Pittsburgh City Council gave tentative approval Wednesday to a $8.3 million investment in expanding affordable housing for the city’s homeless and other at-risk groups. But discussion around the initiative reflected a clear divide between council members and Mayor Ed Gainey on how to best serve the city’s most vulnerable residents.
“I would have loved to have seen this money allocated differently,” said City Councilor Anthony Coghill. “We have an immediate problem right now that I don't feel like we're putting enough of this money into.”
At issue was Gainey's plan to grant the Urban Redevelopment Authority roughly $6 million of an $8.3 million federal housing grant designed to support the homeless and other at-risk populations including survivors of domestic abuse. The URA would use that money to develop more affordable rental housing. The plan earmarks another $1.5 million to support nonprofits seeking acquisition of private units that could include dorm-style buildings. Other expenses would cover support services for residents and administrative needs.
The plan was proposed as part of a package of bills before council Wednesday which also included paying a consultant nearly $58,000 to help compile the federal grant application.
There is little dispute that the city suffers from a shortage of quality housing for households in poverty. But a philosophical divide between the branches has emerged about how to solve the growing issue.
City Council has focused its recent priorities on those experiencing outright homelessness on the street, floating ideas like converting office space into shelters and building tiny home villages. Council, led by Coghill and Councilor Deb Gross, has focused on people living in encampments who wish to find safer accommodations.
But all of those ideas have languished after failing to earn Gainey's support. And on Wednesday, members expressed frustration that they weren’t involved in the planning process for the federal grant before Gainey's staff came to them for final approval.
“I would have liked to have a lot more money go toward immediate need to get people out of the encampments,” Coghill argued.
The $1.5 million Gainey's plan allocates for that purpose is to be spent on so-called “non-congregate shelters." According to the city’s application to HUD, that means accommodations must include private rooms for qualifying individuals, which makes them different from the gymnasiums and church basements lined with cots the city has historically used.
Portions of that money would be directed to nonprofits looking to provide private shelter space or expand similar offerings, according to the city’s Office of Management and Budget.
But it’s not clear how much new shelter capacity the money would be able to support: The large-scale downtown shelter Second Avenue Commons cost a reported $20 million.
And while council’s focus has been on low-barrier options to help people out of camps, Gainey's team says a more lasting solution is to create longer-term affordable housing. That will free up a bottleneck in shelters, they argue, and allow people on the street access to a bed.
On Wednesday, URA officials told council that some “shovel-ready” projects could begin freeing up that space as soon as fall of 2025.
“We do have a couple of projects that we feel are shovel-ready,” said Quianna Wasler, the URA’s chief housing officer. “This could be the last piece of financing to get committed into their projects.”
Wasler said the Allegheny YMCA and a North Side collaboration between Action Housing and Bethlehem Haven Shelter, for example, could create permanent housing in 18 to 24 months.
Some council members questioned why the URA hasn’t invested more in such ventures before now.
“We’ve been giving the URA a lot of money,” City Councilor Theresa Kail Smith said. She noted that the city had already supported other URA affordable housing projects, including issuing a $30 million bond that is expected to cost the city $60 million over roughly 20 years.
“When I look at all the funding we're spending, there should not be homeless populations downtown," Kail Smith said.
Though most members who spoke during Wednesday’s meeting were critical of the proposal, councilors said they recognized that withholding a vote could mean delaying critical support for the city’s most vulnerable. Coghill and Kail Smith abstained from voting, while other council members all voted in favor of the bills.
But Kail Smith said there would be a condition to their final approval: Members said they wanted to meet with the mayor to discuss their priorities and how the city could work together on the issue. Otherwise, Kail Smith said members could delay final passage.
According to the city's customary timetable, the bills would receive a final vote as soon as next week.
Communication Breakdown
Wednesday's debate over the proposal indicates that city government remain on different pages about housing policy, an issue that first emerged last summer. And it appears the branches have traded playbooks on homelessness. In June, council members stressed more emphasis on transitional housing models while the Gainey administration had prioritized finding more shelter space.
But in addition to crossed wires on strategy, members also lamented a lack of communication between both sides of the hall.
“We have basically two separate tracks of conversation about what to do about homelessness in the city,” said Deb Gross, who alongside Coghill has tried to advance half a dozen proposals to get people off the street over the last two years.
The pair said that although they'd met with Gainey's office about those ideas, they were unaware that the administration was working on its own proposal for affordable rental housing.
Coghill, citing a spike in the number of communication-related hires in city government, said Gainey “hired so many people for communications, and not one person communicated with us on this.
"This should have been run by us before it came to us for a vote," he added.
In a statement, Gainey spokesperson Olga George rejected the notion that the plan was developed in secrecy, arguing that “everyone was alerted” and could have attended meetings about the proposal.
She contended that council “had ample time to review the public record and engage in the public hearing,” but said she was thankful to city council “for their feedback.”
“We all do our best to communicate and even over-communicate to the city and its residents,” she said.
In a 146-page application submitted to the federal government last year, the city included emails to council members about the proposal and advertisements about public meetings.
In the application, the city said the decision to emphasize affordable rental properties was based on data analysis and meetings with housing agencies and community groups
“Those processes took a year and a half and involved the public,” George said. “Councilwoman Barb Warwick was the only councilperson to attend the plan’s public hearing last year.”
But council members said that two years of public outcry about tent camps along major roadways should have been considered. And during Wednesday's meeting, Warwick too said she was confused about the city’s long-term solution for homelessness. She said she feels like the city is “just frozen around this issue.”
“Given the amount of concern that this council has put into it,” she said, “it would be nice to just have a clear [plan for] what are we doing literally in the next month?”
Councilor Erika Strassburger stressed that council’s exclusion from the process was a symptom of the way city government works in silos. She suggested that the city begin compiling quarterly briefings about efforts to increase affordable housing at all economic levels.
“This set of bills are kind of the punching bag for our frustration,” she said. “We are not part of the bigger conversation here.”
Councilor Bob Charland echoed those concerns.
“This isn't just about this bill. Conversations are happening with council members, but not happening with council as a body," he said. "I continue to be frustrated.”
