PITTSBURGH — More than 100 people filled a meeting room underneath the Pittsburgh Housing Authority offices Thursday to speak for and against a proposed homeless shelter in Polish Hill.
The 150-bed proposal would serve as an overflow facility for the 92-bed Second Avenue Commons shelter, operating at night with dedicated shuttle service from the main facility.
The “low barrier” shelter – meaning most adults would be welcome – would be located on Bigelow Boulevard, where the road makes a bend in its route between Downtown and Oakland.
Attendees to the Pittsburgh Zoning Board of Adjustment meeting were fairly evenly divided between supporters and opponents. Almost everyone who spoke was a resident of the blocks surrounding the shelter.
“I’m the son of a social worker who worked with children facing homelessness, and so this matter is really important to me,” John Rhoades said, tearing up as he explained his support.
Rhoades and other supporters countered many of the narratives that have emerged about the shelter. Opponents said there was no parking for anyone who lived out of their cars and not enough space for a shuttle to maneuver without holding up traffic. Rhoades said the building used to house U-Haul rentals.
Opponents have also cited the community’s safety and security. Earlier this year, records provided to 11 Investigates showed police were called to Second Avenue 500 times in six months.
Supporters like the location because kids don’t play on Bigelow Boulevard and the hill removes the property and the adjacent industrial offices from the residential part of the neighborhood.
“I know that so many of them are caring,” Rhodes said. Many of the supportive speakers said they experienced homelessness at one time and welcomed a safety net located in their own neighborhood, which they said had a history of caring for the less fortunate.
That wasn’t enough to convince the opponents, who – in addition to the parking situation -- worried about the shelter closing as kids waited for the bus and about the alleyways that connected Bigelow to the rest of Polish Hill.
Many focused their critiques on the building itself, rather than who was going to be occupying it.
“If you had less residents and it wasn’t an overflow, and you were helping like people that fostered out and stuff of that matter, and you gave them their own place, their own decency of living, not living on a cot like you’re in a jail or something like that, yes, I wouldn’t have a problem,” Quint Weaver said.
The board members requested responses from attorneys by Christmas Eve, likely pushing a decision to the new year.
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