About a year and a half after a harassment incident during a Pittsburgh brewing festival crossed the line for marginalized workers, the Pittsburgh Brewers Guild has passed a Code of Conduct to root out harmful workplace behaviors. Workers who spearheaded the effort say the set of rules will act as an important first step in a larger fight for a more inclusive and diverse industry. 

“It feels really good,” said Lauren Hughes of Necromancer Brewing. “I’m really excited that we have something in place. It’s a great first step.” 

The guild, a coalition of more than 40 Pittsburgh-area breweries, passed the code in mid-October after a unanimous vote. All workers are granted protection from discrimination and harassment along the lines of ethnicity, nationality, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability and body type, religion and neurodiversity. 

The code delineates “inappropriate” and “zero-tolerance” behaviors and outlines the respective disciplinary processes. It also encourages “inclusive behavior,” which includes being respectful of those different from you and being open-minded during discussions about potential misconduct. 

“Zero-tolerance behavior” — which refers to illegal use of weapons; physical assault, abuse and violence; and sexual harassment — could result in suspensions or terminations. For “inappropriate behaviors,” such as angry outbursts, bigoted remarks and “unwanted, excessive flirtation,” the code instructs breweries to issue a formal warning and seek an apology before potentially taking action toward an individual. The guild provides a flowchart for responding to misconduct and forms for making reports. 

As part of the rollout of the code, the guild brought in Mattingly Solutions, a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion firm, for a one-day training session, which about 100 guild members attended, according to Melissa Larrick, the guild’s executive director. The guild also recorded and distributed video of the session for absent members. During the training, a representative provided explanations for what appropriate and inappropriate actions look like, how gender pronouns should be used and how to deescalate intense situations. 

Larrick found the training valuable. 

“It was really cool that Mattingly took the framework of this generalized do’s and don’ts but made it very relatable to our culture in the brewery,” Larrick said. “In two hours, you can’t really cover everything in the full spectrum, because the spectrum doesn’t really have any walls, there’s so many different facets to it, but I think their firm made it very relatable to the people that work in the service industry.”    

An 11-person subcommittee worked on constructing and passing the code of conduct. Implementing the code, including the training session, cost about $7,500. The subcommittee raised about a third of that through a “Support the Cause” fundraising event, a night in which a series of breweries donated a dollar per drink sold, according to Hughes. 

Hughes served on the subcommittee after being very close to the inciting incident a year and a half ago. She has also faced years of discrimination in the industry, she said. Larrick also served on the subcommittee and remained on it after she was made executive director about six months ago. 

Implementing a code didn’t stir much pushback once conversations started, according to Larrick, but some members cautioned against creating something more focused on punitive measures than reformation. The guild wrote the code with this concern in mind. 

“We’re trying to avoid cancel culture because that just doesn’t help anyone to grow as people, and people make mistakes all the time, so we want to give space for understanding and expression and learning, going forward,” Larrick said. 

It won’t instantly change the culture of the brewing industry, where, according to 2021 Brewers Association numbers, ownership is 94% white and 76% male. Steps the local guild is taking to address this include a call for a dedicated, DEI-focused board seat and subcommittee, seats that have not yet been filled. 

Hughes is satisfied with the code and hopeful that it will jumpstart efforts in the bigger fight for a more diverse and inclusive industry.  

“This is kind of a jumping point to try to make your tappers more inclusive, try to get different people in your tap rooms and make them feel comfortable coming and having a beer, and trying to find out what that looks like,” Hughes said. “Asking colleagues, asking communities what they’re looking for. And asking your employees as well, just kind of relying on the folks around you to continue growing in that aspect.” 

Matt Petras is a freelance reporter and adjunct professor based in the Pittsburgh area. He can be reached at matt456p@gmail.com or on X, formerly Twitter, @mattApetras.

This story was fact-checked by Rich Lord.

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At a five year memoriam of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, Rabbi Doris Dyen said a prayer, but with a caveat. 

“I’ve always been bothered by the term ‘thoughts and prayers,’” Dyen said.  

Her prayer called for action, and that’s what attendees focused on Thursday evening. 

When the crowd gathered at Rodef Shalom Congregation, local representatives and activists helped attendees create video, audio and hand-written stories detailing their own personal experiences with gun violence to send to legislators resistant to gun law reform. 

Five years ago today, a gunman shot and killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill. The shooting took members of the Tree of Life, New Light and Dor Hadash congregations. In August of this year, a court sentenced the shooter to the death penalty. 

During Thursday’s event, led by Squirrel Hill Stands against Violence, attendees commemorated all victims of gun violence alongside those of the Pittsburgh shooting.

The memoriam event came one day after a widely publicized mass shooting in Lewiston Maine, where a gunman still at large killed 18 people. Before a moment of silence, Dyen encouraged the audience to commemorate all gun violence victims since 2018, with a specific reference to the latest slaying. 

“Those who have died by gun suicide, those who were victims of domestic violence, those who were a part of community violence, and especially, the community of Lewiston, Maine, for whom we pray, because they are the most recent victims of gun violence in a community,” Dyen said. 

Since 2018, local activist groups have rallied around a package of Pennsylvania state legislation proposed by CeaseFirePA called the Common Agenda to End Gun Violence. The laws focus on basic gun control measures with popular support: lost or stolen gun reporting, safe storage requirements, universal background checks and extreme risk protection orders, which would allow judges to temporarily confiscate guns from individuals in a mental health crisis.

Bills calling for stolen gun reporting and safe storage were struck down by the state House in May. The two bills on extreme risk protections and temporary confiscations cleared the House around the same time but have not since progressed through the Republican-controlled Senate.

Civic leaders including state representatives Arvind Venkat and Abigail Salisbury led conversations about processing personal experiences into a story.  Participants were invited to tell their stories using a video booth, a table for recording audio or pen and paper. Event organizers strongly encouraged everyone in attendance to tell a story. 

Nathaniel Myers, a member of Squirrel Hill Stands Against Gun Violence, helped people put their memories and feelings into words and images. 

“I was surprised how many people were willing to do videos,” Myers said. “Now, we do have an audience that has a lot of active folk, who are involved in talking to legislators, so I think that helped, but I think a lot of the other people who were just here for the commemoration were pretty willing to do videos.”

Jessica Podolsky, a 42-year-old Point Breeze resident, created a video detailing a friend who died by suicide using a gun after a dark period in his life following a debilitating illness. “I don’t love speaking,” Podolsky said. “I don’t always find myself to be super articulate, but it was easy.” 

She also talked about her constant concern for her school-age niece and nephew.

“I can’t fathom that they go to school and have active shooter drills and live in a world where I wake up every day and there’s yet another mass shooting,” Podolsky said. 

Cynthia Robinson, a 53-year-old from the Hill District, spoke to the camera about the constant gun violence she sees in her community, often affecting young people. 

“Where I live, there’s a shooting every day. There’s gunshots,” Robinson said. “My grandson is traumatized.” 

