some child care professionals, such as Shady Lane Executive Director Lindsey Ramsey, say DCI has helped day care centers stay afloat, others in the industry are concerned the gaps remain wide and fear what may await when federal funds dry up.

DCI had spent less than a third of its $20 million ARPA-funded startup budget as of December, and must divvy out the remainder by the end of 2024 or return it to the federal government. 

Innamorato yesterday emphasized she appreciates the scale of the challenge and is committed to applying county resources to solutions.

“We are going to be meeting with businesses, nonprofits, our state and federal government and the foundation community to discuss a more unified and holistic approach to subsidized childcare for working families in Allegheny County and support the provider workforce,” she said.

“It is not just an issue for young families. It’s an economic issue for our whole county.” 

Correction: A previous version of this story mischaracterized the income qualifications for the Child Care Matters program.

Jamie Wiggan is Deputy Editor at Public Source. He can be reached at Jamie@publicsource.org.

The post Innamorato pledges $500k to alleviate child care ‘crisis’ appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Pittsburgh’s Uptown will be getting a new residential development titled Phoenix on Forbes that, in the words of the developer’s consultant, looks very similar to much of the new development being constructed across the city and country. 

But it will have a unique wardrobe.

GSX Ventures presented the City Planning Commission with the design of their planned six-story building covering almost a city block. It requires the demolition of three buildings on the 1600 block of Forbes Avenue to make room for 211 units, 10% of which will be reserved for people making 60% or less of the area median income. 

The building will be largely covered in architectural paneling, contributing to the generic aesthetic.To offset that, designers plan on covering the panels with as many as 10 banners from artists that will be chosen by a panel of art advocates. 

The demolition plan and building proposal won commission approval unanimously. 

“All the buildings in Pittsburgh and the country are starting to look the same,” said William Kolano, whose firm Kolano Design is consulting with GSX Ventures on the wall art. 

Kolano said the art concept was inspired by GSX Ventures’ founder and President Jon Grant’s desire “to make something that looked different and, oh my God, can it evolve over time rather than be static.”

He said that he attended Carnegie Mellon University with Grant, and Grant wanted to create something that would set the building apart from other modern developments. 

Kolano explained that technology has recently allowed for the creation of large canvases printed with art work that can easily be added and removed from the building facades. 

“This concept of adding artwork from the very beginning is forward-thinking. It’s not like adding a mural at the end because there’s a blank wall,” Kolano said, adding that murals are often added “as an afterthought.”

“There’s a return to adding ornaments to buildings,” he said.

“By putting the art as changeable every five years, the building is allowed to evolve over time,” Kolano said. “And with this project and others like it, Uptown, too, is likely to change and evolve over time.”

Two courtyards will include an in-ground pool. The building will also be located along the planned Bus Rapid Transit route, which was a significant draw for the building’s planners. The site is in the city’s EcoInnovation District, prompting the inclusion of solar panels on the roof. 

Grant told the commissioners that the ground level will have office space, and they will be  leasing 1,200 to 1,500 square feet of retail space to be used by a “food service tenant or small grocery store, things that would essentially benefit the residents and community.”

The building will also feature a fitness center filled with aerobic and weightlifting equipment. Along with public transportation options, there will also be a 72-space parking garage that will be served by a valet to handle higher density parking.

The building’s designers told the commission that they have maintained communications with the four overlapping registered community organizations serving Uptown, along with Council President Daniel Lavelle’s office. Lavelle represents the area.

Eric Jankiewicz is PublicSource’s economic development reporter, and can be reached at ericj@publicsource.org or on Twitter @ericjankiewicz.

The post Uptown residential development seeks to adorn generic design with ‘museum-quality’ art  appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

During this holiday season, around 900 people are known to be sleeping outside or in shelters in Allegheny County.

Housing and homelessness were ever-present concerns in the Pittsburgh region this year. But even as tents went up and shelters swung shut, new leadership came knocking on the doors of power with pledges of responsiveness and equity.

With COVID-driven funding expiring fast, though, the long-haul effects of the pandemic may be just beginning for the city, the Pittsburgh Public Schools and other local institutions.

