Pittsburgh leaders push for more transitional housing to address homelessness

Members of a Pittsburgh City Council committee dedicated to addressing homelessness on Tuesday outlined their vision for more transitional housing in the city.

Transitional housing is meant to be more stable and longer-term than the traditional overnight shelters, and it would offer the privacy and safety of single-room occupancy, as well as a variety of services designed to help people rebuild their lives.

Pittsburgh and Allegheny County have relied “too long” on traditional overnight shelters, said Councilwoman Deb Gross, D-Highland Park.

“Sometimes you weren’t able to get a place, and you were asked to leave in the morning,” she said. “That is not housing and it certainly wasn’t helping anybody get their lives back. That’s not good enough for our neighbors who are unhoused.”

Council members said Second Avenue Commons, a new shelter that offers both single-occupancy rooms and congregate space in Downtown Pittsburgh, is a step forward. The committee suggested transitional housing would be a logical next step for people who could move out of Second Avenue Commons to a site where they could live for up to two years, receive an array of services and work to transition to permanent housing.

Gross said the transitional housing would have 24-hour support services, including job training, addiction services, mental health help and food services.

“These are places where people can really feel safe and stay,” she said.

The committee teamed up with Pittsburgh-based DLA+ Architecture to come up with proposals for what transitional housing might look like in the city. DLA+, which offered the help at no cost to the city, designed Second Avenue Commons.

The first proposal, which officials referred to as “Second Avenue Commons Two,” would mimic the design of the new shelter but include only single-occupancy rooms with no congregate living spaces. Renderings showed a proposed five-story building with about 114 residential units, plus a full-service kitchen and dining area.

Councilman Anthony Coghill, D-Beechview, who headed the committee, estimated such a building would cost between $18 million and $20 million.

The second proposal featured a tiny house community, which Gross said would be a “quicker, faster option” to build. The idea, she said, would be to build about 20 tiny homes with a common area where people could go for services they might need.

The third option presented Tuesday called for redeveloping an existing building to accommodate transitional housing. That also would be faster than building a new structure, Gross said.

Coghill said he would like to see the city use a combination of all three proposals.

Officials did not have estimates on what the second and third proposals might cost. Officials also did not have a timeline for when they might be able to move ahead with a project or projects.

City Council legislation introduced in August required the mayor’s office to identify parcels that could be used for such purposes. Maria Montaño, a spokeswoman for the mayor, could not offer an update on those efforts and said she did not know when they may have a list of potential parcels ready.

Councilwoman Erika Strassburger, D-Squirrel Hill, said she is working to convene a team that includes representatives from government, philanthropic organizations, nonprofits and businesses, as well as people experiencing homelessness. She said she’d like to “almost replicate the process” that led to the creation of Second Avenue Commons.