Maureen Anderson, a member of Moms Demand Action, created a video. A former teacher who still works in education, Anderson said that throughout her years teaching she had several students who were either shot and killed or closely knew other victims. 

In line with the event’s focus, Anderson made connections with other activists by sharing contact information and information. 

“It was not normal, in my life, to have students murdered. It shouldn’t be normal in anybody’s life,” Anderson said. “That’s when I started to feel like we gotta do something.” 

Matt Petras is a freelance reporter and adjunct professor based in the Pittsburgh area. He can be reached at matt456p@gmail.com or on Twitter @mattApetras.

The post ‘I wake up every day and there’s yet another mass shooting’ appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

After moving to Uptown in 2002, 69-year-old James Simon developed asthma symptoms that got worse over the years. While adapting to newfound huffing and puffing and regular use of an inhaler, he noticed a distinct, unwavering smell of asphalt around his home in Uptown. 

The logical source of this smell? The nearby asphalt plant, owned by The Lindy Group. Neighbors also noticed the smell and began to worry about what effect the plant had on the area’s air quality and their health.

On July 10, Simon learned from a neighbor that the Allegheny County Health Department was considering modifying the plant’s permit to allow it to expand operations, and that there would be a public meeting about it on the following day. 

Simon attended the meeting, along with two other people. The department’s representative was polite, but he left feeling disempowered. 

Related: When better isn’t good enough: Why I tell my Google co-workers and industry peers to avoid Pittsburgh

“We aren’t experts on the subject, right?” Simon said. “So when she talked about how they … evaluate companies by the kind of machinery they have and what they put out, we can’t really respond to that.”

The department confirmed that the new permit, still under review, would allow for fewer restrictions on the plant’s operations, likely leading to emissions increases. Environmental advocates — some of whom were unable to attend the meeting because of confusion over scheduling — and some Uptown residents find the plant’s emissions concerning and the public input process flimsy. 

“Not only is this plant impactful for the whole region,” said Matt Mehalik, the Breathe Project’s executive director, “but it’s particularly impactful for a lot of people. … It’s a dense part of the city and a neighborhood that has borne lots of different past social and environmental injustices.” 

Related: In the Allegheny Valley, after a century of coal power, the towers have toppled

Permit would allow more pollution

The Lindy Group, a sister group of the well-known, large construction business PJ Dick, has more than a dozen asphalt plants in Pennsylvania, including multiple in the Pittsburgh area. Its website boasts its plants can produce as much as 600 tons of asphalt per hour. 

PJ Dick and the plant did not respond to phone and email requests for comment.

A notice from the Health Department notes that the Uptown plant’s permit, up for renewal after five years, will allow an increase to the plant’s annual production and get rid of restrictions on annual operating hours. The plant would newly be allowed to operate during the winter and increase overall emissions throughout each one-year period, up to an additional:

• 4.04 tons of particulate matter 
• 0.68 tons of sulfur oxides
• 6.10 tons of nitrogen oxides
• 26.64 tons of carbon monoxide
• 9.75 tons of volatile organic compounds.

The new permit would allow increases in emissions of pollutants ranging from 20% to more than 100%, and one substance — formaldehyde — would go from a 1.16 ton-per-year limit to unlimited. The notice did not note this change to formaldehyde limits. 

The Lindy Group must submit emissions records to the Health Department every six months.

More than 15 people, including Uptown residents, environmental advocates and Allegheny County Councilmember Bethany Hallam, signed a letter sent to the county July 11, the day of the public meeting, denouncing the proposed new permit and making a series of requests. (One signature came from Dale McNutt, who owns 5thAVE Studio, which leases space to several residences and businesses, including PublicSource.)

Related: Inside Pennsylvania’s monitoring of the Shell petrochemical complex

The letter asked for an additional public meeting or series of meetings, independent fence-line monitoring of the plant, reconsideration of winter operations and tightening of the proposed increases on various emissions. 

In response to an inquiry from PublicSource, Health Department Deputy Director Geoff Rabinowitz explained that the county follows established federal, state and county law when designing permits. 

“The purpose of a permit is to act as the fully enforceable regulatory guide that specifies a specific facility’s requirements and details how it will stay within compliance of those conditions,” Rabinowitz wrote in an email.

Impactful emissions, inconvenient public process

Advocates and residents fear that relying upon reports from the plant and allowing the plant to create more emissions would lead to worse air quality.  

Within 2 miles of the plant live 86,000 residents, who are disproportionately people of color (38%) and of low-income (48%), according to Mehalik of the Breathe Project. The Uptown neighborhood already suffers from other notable sources of pollution, he added, such as the traffic in the Fifth and Forbes corridor from cars and diesel buses. The Breathe Project has collaborated with Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab to study the air quality at nearby residents’ homes. 

The plant will especially impact Uptown’s many elderly residents, said Brittany McDonald, the executive director since 2020 of the nonprofit revitalization group Uptown Partners of Pittsburgh. 

“We are in objection to any type of increased emissions, or adjustment of their permit that would allow them to have increased emissions, that would negatively impact the community,” McDonald said. 

Leigh Yock, vice president of Uptown Partners, has lived near the plant for more than five years and was diagnosed with asthma earlier this year. She attended the recent public meeting. 

“It seemed like a formality and that it would go through no matter what,” Yock said. 

The letter included among its signers Christine Graziano, who has worked in environmental advocacy and began researching and facilitating community meetings about the plant with the Breathe Project, but who was out of the country at the time of the public meeting. The letter detailed a request to the county to delay the meeting, but the county declined. (Graziano has conducted freelance reporting and fact-checking for PublicSource on non-environmental topics.)

The Clean Air Council also sent its own letter to the Health Department, expressing similar concerns as the other letter. In its letter, the council described the meeting notice as “incomplete and confusing,” as it didn’t mention key information such as the proposed end to limits of formaldehyde emissions. It also pointed out language in the Health Department’s notice that left residents unsure about whether they had to sign up for the meeting by July 6 or July 10.

The meeting also took place in Lawrenceville, which could be inconvenient to Uptown residents, according to Mehalik, who said the Breathe Project led efforts to inform residents about the public meeting. The residents he’d spoken to hadn’t heard there would be a meeting until the Breathe Project reached out, he said. 

“It’s hard to get people to show up for something like that that’s inconvenient for people, and as a result, it probably didn’t get enough community voices that express what it’s like to live in close proximity to the plant,” Mehalik said. 

Following its standard procedure, the department had a public comment period of 30 days and publicized this in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on June 8, on the county’s website from June 8 to July 6 and in emails to interested parties on June 8. The public meeting took place on the last of the 30 days. 

John Fleenor was one of the few attendees at that public meeting.

Fleenor said he has smelled asphalt around his Uptown home, within 2 miles of the plant, for 10 years. The 56-year-old and his wife, Helen Perilloux, allowed CREATE Lab to install air reading detectors to be installed outside their house to help experts understand the impact of the plant. 

