PITTSBURGH MAYOR ED GAINEY DELIVERED HIS STATE OF THE CITY ADDRESS, NOV. 12.
Without affordable housing, city’s Black population will continue to lessen
Bakery Square…everyone knows where it is, but just in case you don’t, it’s a sprawling community of apartments in East Liberty off Penn Avenue, across the street from the old Nabisco (National Biscuit Company) factory, and near where the old Reizenstein Middle School used to stand.
On its website, it invites people to live at Bakery Square. “Make Yourself at Home,” is the slogan.
Well, to “make yourself at home,” it will cost at least $1,742 per month for a 510-square-foot studio apartment, according to shown figures on its website, Dec. 2.
Have a few kids? A two-bedroom apartment at Bakery Square for 1,095 square feet will run you at least $3,127 per month, according to shown figures on its website, Dec. 2.
Talk about making yourself at home. That is, if you can afford it. According to data compiled by PublicSource from 2012-2016, the median income for African Americans in Pittsburgh was $26,108, and that 34 percent of Black residents lived below the poverty line.
For most market-rate apartments like Bakery Square, Walnut on Highland, Coda on Centre and other newer locations in East Liberty and Shadyside, expect to bring an annual salary of at least $54,000 to the table to even be considered for a studio or one bedroom apartment.
The lack of affordable housing in Pittsburgh does nothing but drive primarily African American residents out of the city proper, or to apartments that may not be desirable, such as the Mon View Heights Apartments (in West Mifflin), condemned in October by District Attorney Stephen Zappala as unkept and literally uninhabitable. He charged the owners of the apartment complex with causing or risking a catastrophe, a felony, as many Black residents have been fed up with the place.
PITTSBURGH MAYOR ED GAINEY (PHOTO COURTESY PUBLICSOURCE)
Housing is a complex topic. Most real estate developers want to maximize their profits by building an inviting apartment complex and then charging as much as possible for each unit. It actually makes sense, until one realizes that when the, say, 200-unit desirable apartment building is comprised of primarily White residents, it comes at the cost of Blacks being pushed out of Pittsburgh’s communities.
That’s where complicated deals between non-profit real estate developers or private developers that specialize in subsidized housing must step in and partner with cities, redevelopment authorities and other entities to build housing for people who cannot pay market-rate. There are plenty of state and federal programs and grants that help offset the cost of building these apartments or townhomes, since the monthly rent the developers receive will most likely be based on a person or family’s annual income.
Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey is well aware of the affordable housing problem in Pittsburgh. With all eyes trained on him during his State of the City Address to City Council on Nov. 12, he reiterated that increasing the supply of affordable housing has been a top priority of his administration “since day one.”
The mayor said his administration worked with City Council and the Urban Redevelopment Authority to secure the city’s first-ever affordable housing bond, which is enabling the city to invest “more than $30 million in affordable housing construction and preservation projects.”
Mayor Gainey said the $30 million equals 1,000 units of affordable housing, either to be constructed or preserved, over the next three years, and that some of those units are already in the process of being constructed or preserved in Homewood and Allentown.
“This is all on top of the 890 units completed or in construction and more than 1,000 units approved by the URA Board and in the pipeline over the past three years,” Mayor Gainey said.
Each time a ribbon is cut, or the shovel digs dirt, or the keys are handed to a family pertaining to affordable housing in Pittsburgh, it’s a win for African Americans.
In East Liberty and Larimer, the Cornerstone Village apartment complex is a bright spot in the affordable housing fight. Cornerstone Village sits across from the Target store in East Liberty, but what’s new are the additional Cornerstone Village apartments that were built this year that sit at the corner of Meadow Street and Larimer Avenue, in Larimer. Some residents have already moved in. Those new apartments are paired with 35 affordable housing units that are nearby in the former Larimer Elementary School, on Winslow Street.
Mayor Gainey was there in June for the ribbon-cutting, along with representatives from developer McCormick Baron Salazar. Seventy-five percent of the units inside the school and on Larimer Avenue are reserved for families making 20 to 60 percent of the city’s AMI (Area Median Income).
In the Hill District, the Courier reported in 2023 how $50 million in federal grant dollars would be used to help overhaul the Bedford Dwellings housing community, which is the city’s oldest public housing community. The complex would transform over the next eight years into more of a mixed-income community and about 400 more units would be added.
The Courier reported in September 2024 that the URA was preserving townhomes in the 2700 block of Bedford Avenue for first-time homebuyers making at or below 80 percent of the AMI.
Mayor Gainey has also discussed the creation of a seven-story building called “City’s Edge,” where the vast majority of the 110 units would be marked for those making up to 60 percent of the AMI. Some of the residents currently living in Bedford Dwellings would be placed in City’s Edge. City’s Edge, to be located on Colwell Street in the Hill, will also feature commercial space, an ATM banking center, a parking garage, community room, fitness center, and green space.
Mayor Gainey has also celebrated wins in affordable housing on the West End, with Cedarwood Homes’ opening this past summer. Cedarwood is a 46-unit senior affordable housing community in Fairywood, which has a community building that’s home to financial literacy, nutrition and exercise programs, and health screenings. For Cedarwood to come to fruition, private developer Tryko Partners teamed with the URA. The Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh also chipped in with $2.1 million in gap financing and Section 8 vouchers.
During Mayor Gainey’s State of the City Address, he touted the city’s OwnPGH program, which he said has put “150 low- and moderate-income Pittsburghers on the path to generational wealth all across our city by helping them purchase homes for the first time.”
And the mayor also proposed again the idea of city-wide inclusionary zoning; it would force any new housing project of 20 or more rental units to have at least 10 percent of the units be made affordable to households at or below 50 percent of the AMI. It’s something that began in Lawrenceville and some East End areas, but it’s not a city-wide implementation. It’s a bit of a touchy subject, with advocates saying it will include more people who, otherwise, wouldn’t have access to the housing development and its amenities, and others saying it will come at too high of a cost to private developers, thus actually lessening housing units in the city.
“Taken together,” Mayor Gainey said, “our affordable housing zoning package is a pro-housing and pro-tenant approach to building a city that everyone can call home.”
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