In so many areas of life in our region — education, environment, equity, public health and safety — the gears of history continued to turn, and sometimes to grind, in 2023. PublicSource highlighted emerging trends and dug deep into the data, documentation and human-level impact.

Here are some of the stories we reported, many of which will echo into 2024 and beyond.

What happens after a camp is cleared?

The year 2022 closed with the City of Pittsburgh removing an encampment along Stockton Avenue on East Allegheny’s edge and sweeping aside with it a longstanding agreement.

The tents went down just as Allegheny County’s new Second Avenue Commons shelter prepared to accept displaced people while the Smithfield United Church of Christ’s basement doors creaked open.

If anybody thought those developments would noticeably blunt the effects of the housing crisis, they were quickly disabused of that notion.

The early days of Second Avenue Commons were marked by staffing problems and safety questions, while this autumn saw ramped-up evictions from its single room occupancy units. The Smithfield shelter, meanwhile, became a haven for hundreds but a bugaboo for Downtown businesses, until its June closure demonstrated just how tattered America’s safety net has become.

“I understand that it can’t exist indefinitely, but this haphazard closure is going to cause death and we need to hold people accountable for that.”

Aubrey Plesh, founder of Team PSBG, which operateD the shelter at the Smithfield United Church of Christ, Downtown

With cold weather’s return came a slow-motion rollout of the county’s and city’s plan for emergency shelter. The persistent presence of at least 200 people on the street, though, left leaders looking for… 

A path to long-term affordable housing

The affordable housing shortage has been well documented for at least a decade, though never so viscerally evident as it was in 2023. Yet one of the most versatile tools for addressing housing needs — the Housing Choice (Section 8) Voucher — had become rusty and blunt by the time PublicSource documented concerns of landlords, tenants and former Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh [HACP] insiders. That reporting spurred pledges of prompt improvements in customer service in the program, but the year ended with curbs on the portability of vouchers.

City development officials, meanwhile, scrambled to preserve affordable units that might otherwise fall into disrepair or convert to market-rate status. A $50 million federal grant raised hopes for more and better Hill District homes.

County-level interests sought to bring to the boroughs some of the models that have taken root in the city. And after nearly a decade of inactivity, the Pittsburgh Land Bank slowly began the process of reclaiming abandoned city property, sidestepping legal obstacles that held up progress. 

While fears of gentrification have been most pronounced in Pittsburgh, housing market forces don’t stop at the city line. That’s why Sara Innamorato was quizzed about the issue during her successful run for county executive, which has everybody asking …

Will a fresh approach on Grant Street really change things?

In what will be the last Allegheny County election season to feature direct six-figure contributions to candidates, Democrat Innamorato barely overcame Republican Joe Rockey’s large fundraising edge. (Conversely, District Attorney Stephen Zappala ran as a Republican, and bested billionaire-backed Democrat Matt Dugan.)

Innamorato’s pledge to focus on the “struggle of everyday people” has a different feel from outgoing County Executive Rich Fitzgerald’s recent emphases, which have tended toward consensus building with business, labor and multiple levels of government, plus stable property taxes.

Innamorato has said she’d like to address increasingly skewed assessments, but also wants to reduce a reassessment’s impact on those least able to afford tax hikes.

Innamorato also heard “alarm bells” in the county’s selection of nonprofit contractor Adelphoi to take over the Shuman Juvenile Detention Center. But she will become executive amid heightened attention to violent crime, which the county has sought to address with a $50 million effort to beef up prevention efforts.

That’s a lot on the plate of the likely most prominent member of what we’ll call … 

Southwestern Pennsylvania’s pandemic-forged leadership class

Innamorato follows political ally Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey to Grant Street, but also joins dozens of new leaders who replaced longtime executives in both the public and private realms.

Also reaching prominence this year were Pittsburgh Police Chief Larry Scirotto (who promptly disappointed some accountability advocates) and University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Joan Gabel (whose statements on Israel and Gaza left some dissatisfied).