He said he found the public meeting to be overwhelming. The representative from the county was kind and willing to listen and answer questions, but he and the other residents didn’t really know what to ask.

“It turns out, we don’t really know much about how air permits work and all that,” Fleenor said. 

Despite his frustrations, Simon believes that the county is acting in good faith and following procedure. 

“They’re probably doing it by the book,” Simon said, “and the book is probably terrible.” 

Matt Petras is a freelance reporter and adjunct professor based in the Pittsburgh area. He can be reached at matt456p@gmail.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @mattApetras.

This story was fact-checked by Abigail Nemec-Merwede.

The post Allegheny County’s handling of asphalt company’s pollution request leaves some feeling paved over appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

A few years before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Samantha Rodriguez’s ankylosing spondylitis, a spine-related form of arthritis, worsened to the point of giving her regular bouts of chronic pain, brain fog and fatigue. This put the 29-year-old Penn Hills resident in a group of immunocompromised people who are at particular risk of developing severe symptoms from COVID-19. 

As COVID-19 began to spread around the world, Rodriguez immediately became educated – she not only had skin in the game, but also a background in healthcare research. She stayed careful, and years later, after most people have moved on from many COVID-19 precautions, still does. 

When she visits her parents, one of whom has an autoimmune lung condition, they typically take multiple rapid PCR tests leading up to the gathering and mask even if it’s negative. At this point, she’s most concerned about getting long COVID, a chronic condition. 

“I already have a disability that makes functioning sometimes very difficult, and I don’t want to exacerbate that,” Rodriguez said. 

She gets every vaccination shot she can – the initial two doses that most people got, two of the initial booster shots and two of the more recent bivalent booster, designed to combat newer strains of the virus. 

However, despite recommendations from both local and federal health officials, only around one in five people in Allegheny County, and even fewer in the United States as a whole, have received bivalent booster shots. 

“Honestly, it stresses me out because it’s not gone,” Rodriguez said. “And the more that we pretend like it’s not here, the worse, eventually, reinfections will be, and every new infection is a higher chance of developing long COVID or ending up in the hospital or suddenly having a stroke.”

The federal government ended the emergency declaration for COVID-19 in May. Allegheny County followed suit, ending both the vaccination requirement and the COVID leave policy for county employees and cutting back on regular reports to the public about the state of the virus. 

“Following the ending of the Federal Health Emergency on May 11, it is time for Allegheny County to do the same,” County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said in a May press release. “While we still encourage people to protect themselves against COVID, the lifting of the emergency by the federal governments suggests to us to be consistent.”

County residents, along with the rest of the country, appear to have largely moved on from much concern about COVID-19. Recent COVID-19 levels have been considered low.

New variants and seasonal changes, though, could potentially spell trouble for a public with blase attitudes about booster shots. 

The most recent data from the Allegheny County Health Department [ACHD], which goes to May 19, shows very low levels of infection but also very low levels of testing. The week of May 14 saw 23 confirmed infections and 10 confirmed reinfections reported, but only 185 residents were tested. The week prior had 121 people confirmed to be infected, 33 confirmed to be reinfected and 2,156 people tested. 

Data updated June 23 shows 20.9% of county residents have gotten at least one bivalent booster shot. This is higher than the U.S. population as a whole, 17% of which has received a bivalent booster shot, according to data posted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on May 11. Allegheny County has a disproportionately large senior population, the age cohort most likely to get COVID-19 vaccinations. 

Experts and vulnerable residents warn that the virus still warrants caution. 

COVID risks could rise in fall 

The bivalent booster shots interest some patients of Dr. Marc Itskowitz, a primary care physician with Allegheny Health Network. These patients, he said, tend to be the most cautious and informed. 

“I think for other patients, they have become less interested in staying up to date,” Itskowitz said. “They’re more comfortable with the impact of the virus.”

He recommends everyone get at least one bivalent booster shot. Healthy young people are less susceptible to serious illness and death, but it still helps, has little risk and helps prevent spread of the virus to others, including those most vulnerable. 

“I wouldn’t say it’s mandated, and certainly the policies have changed to reflect that fact, but I think that it’s a good idea to provide some level of protection, especially when we have vaccines that have been so safe,” Itskowitz said. 

Contagious diseases tend to spread most during the fall and winter seasons, when people more frequently gather indoors. Then, adoption of booster shots and other protocols, like mask-wearing, may become more important, according to Itskowitz. 

Dr. Barbara Nightingale, the county Health Department’s deputy director of clinical services, agrees that residents should receive at least one bivalent booster shot. She said it’s difficult to predict the future of the virus’ spread in the county but that more adoption of booster shots will help keep levels low. 

“Where we are now with COVID is a result of many people having been vaccinated and many people having gotten COVID. And so as your immunity goes down over time, the risk of having another peak would increase again,” Nightingale said. “I think that’s where we try to encourage people, if you like it low, keep getting vaccinated.” 

ACHD doesn’t have a specific goal of a certain booster shot adoption rate, Nightingale said, but monitors vaccination rates in comparison to adoption across the country, promotes vaccination and partners with organizations and heads into communities to provide vaccinations. ACHD plans to make a big push for COVID-19 vaccination in the fall, to coincide with its yearly push for flu shots. 

“We know in Allegheny County we tend to have an older community than the rest of the country, so we would definitely like to be on par if not higher than across the country. Not that the average of the country is where we would like to be,” Nightingale said. “We want to obviously go as high as we can.” 

Coughs, concern and fatigue 

Linda Hartman, a 61-year-old Ross Township resident with asthma, acted as carefully as she could when the COVID-19 pandemic began. She still tries to avoid crowded, indoor spaces and has received the two initial booster shots in addition to one of the bivalent booster shots. 

When shopping, she doesn’t wear a mask anymore, but she still stays wary of her surroundings. “If anybody near me coughs, I’m out of there,” Hartman said, laughing. 

She hasn’t moved on from concern about COVID-19, but she can sympathize with those fatigued with COVID-19 affecting regular life. 

“I think we should still be vigilant, but I acknowledge that everybody’s sick of it,” Hartman said. “Myself included.”

Correction: Roughly one in five Allegheny County residents has received a bivalent booster shot, but a larger part of the population has received other boosters. An earlier version of this story contained an editing error.

Matt Petras is a Pittsburgh-area independent writer and adjunct professor. He can be reached at matt456p@gmail.com or on Twitter @mattApetras. 

This story was fact-checked by Elizabeth Szeto.

The Jewish Healthcare Foundation has contributed funding to PublicSource’s healthcare reporting.

The post Bivalent — or ambivalent? COVID is down but low booster rates could set stage for surge. appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

If almost everyone wants more regulation of guns, why is it so difficult to get that passed? That question was posed during a meeting of Squirrel Hill Stands Against Gun Violence by a woman skeptical of extremely high polling results for certain gun control measures in Pennsylvania. 

