Activist and community organizer Sam Schmidt and Howard Ramsey, currently living on the streets, both of the Our Streets Collective, leave Second Avenue Commons after delivering a letter to staff and Mercy leadership, Friday, April 19, 2024, in Uptown. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/PublicSource)
A letter raises questions about “exiting” policies at Second Avenue Commons, which has been part of Allegheny County’s answer to homelessness and behavioral health challenges.
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Emerging from its second winter season, the Second Avenue Commons facility in Pittsburgh is facing criticism from housing advocates, homeless outreach workers and an elected official who delivered a list of concerns on Friday morning.
The county opened the five-story facility in November 2022, and it has 43 single-room-occupancy units, 95 year-round shelter beds and 40 overflow beds available for the winter months. Under a low-barrier model, the shelter’s operator Pittsburgh Mercy has said they serve people regardless of any substance use disorder or other behavioral condition.
But an open letter to the shelter, authored by the Pittsburgh chapter of the National Union of the Homeless and with 17 signatories, said there were numerous examples of shelter users getting kicked out for unspecified “minor infractions,” sometimes during severe weather and cold temperatures. The letter is signed by at least one person experiencing homelessness, members representing organizations addressing homelessness including Bridge to the Mountains, County Councilor Bethany Hallam and the former County Council candidate Sam Schmidt, a co-founder of the mutual aid umbrella group Our Streets Collective. Schmidt and others delivered the letter to the facility in person on Friday morning and emailed it to Pittsburgh Mercy’s leadership.
“Second Avenue Commons was meant to be a low-barrier shelter and they’re not operating like that now,” Schmidt said, adding that the shelter’s policies are vague and aren’t being effectively communicated to shelter seekers and stayers who might fall afoul of rules without even being aware of them.
Michael Turk, vice president of community and wellness services for Pittsburgh Mercy, said, “I can’t speak to specifics in the letter and there weren’t a lot of specifics.”
Turk noted that the need for shelters is greater than the beds available.
“We want to be part of the solution,” he said. “We want to continue sheltering people while other shelter options come online.”
Turk said that operating a low-barrier shelter can often lead shelter seekers to have “the assumption that there are no rules. We have reasonable rules that anybody would follow.”
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