The three years of turnover at the top that followed the Great Resignation may be remembered as a pivot point for the Pittsburgh region, but it won’t likely herald an extended and unanimous chorus of Kumbaya. Exhibit one: Gainey and UPMC (now led by Leslie Davis) show no signs of reaching an accord on any obligations the healthcare giant may have to the city’s coffers.

And the city’s bank balance? It’s likely to get leaner, as federal American Rescue Plan Act funds run dry. 

Gainey won’t be the only local leader scrambling for funds because … 

Schools will likely be scraping by

The Pittsburgh Public Schools are expecting similar headwinds as relief funding dries up and costs mount.

To get through the next budget year, PPS needs to draw nearly $30 million from its depleting rainy day fund. But even then, glaring inequalities persist, with students in some schools feeling they’re being taught in a “playground” instead of a rigorous educational setting.

The district also faces challenges over disparate student outcomes, variable teaching quality and uneven costs maintaining a patchwork of buildings that far exceed the needs of a shrinking student pool.

Graduates of high schools in Pittsburgh and suburban districts may be wise to review university balance sheets before filling out applications as … 

Higher ed weathers storms of its own

Higher education fairs little better in a city that’s hinged its revival on an “eds and meds” economy. 

Many newer workforce entrants are questioning the value of a degree altogether. The Community College of Allegheny County lost about half of its student body between 2010 and 2022 – and even a steep drop since the 2020 pandemic doesn’t account for the whole picture, one of steady decline.

Alarm bells rang out from Chatham University’s sedate Squirrel Hill campus in summer, when faculty learned the university faced a $12 million budget hole. To close the gap, President Rhonda Philips laid off department staff, trimmed administration salaries and slashed faculty pension contributions.

Chatham faculty answered with an early unionizing effort they hope will strengthen their position as the administration seeks to patch its deficit. That push can be viewed as one of many efforts aimed at …

Leveling society’s playing field

Campus concerns early in the year were focused primarily on safety for LGBTQ students, and when Pitt’s response wasn’t satisfying, an effort to bring the issue before the Board of Trustees resulted in criminal charges and student conduct hearings. At Duquesne University, a bid to rename Lambda to the Queer Student Union stagnated amid ongoing tension between the school’s Catholic orientation and the growing push for LGBTQ inclusion.

Nearly every university is grappling with diversity in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action in admissions.

That ruling was also seen as a potential warning shot for other programs meant to undo effects of discrimination, and lent some urgency to the Gainey administration’s pledge to refresh the data behind race-conscious programs. Equitable law enforcement remained a work in progress, too, as a mayor elected in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police didn’t immediately dent the racial skew of his own department’s activities, or make “driving while Black” a thing of the past.

Equity efforts increasingly overlap with the ongoing environmental and climate catastrophe, and nowhere is that more newsworthy than in …

A region still fueled by fossils

Pollution from coal, manufacturing and other fossil fuels continues to plague a region still trying to shrug off the nickname “Smoky City.”

After Shell Chemical Appalachia opened its giant new petrochemical plant in Beaver County, a PublicSource investigation revealed a litany of malfunctions where, in many cases, the Department of Environmental Protection largely relied on Shell to assess its own missteps and the validity of public complaints.

In October, the Biden administration announced funding for two hydrogen hubs spanning stretches of Pennsylvania, although a proposal centered around Pittsburgh did not make the cut. Opinion is fiercely split on whether hydrogen has a role in the transition to clean energy or merely extends our fossil fuel dependence.

To some, natural gas extracted through fracking offers another pathway to weaning off coal and its carbon-heavy cousins. But families living less than 900 feet from a well pad in Washington County say their health and quality of life has suffered accordingly, while state legislation to keep drilling away from homes fell flat this summer.   

Climate change and air quality are daunting big-picture problems, and if you’re yearning to feel good about humanity, it might be advisable to look at …

Spirited neighborhoods rising to challenges

If the arc of history bends toward justice, the end of that rainbow can seem elusive — but perhaps it will end in the Hill District.

The neighborhood is still wary about developer promises after witnessing one of urban renewal’s most infamous injustices when the city razed the Lower Hill District and built the Civic Arena and parking lots. But leadership at the Bethel AME Church, victimized by the wrecking ball in 1957, believe they have a pact that will partly redress that tragedy with affordable housing.