Dana Kellerman, policy director with the anti-gun violence group, responded by explaining the overwhelming power of organizations like the National Rifle Association, which dumps millions of dollars every year lobbying politicians. Gun control legislation proves one of the most difficult political fights across the country, but that doesn’t deter impassioned activists. It takes strategizing. 

The Squirrel Hill group, joined by state Rep. Arvind Venkat, D-McCandless, hosted a meeting Wednesday evening focused on practical actions gun regulation advocates can take, including workshops for writing letters to local representatives and newspapers.

The specter of the antisemitic mass shooting at a Squirrel Hill synagogue, in which a gunman killed 11 members of the Tree of Life, Dor Hadash and New Light congregations in 2018, loomed over the meeting. The anti-gun violence group formed in the wake of the shooting, and late April began jury selection in the trial of the accused shooter. 

Hadley Haas of Pittsburgh Moms Demand Action joined Kellerman and Venkat on a panel at the meeting, which drew about 30 people at Rodef Shalom Congregation in Squirrel Hill North. The three walked through data as well as their experiences and recommendations for advocating for Pennsylvania gun control laws before taking questions and then breaking into letter writing workshop groups. 

The group outlined The Common Agenda to End Gun Violence, a collection of four bills developed by CeaseFirePA, an organization formed in 2002 that combats gun violence. Representatives introduced each of these bills in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives on May 3:

• HB 1018 would enact Extreme Risk Protection Orders, known as red flag laws, which would give residents a mechanism to petition a judge to take away guns from a family member who is likely to harm themselves or others. 
• HB 731 would mandate safe storage of guns not in use in homes.
• HB 714 would introduce universal background checks for all gun purchases.
• HB 338 would require gun owners to report lost or stolen guns.

Kellerman said polls show these measures to be popular among Pennsylvanian voters. For example, a poll released in June of 2022 by Third Way and GS Strategy Group found majority support for policy proposals such as red flag laws and universal background checks. 

Absent from the package of bills are more controversial proposals like an assault weapons ban.

Venkat spoke about his experience prior to politics as a physician at Allegheny General Hospital, where he primarily worked in the emergency room.. 

“I’ve personally treated a toddler who found his parents’ gun and accidentally shot himself and died in my emergency department,” Venkat said. “And we in emergency medicine tend to be a pretty hardened group, but there were tears flowing that day while we were caring for that child and in subsequent hours, just because it’s something that haunts you.” 

Venkat urged advocates to make support for gun control measures a requirement for their votes.  

“That is the way that we get this legislation across the finish line,” Venkat said. 

He said he believes there is significant momentum for getting the bills passed in the House and pointed to a May 16 special election in a House district representing Delaware County. 

The outcome could flip House control from Democrats to Republicans. GOP lawmakers have publicly opposed new gun restrictions, arguing that they restrict an important freedom to bear and use guns and infringe on the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.

“That is a critical race for ensuring that we have a gun safety majority in the state House, because if that race goes the wrong way, then the legislation may not even come up for a vote,” Venkat said. 

Kellerman split the audience into two groups, one focused on workshops for writing letters to representatives and the other on writing letters to newspapers. About six people joined each group and received paper, envelopes, stamps and tips for writing the letters. 

Richard Edgecombe, a 74-year-old Fox Chapel resident, wrote a letter to his representative, Mandy Steele. Though Edgecombe is a member of the Fox Chapel Democratic Committee and thus no stranger to political advocacy, this represented the first time he wrote a letter to a representative, he told PublicSource. He imagines Steele will be supportive of these bills.

“Mandy’s gonna get a kick out of this, because this is the first time I’ve ever written about anything because usually I just talk to her,” Edgecombe said. “But I’m doing it for the sake of practice.” 

Edgecombe has long followed the gun violence issue and raised the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United, often credited for opening the United States political system to the significant influence of lobbying money, as the reason fighting for gun control proves so difficult. 

“The history of gun violence in this country is preposterous,” Edgecombe said. 

Matt Petras is a freelance reporter and adjunct professor based in the Pittsburgh area. He can be reached at matt456p@gmail.com or on Twitter @mattApetras.

The post As synagogue shooting trial approaches, anti-gun violence advocates meet in Squirrel Hill to turn poll numbers into law appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Carter Graves regularly used meth in 2014 and wanted to be able to test their drugs for fentanyl, an extremely strong and addictive opioid that can be laced into various drugs. But fentanyl test strips, when they could be found, seemed to be unreliable. Friends said the strips often produced false positives. 

“I would have been safer in my use. A lot safer,” if strips were available and reliable, Graves said. “I would have taken better steps to protect myself because I had the tools available. I’ve always been an advocate for drug-checking, but I was failed by the product.” 

A decade ago, fentanyl started to become more prevalent in the drug market, but use and distribution of test strips was highly stigmatized and illegal. 

Now that the strips have become more accepted and legal, Graves is able to distribute new, more reliable tests to people who use drugs in their work for the Pittsburgh chapter of DanceSafe and their own organization, KMFK Safety Services. 

“We’ve had a lot of people self-reporting that, ‘Hey, I was able to hand these to my sister, and it tested positive, and … my sister’s still here because of the stuff that you gave me at your table, so thank you,’” Graves said. “I had somebody recently grab two strips and a set of directions and say, ‘Hey, you might be saving my life tonight,’ and then scurried away. It’s stuff like that we know are helping people.” 

Pittsburgh-area researchers and harm reduction specialists support legislation implemented this year that legalizes fentanyl test strips and believe it will be helpful. Because fentanyl is so common, it’s not unlikely that a given non-prescribed drug has fentanyl in it. This leaves experts wondering just how helpful this legislation will be. Its most impactful provision, in fact, may be one legalizing future tests for other substances that have not yet become as prevalent.

In November, former Gov. Tom Wolf signed legislation that legalized fentanyl test strips across the state, and it went into effect in January. Other states and parts of Pennsylvania had already made similar moves – in 2021, former Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto signed an executive order that decriminalized fentanyl test strips in the city. 

The test strips are inexpensive, one-time-use devices that detect whether fentanyl is in a drug. The devices cannot detect how much fentanyl is in a drug; they only produce a yes or no answer. 

Fentanyl has become incredibly common in the national and local drug market. In 2021, 80% of overdose deaths in Allegheny County involved fentanyl, an increase from 62% in 2016 and just 2% in 2011, according to the county’s overdose dashboard. Preliminary numbers for 2022, which are still being finalized, show 86% of overdose deaths involved fentanyl. 

‘I don’t think they understood it’ 

In 2014, state Rep. James Struzzi lost his younger brother to a drug overdose. This personal connection to the drug epidemic inspired the Republican lawmaker, largely representing Indiana County, to support legislation aimed at preventing overdose deaths. Struzzi has collaborated with progressive Pittsburgh-area Democrats, including Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey when he was a state representative, on drug-related legislation, sometimes diverging from the mainstream of his party. 

