Affordable housing was main issue found in Allegheny County improvement survey
County Executive Sara Innamorato surveyed residents to build data on what Allegheny County needs for five months. But in the end, less than 2% of residents even responded.
“If you think of it as a way to get started and if you look at the spread of the participants it was pretty representative of the county,” said Elaine Luther, an Economics Professor at Point Park University.
The topics range from safety to education, but one focal point for the administration is housing for all.
“The pandemic moved a lot of workers online and people who were living in expensive cities say, ‘Hey I don’t have to live in San Francisco or Chicago. My family lives in Pittsburgh, I can buy a house it will cost me half as much and I can telecommute,’” said Dr. Azadeh Block who’s an Associate Professor at PennWest University at California.
Dr. Block said that the move has impacted affordability for those still working here and forced families into a constant rental cycle.
“They cannot save up, children need things and you that universal basic income would help, childcare costs going down would help, transit that is reliable and got them to their place of work would help,” Dr. Block said.
That can be seen in the survey results with 23% of the responses wanting more affordable, high-quality rental options. Nearly 35% of them come from those 24 and younger.
It’s something Innamorato is hoping to tackle.
“What the survey results tell us is that people are looking for an “all of the above” strategy when it comes to housing. That means we need to create and sustain more pathways to homeownership and support existing homeowners, especially seniors and low-income folks, so they can remain stable in their homes. A lack of affordable housing is a significant driver of our homelessness crisis so we must protect and expand affordable rental housing. We can build stronger communities by addressing blighted properties and building more attainable housing options for residents at all stages of life and income levels. In the Innamorato Administration, our approach is going to be to bring as many partners to the table for creative solutions as possible. We just hired the County’s first Director of Housing Strategy to help facilitate the creation and implementation of programs to help tackle this urgent problem,” Innamorato said.
When it comes to this survey, affordability is sought across the county and income levels. It’s not just solving the homeless crisis, so how do you find the solution for all with this new data?
“If you start with here are some facts how do we interpret those facts do we need more evidence for that and use that to build persuasive arguments to support target programs at first you can at least do something,” Luther said.
Innamorato plans to release her action plan on Wednesday to the public following these survey results.
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