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When women return to the renovated Bethlehem Haven in 2024, chocolate-brown interior walls will be refreshed with pale paint colors accented by subtle blues, greens and mauves. Natural light will stream through all-new windows at the Uptown women’s shelter, and French doors will lead to an outdoor patio.
“This is a very positive solution [to homelessness] and will finally be a therapeutic place,” says Kate Colligan, senior manager of development for Bethlehem Haven.
The four-story, brick structure at 1410 Fifth Ave., built in 1902 as a bank, is currently undergoing a $3.2 million rehab and is expected to reopen in the spring.
Upgrades include converting shared rooms into single-occupancy units for 26 women, adding laundry facilities and kitchenettes on each residential floor, a new elevator, new roof and insulation. Basement storage space will be transformed into an activity room and staff lounge.
The renovation comes as the city’s homelessness crisis is escalating; many in the Pittsburgh region cite it as an issue that keeps them from coming Downtown to work or patronize restaurants and cultural events.
Since a shelter operated by Allegheny County in the Smithfield United Church of Christ, Downtown, closed its doors in June, the county has been working with the city of Pittsburgh to find extra beds for people experiencing homelessness during severe weather.
A total of 744 people were in emergency shelters in Allegheny County on Dec. 11, with 475 from adult-only households and 269 from households with children, according to the county Department of Human Services’ dashboard that tracks homelessness.
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That’s up 23 percent from 603 total on Dec. 11, 2022, with 409 from adult-only households and 194 from households with children, the dashboard reported.
While Bethlehem’s Haven renovated space won’t add beds, it will improve the services it offers, say officials of the nonprofit.
“This will allow us to put all our efforts toward healing women, not worrying about leaky roofs and windows that don’t open,” says Colligan.
“Homelessness is not a new public health crisis,” says Annette Fetchko, Bethlehem Haven’s chief executive. “Since opening our doors in 1981 to women experiencing homelessness, we have been at capacity.”
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Fetchko says, the shelter “experienced a dramatic shift in the demographics of the women” it serves.
Besides women steeped in “generational poverty and trauma,” she says, many women during the pandemic became homeless for the first time or began aging into homelessness.
At Bethlehem Haven’s separate emergency shelter at 905 Watson St., Uptown, about 50% of those served are age 50 or older, says Fetchko.
That emergency shelter has capacity for 28 beds and adds spaces for women during the winter months.
That facility also includes a newly renovated health and wellness clinic that offers care for women and men who lack insurance or resources.
The clinic is staffed by Pittsburgh Mercy Health System, the nonprofit that since 2016 has operated Bethlehem Haven as a wholly owned subsidiary.
Many women who stay at Bethlehem Haven’s flagship facility on Fifth Avenue have physical disabilities and mental health issues that prevent them from living independently.
Besides a bed and meals, they receive help with financial literacy, job searches and, in some cases, counseling to put them on a path to permanent housing.
“We feel it’s really critical to be able to get people into safe, affordable housing to stabilize their most critical needs and work with them to develop life skills,” says Fetchko.
During renovations, Bethlehem Haven’s residents have stayed in temporary housing in Shadyside.
The project is the first phase of an ambitious plan that includes building 34 new, affordable apartments adjacent to Bethlehem Haven.
That development, Uptown Flats, is a partnership of Bethlehem Haven and ACTION-Housing with an estimated cost of $18.2 million.
To make space for the new units, Bethlehem Haven acquired four properties on its Fifth Avenue block – including the now-shuttered Ace’s and Deuce’s Lounge and a former post office – and will raze them.
Plans call for Uptown Flats to offer studio, one- and two-bedroom units for low-income residents who can access wraparound wellness and counseling services provided by Bethlehem Haven.
Construction is scheduled to begin in February.
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Gerard Schmidt, senior project manager with LGA Partners, architects who designed Bethlehem Haven’s renovation and Uptown Flats, says developers and designers met with multiple community groups in Uptown and the Hill District while planning the project and all are “excited about the transformation of the neighborhood.”
“The nuisance bar and the vagrants will be gone,” says Schmidt, whose firm is also located in Uptown.
Funding for Bethlehem Haven’s renovations includes a $750,000 grant from the state’s Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program; a $425,000 grant from the state’s Local Share Account; $450,000 from the Henry L. Hillman Foundation; and grants from McAuley Ministries, Eden Hall Foundation and others.
Uptown Flats will be funded primarily through the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit program with BNY Mellon as the tax credit investor, says Colligan.
Catherine Montague, interior designer, is gathering feedback from female residents who occupied the shelter before the rehab.
They will help select bedspread patterns and towel colors, and their input already has resulted in adding phone chargers for each room.
“Our approach was to get them really involved and to feel included,” Montague says.
Joyce Gannon is a Pittsburgh-based freelance writer.