He first introduced a bill to legalize fentanyl test strips in 2019, during his first term; then, it faced steep opposition. He said he began sending articles about fentanyl overdoses related to colleagues every day to make his case that this pressing issue needed to be addressed. 

“They weren’t really arguing against it. I don’t think they understood it,” Struzzi said. “Unless you know someone who’s addicted or you’ve lost someone to an overdose, it’s hard to understand.”

During hearings, experts explained that new substances are constantly being introduced into the market, and argued that it would be helpful for the law to be broad and proactive. Because of this testimony, lawmakers amended the bill to legalize not only fentanyl test strips, but all future drug test strips for any other substances. 

Now that the law has passed and gone into effect, it will start to become clearer whether test strips can still help, years after the introduction of fentanyl to the drug market. 

“I would have liked to have seen it done several years ago as well. We could have definitely saved lives. It will still save lives,” Struzzi said. “I know that fentanyl is more and more prevalent today, but I think that gives all the more credence to having these strips available.” 

‘Pretty much everything they had had fentanyl in it’ 

Alice Bell has worked with Prevention Point Pittsburgh for more than 20 years, primarily helping people in the community access harm reduction materials. She appreciates fentanyl test strip legalization but is skeptical of how much it will help. 

“If they would have been legal 10 years ago, we could have saved a lot of lives. … People want to see this as, ‘Yay, now we have fentanyl test strips, it’s gonna save all these lives, it’s gonna save the day,’” Bell said. “It’s sort of too late for it to have that dramatic effect.” 

Prevention Point has been distributing fentanyl test strips since 2019, even when it was at odds with state law, and Bell has heard mixed feedback from people who have used them. 

“Early on, people were avid, wanted them. ‘Yes, yes, yes, gimme those, gimme those, gimme those.’ And then they realized that pretty much everything they had had fentanyl in it,” Bell said. “And now they’re like, ‘Yeah, I don’t really need those, because I just assume it’s fentanyl, I know it’s fentanyl, that’s all we could get.’” 

Jane Liebschutz, a UPMC physician and University of Pittsburgh professor and researcher focused on the opioid epidemic, agrees that the benefit will be limited, in part because so many regular drug users have already become used to fentanyl. 

“Because they’re already used to it, then having the fentanyl test strip doesn’t really change it, for people who use drugs regularly,” Liebschutz said.

Immediately following legalization of test strips, the Allegheny County Health Department [ACHD] ordered 3,000 strips using leftover funding from a grant primarily for purchasing the overdose reversal drug naloxone (known commonly by the brand Narcan) for first responders. It cost the county about one dollar per strip, according to Otis Pitts, deputy director of ACHD. Next fall, ACHD plans to purchase another 10,000 test strips. 

ACHD works with a variety of organizations such as the Homewood group Ukombozi, and visits various communities to distribute test strips. The department focuses on areas with “high foot traffic,” including homeless encampments and people leaving the Allegheny County Jail, according to Pitts. Anyone who wants test strips can also contact the county to get them. 

“From the staff, I have heard that, for whatever reason, these test strips are, at least for right now, a better conversation starter with the public compared to Narcan,” Pitts said in late February. “Maybe it’s just the newness around the legality of test strips, but the public response has been stronger for whatever reason. … They’re taking us up on offers for test strips.”

‘A Band-Aid on the larger problem’

Several experts told PublicSource that they are concerned about xylazine, a veterinary tranquilizer and a newer substance in the drug market. About 26% of 2020 overdose deaths in Pennsylvania involved xylazine, sometimes in combination with other drugs, compared to just 2% in 2015, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. In the Pittsburgh area, there is growing awareness and news coverage of this drug. 

Test strips for xylazine are still being developed and, therefore, are not yet widely available for use by the public, but if they are available in the future, they will automatically be legal in Pennsylvania, as would new test strips for any other substance. 

Still, even xylazine has become so widespread that it’s unclear how much testing could help. At the end of the day, folks who work closely on these issues like Graves see testing as a bandage for a larger problem: a drug policy focused on criminalization rather than rehabilitation. 

“This stuff is deadly and has spread. It’s already becoming very prevalent in Pittsburgh,” Graves said. “The technology isn’t keeping up with the rapid changes that occur in the drug market. So while I like seeing that these preventative measures and giving the power back to drug users are being developed, I guess I don’t see it solving the problem.” 

Matt Petras is a freelance reporter and adjunct professor based in the Pittsburgh area. He can be reached at matt456p@gmail.com or on Twitter @mattApetras.

This story was fact-checked by Abigail Nemec-Merwede.

The post Fentanyl test strips are finally legal, but the deadly drug is already widespread appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Patrice Aaron received a ConnectCard in December that gives her free, unlimited public transit rides.

“It helps tremendously for me because I have a son, and I’m a single mom as well, and I need to be able to get back and forth without feeling like I have to spend hundreds of dollars,” said the 29-year-old Hill District resident.

The Allegheny County Department of Human Services [DHS] will soon finish distributing discount ConnectCards to Pittsburgh Regional Transit [PRT] riders as a part of its Discounted Fares Pilot Program, and riders and organizers say it’s already changing lives. 

Anyone eligible for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program [SNAP] benefits could apply to participate in the yearlong pilot during the sign-up period, which closed Feb. 12. 

DHS accepted 9,574 people into the program, but because DHS also distributed cards to family members of some applicants, 14,164 people have been granted cards, according to spokesperson Mark Bertolet. There are three types of cards: 

• 4,583 people, a control group, get cards with a $10 “thank you” balance on them but no ongoing discount
• 4,710 get the $10 and an ongoing 50% discount
• 4,871 people ride for free. 

All participants have been chosen and assigned discount levels, and DHS plans to have all cards distributed by Feb. 24. DHS also hopes to share demographic information about the participants then. Some have already received their cards, which will work for one year from the date they were mailed. 

“I signed up with it just to see if I was gonna qualify,” Aaron said. “At first, I didn’t think I was gonna qualify, but I did. And it felt really good, because now I don’t have to stress over bus money every day.” 

Public transit can be expensive for frequent riders. PRT offers $25 weekly passes, $97.50 monthly passes and $1,072.50 annual passes. Because many riders cannot afford to purchase transit fare in bulk, it’s common for riders to make cash payments of $2.75 for each ride, which is more expensive than a pass for riders who take 10 or more one-way trips per week. PRT offers 50% discounts for people with disabilities, children ages 6 to 11 and Medicare recipients, and free rides for people 65 and older. 

Tameeka Jones-Cuff, another rider in the pilot program who received a 100% discount, said the program has made getting around much easier. Jones-Cuff has a medical condition that requires regular doctor’s visits and physical therapy appointments. In the past, she missed some doctor’s appointments because she didn’t have access to transportation. 

“It’s helping me get to my doctor’s appointments,” Jones-Cuff said. “It’s also helping my kids get to their appointments. That’s so very important.” 

She, her husband, who works in landscaping, and her four children all received the 100% discount cards. Beyond going to medical appointments and the grocery store, having unlimited access to free transit has empowered the family to get out of the house and enjoy themselves. 

