Without an intervention Pittsburgh City residents will be driven out of their neighborhoods and perhaps out of the City by the lack of affordable housing. Currently there are plans to build an additional 12,000 units in Pittsburgh over the next few years. But there is no complementary unified plan to increase the total amount of affordable housing units in Pittsburgh. There needs to be a process and plan to protect Pittsburgh’s low and moderate families from being displaced.
Although every neighborhood in the East End has a housing problem, their specific situation varies. Each neighborhood has strengthens and weakness, opportunities and challenges. These contiguous neighborhoods by collaborating will be able to use the overall East End strengthens and opportunities to combat their neighborhoods weakness and challenges. The Initiative’s overall strategy will gives the City the best opportunity to lessen the affordable housing crisis in the City’s East End.
Each neighborhood is in a unique economic and demographic position, so the solutions must also be tailored to each community. The East End of Pittsburgh has some of the City’s fastest growing development corridors (East Liberty), the largest new public housing development (Larimer-Choice Neighborhoods), one of the greatest neighborhood concentrations of African-American homeowners (Lincoln-Lemington-Belmar) along with one of the City’s most blighted neighborhoods (Homewood).
Click on the HELP communities on the right to learn about the history and current situation of each neighborhood.