Similarly, Wilkinsburg’s population losses created both a need for redevelopment and fear of gentrification. The apparent collapse of a push to merge the borough into Pittsburgh may invite civic leaders to build on the community’s strengths.

Pittsburgh’s growth depends on its embrace of diversity and its willingness to welcome newcomers, and nowhere was that more evident than in Beechview. The South Pittsburgh neighborhood hosts the biggest concentration of Latino residents in the region, and its business district — once crippled by disinvestment and fraud — features what may be the region’s most bilingual main street.

As PublicSource enters its 13th year of writing, photographing and otherwise pursuing stories for a better Pittsburgh, there’s plenty of room for improvement — in the region and the media. Also ample is the spirit of determination to solve problems, whether they’re as concrete as the shortage of affordable housing or as intangible as equity in education. We’ll continue to seek and share truth, whether it’s in the form of professionally reported investigations or community members’ essays. We hope you’ll continue with us on that journey, and thank you for your readership and support.

Rich Lord is the managing editor at PublicSource and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

Jamie Wiggan is deputy editor at PublicSourceand can be reached at jamie@publicsource.org.

Fact-checked by the PublicSource staff.

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SparkleDragon’s Magical Emporium is a place in Beechview where witches, heathens, pagans and locals can meet to find incense, books and other items of the occult. 

Beechview Points of Pride
PublicSource maps and chronicles the strengths of diverse communities

Joyce Crock, a self-described witch, envisioned her Broadway Avenue business to be a meeting place where people who feel like they don’t belong in so-called “normal” places could build a community when she opened it in 2015.

“I feel that my place is really important to the pagan community,” Crock said. “We have a lot of LGBTQ+ people in the pagan community and they don’t always feel comfortable everywhere. I’ve had people of color come in and tell me how welcome they feel cause I’m not judgmental. That was a real slap of awakening.”

Crock said that many of the businesses around her have seen dwindling customers. And while she welcomes anyone into her store, as of late she said she too has been struggling to attract them.

“I’ve been in business for so long and I’ve never made a profit,” added Crock, who also sells the work of local artists, on consignment. “I don’t know how I’m still open, I really don’t. Some people are so supportive of the shop. I get a lot of people who come in just to talk. I almost run a little mental health clinic.”

Beechview’s business district hasn’t fully recovered from a massive fraud scandal in the early aughts even as it is buoyed by an influx of new residents, many of whom are Latino. Business owners are hoping the neighborhood’s accessibility and growing immigrant population will solidify the turnaround. 

“The business district was decimated. The Latino influx helped revive the community after everything happened with Bernardo Katz,” said Charlene Saner, a Beechview resident, referring to a developer who bought numerous properties, promising to invest in the area with the help of city Urban Redevelopment Authority funding. 

Instead, Katz absconded from the country, drawing federal charges of wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy and leaving debt that tied up many of the commercial properties he bought in Beechview. According to reports, Katz owned 80% of Beechview’s business district and promised a $2.6 million revitalization. 

Businesses catering to the Latino population have helped to fill the vacuum.

The area is home to numerous Latino-owned eateries as well as a grocery store and barbershop. The Pittsburgh Hispanic Development Corporation, headquartered on Broadway, houses a business incubator that’s promoting Latino entrepreneurs in the South Hills and across the region.

Guillermo Velazquez, executive director of the development group, said that his organization works with everyone but specializes in helping Latino people looking to start businesses. 

“It is good for Beechview because they’re incubating here and they have a business address with us during the incubation period,” Velazquez said. “There’s activity, and people come here for meetings. We increase the traffic in a positive way to Beechview.”

Velazquez said that since the organization began in 2018 they have helped more than 126 businesses open up in the region, at least one of which is in Beechview. 

He said that he hopes Beechview’s business offerings will continue to grow and bring with them a variety of industries like technology and research. Eventually, he thinks the neighborhood would benefit from an annual festival on Broadway. 