“My kids are ecstatic to get out of the house. … We actually did a lot in the last few weeks,” Jones-Cuff said. “I’ve been able to take them to the museums. That’s the big part. We’ve been to different libraries. They were able to go out with me.” 

Pittsburghers for Public Transit [PPT] has long pushed for a low-income fares program. 

“We are celebrating the enrollment into this pilot program,” said PPT Executive Director Laura Wiens. “We know that transit riders’ lives have been transformed by having access to free and half fares. And I think, at this point, our attention is turning to ensuring that it’s a permanent program and one that’s accessible to every SNAP household in Allegheny County.”

Dana Dolney, a grassroots organizer with the Pittsburgh-area group Just Harvest, has assisted riders in applying for the pilot program. 

“I would be hard-pressed to believe that if DHS does this pilot correctly that they’re not gonna see the benefit to the population that they serve,” Dolney said. “And that it will become as clear to them as it is to me that transit is so important for public health and safety.”

Correction: Dana Dolney’s last name was misspelled in an earlier version of this story.

Matt Petras is a freelance reporter and adjunct professor based in the Pittsburgh area. He can be reached at matt456p@gmail.com or on Twitter @mattApetras.

The post Thousands in Allegheny County begin getting free, discounted transit cards appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Aster Teclay joined the city’s Housing Opportunity Fund Advisory Board in October and is one of eight millennials on the 21-member board. She believes that generational perspective really matters. 

“I’m not a homeowner … and I don’t necessarily fit in with the programs that we serve, but I also represent a population that is huge in Pittsburgh, where it’s like, we want to be homeowners [but] we can’t afford homeownership,” said Teclay, 34. 

And conversations about affordable housing extend to renting as well as homeownership. 

“When we think about affordable rent, sometimes we think about what that person looks like, and there’s a misconception,” Teclay said. “I’m like, no, I have friends that are teachers, friends that are working the service industry, that can’t afford most of the places that they’re living in and then have a whole bunch of student debt. And having that voice echoed multiple times makes a big difference.”

After 2022 appointments, millennials represent a growing percentage of seats on boards of City of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County government agencies. This foreshadows a coming tide of millennials on boards, as younger Pittsburgh leaders age into prominence. These board members bring a perspective more attuned to modern economic hardship, advancing social views and new methods of community outreach.

PublicSource in its Board Explorer transparency portal tracks more than 520 seats on city and county panels — from the county’s Accountability, Conduct and Ethics Commission to the city’s Zoning Board of Adjustment — that take actions and make decisions that impact many aspects of life in the region. The portal allows PublicSource to track the diversity in that layer of the power structure. In 2020, the Board Explorer project revealed that women had reached virtual parity with men in terms of board seats held.

The number of board seats held by people born in the 1980s to the mid-1990s — essentially, millennials — increased from about 21% at the end of 2021 to 23% today. 

Overall, board members are still more likely to have been born in the 1950s, ’60s or ’70s than the ’80s or ’90s. Fifty-six board members were born in the ’40s, and 22 were born in the ’90s. 

With this comes a slight increase in people of color, holding about 37% of seats in 2022 compared to about 36% in 2021, among members for whom race and ethnicity was known. That is driven largely by a 4% increase in Black representation. 

Women and men hold virtually identical numbers of seats on the 60 panels tracked by Board Explorer.

About two-thirds of the current crop of millennials are women. All millennial board members are Democrats, as are the vast majority of all members of the city and county panels. Most of the board members are appointed by the administrations of the county executive and city mayor, both offices held by Democrats for decades. 

‘Starting to perturb them’

While many of the millennial board members said they hope to disrupt the status quo in some way, most of those interviewed said the boards have been largely welcoming and accepting of their involvement. 

Kenya Matthews joined the city’s Civil Service Commission in May, serving with two other members, who have both been on the board for at least a few years. The commission seeks to ensure merit-based hiring by the city. 

She is 42, which she sees as being “on the cusp” of millennial and Gen X. 

“I’m someone that is going to question,” Matthews said. “I ask, ‘Why? Why are things being done this way? Can we do this differently? Has this ever been done before? If so, what was the outcome of that?’… So I think, for me, it’s just asking a lot of questions, and making sure those are the right questions that will invoke change in the right direction.” 

Still, she said she doesn’t feel out of place or unwelcomed by the board. 

“If you’ve ever been the person who’s always asking questions … sometimes you can see where it’s like, ‘I think I’m starting to perturb them a little bit,’” said Matthews. But the other board members have always been open to questions, she added.

In May Felicity Williams, 33, joined the Comprehensive Municipal Pension Trust Fund, which oversees the city’s employee pension funds. Employed as Mayor Ed Gainey’s deputy chief of staff, she said she’s been welcomed by the board, which includes long-time and well-known members like Pittsburgh Controller Michael Lamb, who joined in 2008. 

She brings a critical perspective. 

“Pittsburgh has often been labeled as this bastion of progressivism. And in some ways, I think that has been more rhetoric than policy or action,” Williams said. “So we still see a lot of areas where we can back up our rhetoric with policy.” 

Williams said she believes that any kind of diversity — including age — can improve a board. Other millennial board members agree.

“I think any time you get a diverse representation on a board, whether that be age, whether that be income, whether that be racial, there’s an opportunity to have more robust policy-making that comes out of it, because you’re not just in an echo chamber,” said Kimberly Lucas, the 38-year-old director of the city’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure, who joined the Pittsburgh Parking Authority board in June. 

Maria Montaño, the city’s press secretary, is transgender and serves on the LGBTQIA+ Commission. She’s the only member appointed last year to that 17-member board. One of her main concerns, she said, is enforcement of policies barring discrimination against LGBTQ people. Having some influence on that feels good, she said. 

“I’ve been a longtime activist, for lack of a better term, in the community before joining the administration,” said Montaño, 41. She said she’s “done a lot of work to hold leaders accountable, and now I’m at the table and able to advocate and push for the things I’ve been speaking about for a very long time.” 

‘Gotta flip the switch’

Several board members identified being attuned to the importance of social media and other digital communication as an important benefit of a millennial perspective. 

When Courtney Mahronich Vita, now 35, started in 2016 on the Erie to Pittsburgh Trail Alliance, a non-governmental board, she was about 20 years younger than the next-youngest member. The organization had a website from the 1990s and no social media presence, which she helped to remedy. 

Now she serves on the county’s Air Pollution Control Advisory Committee in addition to other non-governmental boards, and brings that same perspective of meeting younger people where they’re at — which is often online. 

“How do you engage with people like me? People our age. And I’m like, ‘Sending me a 20-page letter isn’t gonna do it,’” Mahronich Vita said. “You gotta flip the switch on it and do it in more creative and unique ways.” 

Emily Kinkead, a state House of Representatives member, has sat on the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority [ALCOSAN] for about a year, and she also emphasized the importance of using social media. This can be especially important for agencies like ALCOSAN, which Kinkead described as “well known but not understood.” 

