Allegheny County’s Board of Health preliminarily approved creating a Housing Advisory Committee Wednesday, kicking off a 30-day public comment window on the proposal.
Local housing advocates have been pushing for such a housing committee for years, and many of them said they hope it will be the first step in broader changes to how the Allegheny County Health Department regulates rental housing.
“This is a major positive first step, in my view, and in the view of many housing advocates,” said Kevin Quisenberry, litigation director for legal aid organization Community Justice Project.
Advocates have expressed particular concern for low-income tenants in poor quality rental housing, and have said those renters would benefit from protections against retaliation for health complaints, and more broadly, shifting from a reactive, complaint-driven system to a more proactive universal rental inspection system.
Ed Benz, the head of the Pittsburgh-based Active Community Real Estate Entrepreneurs, didn’t respond to a request for comment Wednesday — but told WESA in March that he opposed the creation of an advisory board because it added an additional level of bureaucracy.
"Based on my experience with other advisory committees, it's typically the people who have an ax to grind," said Benz.
During the public comment portion of Wednesday’s meeting Kate Kleinle, a community organization for the nonprofit Clean Water Action, told the board that a permanent housing advisory committee will facilitate community engagement and allow tenants who are directly impacted by housing regulations to vet and shape policies.
“The county’s most vulnerable residents are falling through the cracks. This is our opportunity to make a permanent, positive change,” said Kleinle.
Both county officials and housing advocates have said they envision the new committee would be similar to existing Health Department advisory committees that currently exist for food safety and air quality.
The committee will have between nine and 15 members, though it must be an odd number, according to draft documents provided to the Board of Health. Committee members will be appointed by the County Executive and must be approved by County Council. Members will serve three-year terms and “shall be willing to serve on the committee in the interest of public health,” according to draft revisions of Article VI — the main county code provision that governs the work of the Health Department in regulating housing.
The committee will have “a balance of representation from a variety of sectors” such as rental housing owners, landlord organizations, non-profit housing providers, rooming house operators, academic experts and community and tenant organizations.
The committee must comply with the state’s Sunshine Act, which requires open government meetings with very limited exceptions.
If approved, it wouldn’t be up and running prior to January 1, 2025.
“This is a big deal,” said Ed Nusser, Director of Housing Strategy for Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, speaking in an interview earlier this week.
“Part of this committee's charge is going to be help thinking through how county government, including specifically the health department, can create a system that ensures the protection of seniors, of children, in their homes throughout Allegheny County,” Nusser added.
A 2021 investigation by PublicSource and WESA that examined thousands of health complaints over several years questioned the effectiveness of Article VI. While many situations did resolve themselves, the news organizations found the department verified that the fixes were made in roughly two in every five cases, and assessed just nine penalties.
At the Board of Health meeting in March, board members approved some updated housing code regulations to Article VI, though those were primarily technical or non-controversial updates to items like requiring more carbon monoxide detectors.
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