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A portion of the money from Pittsburgh’s Stop The Violence fund will be used for resources for tenant protection after a final approval by City Council on Wednesday.
The measure allocates money for eviction prevention by offering support services for low-income renters — those with incomes at or below 80% of the area’s median — who are facing housing instability. Those funds can be used to provide free legal representation for tenants facing eviction in court, along with landlord-tenant mediation and help with accessing rental assistance.
“Investing in mediation, resource navigation, and legal assistance up front is better for our families and for the system as a whole,” bill sponsor Deb Gross told WESA on the eve of passage.
All council members aside from Theresa Kail-Smith signed on as cosponsors. Kail-Smith, who has previously expressed concern about oversight of city trust funds, was also the lone “no” vote on the legislation Wednesday.
After the vote, Kail-Smith said she supported helping residents stay in their homes, but would have preferred the money for tenant assistance be taken from somewhere other than the Stop the Violence fund, like a Housing Opportunity Fund focused on providing more affordable housing options.
“The funding for Stop the Violence is intended for stopping the violence,” she said. “Having people in housing is absolutely a priority, but ... there’s a lot of separate efforts, and I think it actually would probably be more beneficial to have all these efforts together and help people navigate the system.
“I think the ultimate goal is to make sure people stay in their homes, people find housing, and that we're not creating additional issues or problems or victims because we’re not doing it right," Kail-Smith added.
The measure could allocate up to 20% of Stop the Violence fund revenues, which are set as a percentage of the city’s budget for policing. Mayor Ed Gainey spoke in support of the initiative when it was proposed earlier this summer.
“As we heard in public testimony, we know that it’s in our poorest neighborhoods, and especially in our female-headed households in those poorest neighborhoods where we see the highest number of evictions,” Gross said when the measure was discussed at a council meeting last week.
By keeping households stable, Gross emphasized at the time, the program will benefit renters, landlords, and the surrounding community.
“It’s for the common good and for our city’s health to bring that number down and help slow that eviction rate.”
Not everyone was enthusiastic about the proposal.
Craig Kostelac, president and owner of the Landlord Service Bureau, said he was concerned that the program would take funds away from the intended purpose of Stop the Violence when other programs for legal aid already exist.
“Why are we taking taxpayers’ money for victims of violent crime and giving it to a lawyer when Neighborhood Legal (Services) is doing this for free already?” he said. He added he is considering a legal challenge to halt the policy.
Organizations speak in support
Council passed the bill with little fanfare Wednesday. But representatives from housing advocacy and community groups spoke in support of the legislation during public comment last week. A similar roster of groups gathered to advocate for the “Right to Counsel” earlier this year.
David Breingan, executive director of Lawrenceville United and co-chair of the Pittsburgh Housing Justice Table, told council that the program could help create a stronger community.
“Evictions just have absolutely devastating effects on households, but also the broader communities,” he said last week. “In communities like ours in Lawrenceville, we've seen massive levels of displacement as the housing market has changed. So really, right-to-counsel policy is really about ensuring that every tenant is represented if they're facing an eviction so that we can keep more families in their home.”
Landlords can benefit from provisions in the legislation that help renters access rental assistance, he said.
Based on experience in the neighborhoods where the program has been offered, “A lot of folks are just facing a one-time emergency,” he added. “Having that resource navigator to connect to rent assistance, mediation or whatever the case may be to help stabilize that home, not just through the eviction, but long term, is really critical to addressing our housing crisis where it's most keenly felt.”
Sam Schmidt, a housing justice advocate who has experienced homelessness, said last week that legal protections for tenants can help prevent illegal evictions and people falling through the cracks.
“While these measures are not the ultimate solution,” Schmidt said, “they are necessary to shield our neighbors from the worst abuses of a system that prioritizes profits over people.”
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