“Who knows what it would have looked like without that [Latino] influx,” said Saner, who also works for City Councilor Anthony Coghill. Some of Broadway’s immigrant pioneers struggled. “The businesses that spearheaded all of that are no longer there. But they left a really powerful legacy. They encouraged other Latinos to come to the area.”

Huddle gone, engagement promised

The Huddle restaurant on Broadway was in operation for 47 years, run by the politically influential Wagner family, before shutting down this summer.

The neighborhood is “completely different now and it’s also a completely different world,” said Peter Wagner, 78, who ran the business. “We have to move on.”

He said the neighborhood has “all gone to hell because of code enforcement. … Code enforcement officers refuse to enforce code rules that are on the books. There’s a lot of absentee landlords in this area.”

As a result, the once-strong housing stock has deteriorated, he said.

“Today you see overgrown lots and boarded-up windows and you see people just don’t take care of their properties and in most cases it’s absentee landlords and if you don’t ride them and come down on them you can’t win in a community,” Wagner said.

Pittsburgh has three environment enforcement officers who are each responsible for 30 neighborhoods, according to city spokesperson Olga George. Since September, the inspector covering Beechview has written 191 criminal complaints, of which 24 went to district court.

“The team philosophy is educate, investigate and [as a] last resort litigate,” George said. Code officers “speak with residents directly or via letters when a violation takes place. Sometimes, when they go for an inspection, the violation has already been cleared.”

Wagner said he has been trying to find a buyer for his restaurant but so far hasn’t found anyone he was satisfied with, though he’s shown it to potential buyers from Maryland and New Jersey. 

Some business district properties haven’t found buyers.

A former Katz property on Broadway Avenue was recently demolished by the city.

“It’s bittersweet because there’s this gaping hole in the business district. And now there’s going to be a methodical plan for what may go there,” Saner said. “We don’t want no more monopolies. No more one person owning multiple properties. With community engagement now, everybody will have a strong voice.” 

Saner said that community engagement is stronger because of the neighborhood’s history with bad investors like Katz. 

“Because of [Katz], more community groups emerged as a way of preventing this kind of thing from happening again,” she said. “And we’re stronger now for that.”

Signs of promise

A former Katz property on the corner where Beechview Avenue merges into Broadway Avenue is now a Dollar Eagle. 

On the other end of the business district sits Slice on Broadway, a pizzeria that has expanded into six locations across the city. Owner Rico Lunardi said he opened the business in 2010 after returning from Philadelphia with a business degree. 

“Pizza is a big deal here,” Lunardi said, noting that the area boasts legendary pizza joints like Fiori’s Pizzaria and Badamos. “There’s a lot of competition.” 

Despite the saucy competition, Lunardi said his business did well and “took off” after winning some local awards. He attributed the businesses success to high quality ingredients and the regional novelty of selling pizza by the slice.  

“There’s a Pittsburgh style of making pizza and we’re not that,” he said. “Pittsburgh pizza has a thicker crust, sweeter sauce and way more cheese. We’re a little different and there weren’t as many options for pizza by the slice when we started.” 

Lunardi said that he hopes to be able to franchise his business. 

“This neighborhood is great but it’s had its ups and downs,” he said, referring to Katz’s failure. “We thought we’d get more development here but that’s not the case.”

He said that the above-ground trolley, known as the T, holds the possibility for the area to attract more people looking to commute into and out of the city. 

Crock also said that the public transportation access can help revitalize the neighborhood. 

“I want to see Beechview grow and become vibrant as it should be. We have the advantage of the T line right here,” she said. “I hope to see Beechview become a city [neighborhood] like Lawrenceville or Bloomfield, without the gentrification.”

Guillermo Velazquez, who was interviewed for this story, serves on the PublicSource Board of Directors.

Eric Jankiewicz is PublicSource’s economic development reporter, and can be reached at ericj@publicsource.org or on Twitter @ericjankiewicz.

This story was fact-checked by Ladimir Garcia.

Translation by Zulma Michaca, a bilingual professional living in Riverside County, Calif., with family ties in Pittsburgh. She can be reached at z.michaca123@gmail.com.

The post Beechview merchants hope immigration, transit — maybe even witchcraft? — will prove a magic formula for Broadway Avenue appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.