The former McNaugher Education Center in Perry South on Monday, Dec. 2, 2024. The former school is now a community resources mall and the new Allegheny County emergency winter shelter. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/PublicSource)
The Allegheny County Department of Human Services is prepared to transport unhoused people from Downtown — where many previously sheltered during the winter — to a former school in Perry South. City human relations officials question the decision.
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Allegheny County has broken with tradition and commissioned a new winter shelter in Perry South, taking a service for people who are homeless that had long been Downtown to the North Side’s interior — a decision criticized by a Pittsburgh agency tasked with civil rights enforcement and investigating discrimination.
On Oct. 21, the county’s Department of Human Services [ACDHS] announced the opening of the new winter shelter on Maple Avenue, in the former McNaugher Education Center school building in partnership with the North Side Partnership Project and Community Family Advocates. It opened on Dec. 6.
“New shelters aren’t going into Highland Park, Shadyside, Oakland, and of course not Downtown,” said Chris Soult, deputy director of the city’s Commission on Human Relations, during an interview. “These are places where political power doesn’t want them.”
He said they are instead going to “places that are deeply stretched for these resources.”
Neither North Side Partnership Project [NPP] nor Community Family Advocates [CFA] previously focused on running shelters. NPP co-founder English Burton said the 30-year-old organization’s main focus is dealing with gang violence and violence prevention. CFA has specialized in short-term projects, often standing up efforts and handing them off to other organizations, including some in the workforce development and housing spaces.
NPP is hosting the shelter space in a former school building, partly undergoing renovation, where they’re also headquartered.
Community Family Advocates has hired around 16 people to operate the shelter, said Fay Boland, the nonprofit’s executive director. The agency also rounded up cots and other supplies and entered into necessary contracts for supplies and services.
CFA found out that it won the contract “maybe six weeks ago,” Boland said on Dec. 13, calling it a “very short” time frame to hire and procure supplies.
In a press announcement, ACDHS said the Perry South shelter was chosen because the 90-plus beds there “will have sufficient capacity to shelter anyone who needs a safe place to stay this winter.” The department later said the North Side site was chosen through a competitive solicitation process.
The city Commission on Human Relations is a civil rights enforcement agency that investigates discrimination issues and provides resources to people about their rights and advocates for adding people experiencing homelessness as a protected class.
Soult said he hears criticisms among people in outreach organizations and those experiencing homelessness.
“Shoving people to places in corners where there are even fewer resources won’t help people pull themselves up by the bootstraps,” said Rachel Shepherd, executive director of the commission. “Everyone needs support.”
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to us that you had a very familiar situation with the winter shelter Downtown and you decided to move it,” Soult said, referring to the longtime shelter in Smithfield United Church of Christ. The county decided to permanently close the shelter last year.
Soult said that the Downtown area serves as a transportation hub to other parts of the city and that many social services are available in the area, but is no longer hosting a shelter due in part to business and commercial interests “exerting power in this city” amid pressure to clean up Downtown.
Some of the internal emails between ACDHS staff, provided to PublicSource in response to a records request, include the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership [PDP], a private nonprofit that operates cleaning crews and represents the area’s business interests. The emails focus largely on shuttle service and logistics around moving people from Second Avenue Commons in Uptown to other shelters. The PDP last year helped to transport unhoused people from Downtown to an emergency winter shelter in the Hill District.
Those emails show that ACDHS had settled on the North Side location by Sept. 26. PDP President and CEO Jeremy Waldrup was asked to keep the decision confidential, according to the emails.
“DHS is not working closely or coordinating with PDP on winter shelter planning,” wrote Mark Bertolet, the ACDHS spokesperson, on Dec. 12 in response to questions about PDP’s inclusion on emails.
“The purpose of this email was to begin planning for the ancillary supports, specifically the shuttle service,” Bertolet said. “We needed to share some information with PDP so that we could begin to plan how the shuttle would operate this winter.”
Perry South is considered to have a high level of economic disadvantage. According to a 2020 city report about food insecurity, Perry South is considered a needs area for healthy food where “the city and its partners need to prioritize investment and support.” Identifying Perry South and other impoverished areas as places of “food apartheid,” the city is looking to bring more resources and investment to these places to “advance food equity,” per the report.
“You cannot just push poverty onto poverty,” said Soult. “You’re only going to create more problems.”
Last-minute occupancy permitting, hiring
In July, the county released a request for proposals, calling for qualified organizations that could operate a winter shelter for up to 75 people per night. With a submission deadline set for Aug. 15, a decision was expected by November, according to the county’s request.
The county on Oct. 21 announced that the new facility would open on Dec. 11 or sooner if the current shelter system reached capacity.
Design firm citySTUDIO sought to expedite the permitting process. Emails beginning in early October show citySTUDIO in discussion with the city’s Permits, Licenses & Inspections department, and on Oct. 14 informing the department of its application for a temporary certificate of occupancy for the winter shelter.
Cold weather arrived on Nov. 30, with temperatures dropping to 21 degrees. The city didn’t provide occupancy permits for the shelter until Dec. 6, at which time the Perry South shelter became operational.
“The capacity is definitely needed and it looks like the county is doing all the right things and getting it open,” said Brian Knight, a member of the county’s Homeless Advisory Board and the community engagement director for the Homeless Children’s Education Fund, in a Dec. 5 interview with PublicSource. “We just wish that all of this would be ready a month ago so that with this cold snap people would have the extra shelter option.”
Knight said that there was a need for extra shelter space before Dec. 6, illustrated by Second Avenue Commons — sometimes called 2AC — having to set up impromptu bedding.
ACDHS said transportation would be provided through coordination with Second Avenue Commons staff and regular shuttle services starting on Dec. 11.
“DHS has been regularly monitoring the utilization of shelter beds throughout the system and collaborating with 2AC staff to help ensure people seeking shelter at 2AC are transported to empty shelter beds across the shelter system,” wrote Bertolet in a Dec. 2 response to questions. “Additionally, DHS worked with shelter operators to further expand overflow capacity during the recent cold snap.”
Shelter drawing 15 or more per night
The McNaugher Education Center was built in the early 1900s and served as a school for various age groups through the 20th century. The North Side Partnership Project moved into the building in 2018, and rechristened it the Community Resources Mall. Visitors to the building in early December were met with signs asking them to excuse the building’s appearance “while we’re under construction,” a notice about removing lead and a sign barring the possession of firearms in the building.
To prepare the new shelter on Maple Avenue, North Side Partnership Project installed a new HVAC system for the entire building along with the addition of smoke detectors, fire strobe lights, emergency exit signage and lighting, according to Bertolet. Washers and dryers were also installed.
On Dec. 2, NPP founders Eleanor Williams and Burton said that while the building was safe for occupation, construction was ongoing as the organization seeks to create more space, including on the second floor where they planned on having the shelter.
Boland said shelter occupancy hovered between 15 and 30 people per night during the first week of operation, anticipating more heads in beds now that the shuttle is running.
“I think the location will work out pretty well,” said Boland, adding that last year’s “Code Blue” system, in which an emergency shelter opened only in extreme weather, “was sporadic. The communication wasn’t done as well. So I’ll be anxious to see how this works out.”
Eric Jankiewicz is PublicSource’s economic development reporter, and can be reached at ericj@publicsource.org or on Twitter @ericjankiewicz.
This article first appeared on PublicSource and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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