New York City. Los Angeles. Seattle. San Diego. San Jose. These are the top five U.S. cities with the largest homeless populations. In total, more than 150,000 people.
By comparison, Pittsburgh has only 880 this year compared with 692 the year before. The surge is particularly noticeable in the Downtown area.
What we don’t want is the number to reach nearly 1600 as it did in 2014. There is hope it will not.
There’s now a fence around an area where dealers were selling drugs to dozens of people daily, but it doesn’t address the core problem.
Communities like Columbus and Salt Lake City have found success with a "Housing First" approach and Pittsburgh should do the same.
We support proposals under consideration to use city-owned land for tiny homes and temporary shelters.
Affordable housing is also part of the solution.