Pittsburgh leaders look to revitalize East Ohio Street as businesses call for help
Pittsburgh leaders and their partners are making a concerted effort to revitalize a North Side business district. But to do that, they must also address the impediments there — namely, panhandling, drug use and prostitution.
This week, Mayor Corey O'Connor walked East Ohio Street with merchants asking the city to address these problems. The trip showed a tale of two streets.
On one end, there are new upscale restaurants, a floral shop and a bakery. On the other, a block of vacant, blighted buildings.
Mayor O'Connor walked end to end, offering the city's help in continuing the revitalization.
"This is a great entryway into the North Side and into the North Shore. You have great bones here. Now it's us building around those bones to create active spaces," Mayor O'Connor said.
The city's Urban Redevelopment Authority this week announced a $600,000 grant for facade work to attract more small businesses. This is on top of millions of foundation dollars — both spent and proposed — to refurbish the street.
But the group is also looking to the city to address challenges posed by a nearby encampment and the neighborhood's homeless population.
"It's obviously looking at all resources, all hands on deck, to help these individuals," the mayor said.
In a meeting before the walk, the group cited panhandling, street drug use and sales, as well as prostitution, as barriers to redevelopment.
Pittsburgh Bureau of Police Chief Jason Lando told the group that police are making arrests, but the offenders are soon back on the street. The business people want the city to come up with what they're calling a compassionate solution to help homeless people while curbing these problems.
"A compassionate solution and businesses that want to prosper. Smart people are in this administration, so how can we solve these challenges?" questioned architect Bob Baumbach.
To that end, the city is closing and relocating a nearby homeless outreach center, which the merchants say has also become a draw for drug dealers to prey on the people who use it.
The city says it's working with the county's Department of Human Services to get people off the street and into housing, though the mayor says the region needs hundreds more units.
"We know a lot of it is mental health, drug addiction as well; that's why we're working with the county DHS to provide more beds, more spaces," O'Connor said.
Like the recent administrations before it, the O'Connor administration has inherited the problems of homelessness and how to compassionately address problems of poverty, drug addiction and mental illness while keeping neighborhoods and public space safe and clean.
Like the revitalization of this street, it is a work in progress.