“The millennial generation brings a perspective of integrating more outreach [and] more accessible communication,” said Kinkead, 35, D-Brighton Heights.  

Tori Shriver, 28, is the youngest of the new millennial board members. She sits on the MBE Advisory Committee, which is concerned with ensuring diverse opportunities for minorities in business. County Executive Rich Fitzgerald appointed her to the role, she said, because of her work with the Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters. She’s a young woman in labor, which brings a unique perspective. 

She’s become used to being the youngest person in the room, she said. She started with the carpenters council at age 22. 

“We just hired a new person here who is 22, and I’m like, ‘Oh, she’s so young,’” she said, laughing. “It can be intimidating, for sure, but it can also be really exciting. And I think … a lot of the time, when you’re the youngest person in the room, it’s up to the other, older people, the people who have been there, to empower you to feel confident and have a seat at the table.” 

She’s only attended one MBE Advisory Committee meeting so far because she just recently joined the board, but she feels excited. 

“Everyone was really wonderful and welcoming and wanted to know more about the carpenters [council] and what we’re doing,” Shriver said. 

Justin Leavitt Pearl recently attended the first meeting of the county’s new Independent Police Review Board. At 35, Pearl is by far the youngest on the board, the others members’ ages ranging from 50 to 83. 

County Council appointed four members of the board, including Pearl, and Fitzgerald appointed another four. A final member, picked by both council and the executive, is awaiting confirmation. 

Pearl, who has a background as an activist with groups such as the Pittsburgh branch of the Democratic Socialists of America and as the director of The Atkins Center for Ethics at Carlow University, expressed a nuanced view of what it will mean to be a millennial on the new board.

“I have confidence that there are members of this board that I am going to see very much eye-to-eye with despite coming from different generations and that I’m really excited to work with who will bring a kind of depth of history that someone from my generation doesn’t quite have,” Pearl said. “People who lived through the civil rights movement, for example.” 

Still, there’s a certain mindset and perspective that he said is generally inherent in millennials, the generation that came of age with the Sept. 11 attack and the 2008 financial crisis. 

“Millennials in general have a sense of urgency around issues of justice and things along those lines,” Pearl said. “And I feel like millennials as a generation are a group that has come up during a particularly tumultuous time.”

Correction: Maria Montaño is one of several people born since 1980 serving on the LGBTQIA+ Commission. A prior version of this story mischaracterized the composition of that panel.

Matt Petras is an independent writer and educator based in the Pittsburgh area. 

This story was fact-checked by Aavin Mangalmurti.

The post Millennials gain power on Pittsburgh, Allegheny County boards appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

When the government paused federal student loan payments at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it changed Cody Fulton’s life. 

Because of monthly payments of $300 for his private loans and $600 for his federal loans, saving money had proved difficult. Being free of that $600 monthly payment empowered Fulton to make a big purchase. 

“In a little under a year and a half’s time of just getting those federal student loan payments off of my plate and not paying them, I was able to purchase a home,” Fulton said. “And, man, that is insane.” 

Now, the 34-year-old Brookline resident expects $20,000 of his roughly $100,000 student loan debt to be relieved, following an announcement by President Joe Biden of a student debt relief initiative. That will help, but what excites him most is a provision of the initiative that caps payment on undergraduate loans at 5% of discretionary income. It has inspired him to consider a potential career change several years down the line, from his current field of information technology to public history work — his deepest passion — perhaps at a museum.

“I’ve always been a huge fan of history and the importance [of what] history tells us for the future,” Fulton said. “And I feel it’s very important that the public knows that as well and shares in my love of history. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.” 

Others drowning in student loan debt won’t receive much assistance — and some won’t receive any. Biden’s student loan forgiveness program will provide substantial relief for millions but will do little to nothing for millions of others suffering the burden of their student loans. To some, the move just raises more questions about a higher education system that trades its benefits for enormous debt. 

Refinanced debt devours a paycheck

Kaleigh Mauroni graduated college with a degree in linguistics, a subject she loved but one that didn’t yield a job in that field. She refinanced her student loan debt with NaviRefi, a refinancing program offered by the student loan servicer Navient, to help control monthly payments and interest rates. She now has about $65,000 in private loans, with monthly payments of about $900.

“It’s almost all of one of my paychecks per month,” said Mauroni, who gets paid biweekly. 

The 26-year-old West Mifflin resident continues to pay off the loans, working as a paralegal. Looking back, she perceives the process of applying for loans and selecting payment plans as confusing and wonders if college was worth it. 

“I am clearly not doing anything related to my degree, but if you don’t have a college degree — which my husband doesn’t — it’s really hard to get any kind of job that pays more than like $10 an hour, regardless of whether or not your theoretical degree will actually qualify you,” Mauroni said. 

Biden’s plan doesn’t affect Mauroni’s private loans; it only forgives money from loans made by the federal government. Also, last week the administration updated the plan so that loans guaranteed by the federal government but held by private lenders would not qualify to be forgiven.

Nonetheless, Biden’s initiative will cancel $10,000 of federal student loans or $20,000 for recipients of Pell Grants, for individuals who make less than $125,000. This will benefit as many as 43 million people and completely cancel the debt for about 20 million, according to the White House’s fact sheet touting the plan. An included series of tweaks to repayment policy will also be more forgiving to borrowers, and the pause on monthly payments of federal loans will end at the start of next year. 

In Pennsylvania, about 1,717,300 borrowers are eligible for debt relief, about 988,800 of whom are Pell Grant recipients, according to a United States Department of Education press release.

More than 2 million Pennsylvania residents have student loan debt, according to a September report from the Keystone Research Center and PA Budget and Policy Center. Pennsylvania residents graduated with an average student loan debt of $39,375 in 2020. The state’s amount of student debt is fast growing, currently at $76 billion, four times the total in 2003 adjusted to inflation, according to the report. 

All or nothing?

Najeeb Shafiq, an education economist and University of Pittsburgh professor, sees the Biden plan as a smart compromise in the sea of different perspectives offered by economists and politicians across the political spectrum, ranging from no forgiveness to total forgiveness. 

“One is you do nothing, and the other is you do a lot, which is going to be very costly, so what’s the middle ground?” Shafiq said. “And I think the middle ground here was to design it in a way that was as equitable as possible and at the same time costly but not as costly as the extreme of forgiving everyone’s loans.” 

The plan has been criticized by the right as unfair, wasteful and potentially illegal. There’s been some debate about how much it will end up costing the federal government in lost revenue. White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told CNN in late August that it will cost $240 billion, but a month later, a Congressional Budget Office report estimated the cost will be $400 billion. Last week Republican elected officials from six states sued to stop the plan, claiming it exceeds the president’s authority. 

Meanwhile, the left views the move as insufficient, with progressive Democrats such as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren pushing a plan for $50,000 in relief for any federal loan borrower regardless of income. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has called for a total cancellation of private and federal student loan debt. 

