How Diamonte Walker’s Hill District roots shape her housing mission at Rising Tide Partners

PITTSBURGH — As Pittsburgh continues to lag behind demand in its affordable housing stock, many organizations have been working to try to solve this issue. Rising Tide Partners has spent the past five-plus years building up a portfolio of homes that are near disrepair or where residents were at risk of being displaced, in neighborhoods that have historically seen disinvestment from city stakeholders, including Homewood, Hazelwood, Wilkinsburg and others. Diamonte Walker has come in, after years helping to lead the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh as deputy executive director and serving as the inaugural CEO of the Pittsburgh Scholar House,to be Rising Tide Partners’ second-ever CEO, aiming to begin working on the next phase of developing their large portfolio of properties.

How did growing up and living in the Hill District impact your worldview and the work that you do today?

My great-great-grandparents came here in the late 1800s, coming out of the agricultural south. I’m a fifth-generation Hill District resident. Everything you like about me, you can attribute to the Hill District. If there’s something you don’t like about me, you can attribute it to the Hill District. I am incredibly proud of the community that I’m from. I feel like I received a world-class education just by leaving my front doorstep every morning. I grew up at a time where we were dealing with a pervasive crime issue in the Hill District. There were scary times, which is why I cannot be intimidated. I’m not afraid of hard work. I know what it means to be a team player.’