In Allegheny County’s northern suburbs, even paying the rent doesn’t always stop eviction, and affordable options are dwindling.
by Rich Lord, PublicSource
Last year, Anna Wood’s rent jumped from $920 a month to $1,783, and the retired widow could not afford it. In November, The Avalon Apartment Homes filed to evict her.
By the time the eviction complaint arrived, Wood had already resolved to leave and packed many of her things. The only question: Where can a widow, on a fixed income and dependent on public transit, afford to live?
Her grandson helped her look online, while she scoured the newspaper, solicited help from a nearby church and ran “looking to rent” classifieds in the Pittsburgh Senior News.
“I’ve been looking everywhere,” she said in a May interview, as she awaited a June 9 hearing in the eviction case. “I’m living out of cardboard boxes. I’m ready to go.”
While the affordable housing shortage isn’t confined to the North Hills, renter-heavy suburbs like Avalon and neighboring Bellevue seem to face three concurrent pressures, according to tenants, public officials and real estate professionals.
- Multifamily rental houses are being converted to single-family use.
- Eviction curbs driven by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention order are reducing the turnover in the market.
- The area’s overall supply of subsidized units is small and stagnant, thanks in part to community resistance to low-income housing.
Some officials are trying to address the problem. Six perspectives on the North Hills rental market suggest that preserving or increasing affordable housing there won’t be easy.
The Avalon Apartment Homes in Avalon, where one tenant’s rent nearly doubled to $1,783 last year. (Photo by Quinn Glabicki/PublicSource)
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Soaring rents, waning options: For tenants on tight budgets, the North Hills isn’t a friendly place
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