Shafiq acknowledges it will help people struggling and believes it has potential to create economic stimulus as newly unburdened people buy houses and make other large purchases. He also believes it’s legitimate to argue that it’s unfair to those who decided not to go to college. 

“I think there is considerable resentment from them as to, ‘OK, so if you’re giving this fairly large amount to college graduates, who we perceive as elites, are you giving us anything?’” Shafiq said.  

Despite the criticisms and concerns, the plan polls well, with 51% in support compared to 39% opposed, according to a joint poll from The Economist and YouGov. 

The human impact 

Tracy Baton, a 59-year-old social worker and community organizer, has more than $100,000 in federal student loans after an undergraduate degree and multiple master’s degrees from post-graduate education. 

Before the pause, she had about $500 of monthly payments for her loans. Because of the more generous repayment policies in the Biden plan, she expects that to drop by perhaps $100. And because she works for a nonprofit, she will have her debt completely forgiven after 10 years of payments. 

That wouldn’t be a life-changing benefit for her but certainly a significant one — a common takeaway for recipients of relief from this plan. 

“I notice every dollar. … A hundred dollars a month is a lot of money,” Baton said. “Anybody who thinks it isn’t doesn’t understand money. That’s more than my car insurance.” 

The pause on federal student loan payments helped Taylor Stessney to purchase a house in Swissvale, which she moved into about a year ago with her partner. She expects to have $20,000 of debt relieved by Biden’s plan, but that will still leave her with about $85,000, about half of which is in private loans. 

Stessney, a 30-year-old labor organizer for the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, still has $500 monthly payments for her private loans and will have additional federal payments again once repayment resumes, which will make saving difficult again. This problem makes long-term decision-making difficult. 

“There’s a long time period where I really didn’t think I would have kids because of this debt. … It’s really timing,” Stessney said. “The amount of debt I have, I can’t afford a kid right now, and I’m not sure what that will look like in five years.”

Matt Petras is an independent writer and educator based in the Pittsburgh area. He can be reached at matt456p@gmail.com or on Twitter @mattApetras.

This story was fact-checked by Aavin Mangalmurti.

The post Washington’s student loan changes free some grads, while others keep heavy burdens appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Allegheny County will start a one-year Discounted Fares Pilot Program in mid-November, giving a test group of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients help with transit costs to shape a potential future program. 

“We know that where people live, work, shop or receive healthcare are not always the same. The cost of transportation can be a barrier to taking advantage of opportunities or accessing services,” County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said via a press release announcing the pilot, to be run by the Department of Human Services [DHS]. 

“Our goal is to find ways to help the most vulnerable in our community connect with the resources they need to benefit themselves, their families and their communities.”

A long-term program shaped by the results of the pilot may launch in late 2023, according to the press release. The pilot will use a random selection of adult volunteers who are SNAP food program recipients and younger than 65. 

The county has not yet announced the number of participants or the amount of a discount. The county will explain how to apply for the pilot program and provide other details by the end of October, according to the press release. 

Laura Wiens, head of activist organization Pittsburghers for Public Transit [PPT], applauded Allegheny County and DHS for moving forward with this pilot program. She believes this move came from an understanding on the part of the county and DHS of the need for some sort of fare relief in addition to calls from riders and activists. 

“DHS in particular has recognized how strongly transit, and fare costs specifically, acts as a barrier to movement for low-income people and really took the lead in creating and advancing this program and funding this program,” Wiens said. “And I think we have been very active in organizing riders, and riders themselves have been calling for this program for years now and, over the last two years, there’s been a strong coalition.” 

PPT has long advocated for a low-income fares program and would favor the program reducing fares to nothing, including for holders of the Electronic Benefit Transfer [EBT] cards through which the state distributes aid to families. 

“We have been very explicit that what we’re looking for is a zero-fare program for EBT-holding or SNAP-eligible households in Allegheny County, because we know that for low-income and very low-income households, even a half-fare discount or other fare discount can be an insurmountable barrier to access to transportation,” Wiens said. 

When bus fare eats into grocery money

Just Harvest spokesperson Emily Cleath said there’s always been a need for fare relief but that the pandemic exacerbated it and prompted activists to push harder as they witnessed public transit’s role in maintaining jobs or getting medical services like vaccination and treatment. 

Performing simple tasks like grocery shopping can become expensive for residents relying on public transit, Cleath said. 

“If they could just show their SNAP card on a bus, it’s a huge stress relief for them, to be able to not have to budget to go get food,” Cleath said. “They can just hop on a bus and go get the food that they need.”

Alisa Grishman, an Uptown resident who uses a wheelchair, relies on public transit. She’s a SNAP recipient and already pays half-price fares because of a discount provided by Pittsburgh Regional Transit for people with disabilities. 

However, because she uses transit so often and relies on about $900 a month from Social Security disability payments, the fare cost still proves difficult. She’s canceled doctor’s appointments in the past because she couldn’t afford bus fare that day. 

Sometimes, she’ll “walk” — meaning use her wheelchair, she explained — to cut costs. 

“There’s days that … I’ll walk to things rather than taking the bus just to save the $2.50 roundtrip if it’s going to be more than three hours, just to save that money,” Grishman said. 

Riders can benefit from slight discounts if they purchase a weekly, monthly or yearly pass instead of simply loading a Connect Card with money, but Grishman needs transit different numbers of times each week. She typically uses public transit at least three or four days a week, she said, and fully eliminating bus fares would help her “enormously.” 

“My health will benefit from that [and] just my happiness, being able to go do things for fun and not having to ration out how many bus rides I have left for the month. But people don’t think about happiness for people on SNAP,” Grishman said. “They only think about basic necessities.” 

It’s not unusual for SNAP recipient Teaira Collins to use public transit six to 10 times in a single day. The 48-year-old Hill District resident frequently rides buses to the grocery store and doctor’s appointments for herself and her children. While it has since grown, her only income last year came from Social Security disability and child support. Bus fare ate up a lot of that money. 

“To be able to even afford a weekly [pass] was impossible, because once I paid the rent, the light, the gas and my household supplies and clothes and whatever else you need, there really wasn’t nothing left over,” Collins said. 

Frustrated by the financial burden of her fares, Collins got involved with PPT about five years ago to fight for reduced fares and other changes to the local transit system. She would welcome any reduction in fares for low-income riders but believes fully eliminating fares would be best.

Through her activism, Collins has seen just how many struggling people could benefit from such a program. For the trial run, she wonders who will be chosen and how that process will function. If she isn’t chosen but people who really need it can join the pilot, she’ll be happy. 

“I’m not struggling like I was a year ago,” Collins said. “I want to see the people who are truly struggling get the help they need.”

Matt Petras is an independent writer and educator based in the Pittsburgh area. He can be reached at matt456p@gmail.com or on Twitter @mattApetras.

The post Transit fare breaks coming for some Allegheny County riders appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.