Additional beds open for homeless Pittsburghers as winter approaches

John Goosby has lived under the Liberty Bridge in Downtown Pittsburgh for a month now.

He said a series of unrelated events led him there, including a romantic partner draining his bank account and then disappearing.

The 74-year-old retired steelworker used Social Security money to buy a thick winter jacket, a couple blankets and a soft pillow. Each night, he props his makeshift bed atop three cardboard boxes so he doesn’t have to feel the cold touch of the cement ground.

Despite it all, Goosby remained optimistic Wednesday.

“You’ve got to live with it, make the best of it, but I pray every day that something’s going to happen,” Goosby said. “This is the story of my life. But I’m going to make it.”

On Wednesday night, with winter fast approaching, the Downtown shelter Second Avenue Commons opened 40 additional beds in its cold-weather overflow shelter.

Goosby is among those waiting for a spot at the shelter, which has been running near or above capacity since opening in November 2022.

The additional beds, which are first-come, first-served, will be open 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. seven nights a week through March 15, officials said. Those staying in the overflow beds receive a warm place to sleep indoors, a mat, a blanket and a hot dinner and breakfast. Partners and pets are welcome.

“Pittsburgh is changing. It used to be that people could afford an efficiency or a studio (apartment),” Allegheny County Department of Human Services Director Erin Dalton told reporters Wednesday. “There is not a single room in Allegheny County that people can use (Social Security payments) to afford.”

Homelessness is up in the region.

In January, Allegheny County’s “Point In Time” census tracking the number of people experiencing homelessness counted 913 homeless people living in Allegheny County, up from 736 in 2022.

As recently as Tuesday, 723 people were living in emergency shelters in Allegheny County, according to a DHS dashboard. An additional 197 people were living on the street or in encampments.

Though rising, homelessness in Allegheny County isn’t at a peak, county data showed. That happened in 2014, when the “Point In Time” census recorded 1,573 people experiencing homelessness.

The number dropped to a low of 774 people in 2019, then started climbing during the covid-19 pandemic.

Homelessness doesn’t discriminate.

More than 200 of the 913 homeless Pittsburghers this year were deemed “chronically homeless,” which means they’ve been homeless for at least 12 months or on at least four separate occasions in the last three years, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

About 47% of homeless Pittsburghers are Black and 42% of them are white, county data shows. Thirty-six of them are veterans, while more than 150 are children.

‘It’s going to be a desperate winter’

Officials admit they’re facing a deficit.

Shelter capacity in Allegheny County has grown 65% in the past two years, officials said. Additional work has yielded another 80 “temporary overflow” beds, 40 of them at Second Avenue Commons.

But there are about 370 year-long beds for more than 720 people, county data showed. An additional 150 to 200 people are living each night on the street.

Light of Life Rescue Mission is one of the groups fighting the odds.

Based on Pittsburgh’s North Side, Light of Life offers emergency shelter beds, food services and a long-term housing program for men, Executive Director Jerrel T. Gilliam said.

There are 52 emergency shelter and “overflow” beds for men at Light of Life’s North Shore shelter on Voeghtly Street, Gilliam said. Eighteen additional beds are for women and children. At 665 Ridge Ave., near the Community College of Allegheny County’s Allegheny campus, Light of Life offers 12 more cold-weather beds along with long-term programs.

“The homeless situation has grown,” Gilliam said. “We’re already near capacity and the weather hasn’t changed. It’s going to be a desperate winter for us here, we fear, in Pittsburgh.”

‘A nationwide lack of attention’

DHS last week announced that it’s working with Pittsburgh to launch a new emergency facility when Second Avenue Commons reaches maximum capacity or if another shelter has facility problems. Days earlier, the city shut down a homeless encampment near First Avenue in Downtown.

Dalton, the DHS director, declined to say Wednesday where that emergency facility is based or how many beds are available there. County officials also recently floated the idea of building a small homeless shelter in Carrick.

Allegheny County, possibly for the first time in decades, now no longer uses space for a shelter on Smithfield Street in Downtown Pittsburgh. On June 21, it closed down the overnight shelter it regularly operated at Smithfield United Church of Christ.

Initially open only on the coldest nights of the year, the Smithfield Street shelter had started operating nightly from November through mid-March. This year, demand was so high, it stayed open into the summer.

Jon Colburn started attending services at the church 15 years ago and became its parish administrator last year.

“As a person of faith, I believe I’m never asked to give something I don’t have to give,” Colburn told TribLive. “What Smithfield United Church of Christ had was space. And we had space to give.”

Earlier this year, Colburn said he got a glimpse of America’s homelessness problem when he and his husband trekked to California and back.

“Every town we were in, from St. Louis to Moriarty, N.M., in every place we went, there were unhoused people,” Colburn said. “They were in parking lots, under bridge abutments, in every place and in every state.”

HUD has estimated there were more than 580,000 people experiencing homelessness nationwide in 2022.

“This isn’t a Pittsburgh problem or an Allegheny County problem,” Colburn said. “This is a nationwide lack of attention to the least of our brethren. We are not being attentive to our folks in need.”

Support services are key

Wrap-around services also are key are battling homelessness, multiple nonprofit leaders said.

In addition to aiding people experiencing homelessness with housing, Pittsburgh Mercy, the nonprofit that runs Second Avenue Commons, offers behavioral health treatment, including mental health and substance abuse programs, officials said. The agency boasts intellectual or developmental disability services. It also offers community services.

The organization estimates it serves about 18,000 people in all four areas each year, spokeswoman Linda K. Ross said.

Temporarily sheltering the homeless, though, is not the answer to a nationwide problem, Pittsburgh Mercy leaders said Wednesday.

“Emergency shelters have become the narrative for the solution for homeless people living in the streets, but an emergency shelter is just that: it’s used in emergencies,” said Annette Fetchko, executive director of Uptown-based Bethlehem Haven. “We need the ability to more attentively develop supportive and permanent housing.”

Bethlehem Haven — founded four decades ago in Smithfield United Church of Christ — estimates it has provided nearly 13,000 nights of shelter to women in Pittsburgh. It serves 60,000 meals annually. It aides around 600 men and women each year in its health and wellness clinic.

The facility has launched plans with ACTION Housing to develop 34 low-income, affordable housing units Uptown, officials said. The $18.2 million project will get underway in February with demolition of existing building and work is expected to be completed in early 2025.

“We need to develop a continuum where these people get the right services at the right time,” Fetchko said. “There’s a short-term and a long-term goal, and we need to keep our eyes on both.”

‘I need to be selfish and take care of me’

Wednesday night’s low temperature were expected to dip near the freezing mark, according to Lee Hendricks, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Moon. Thursday will be warmer, with temperatures in the low 40s, but a chilly weekend is approaching.

On Saturday night, the National Weather Service expects temperatures in Pittsburgh to drop to about 30 degrees, Hendricks said. Sunday’s lows are in the 20s. No significant rainfall is expected.

Goosby sat under his bridge Wednesday afternoon and said he wasn’t worried about the cold.

“I’m used to this type of weather, it doesn’t bother me,” Goosby said. “When it gets too cold, I’ll find somewhere to go until it warms up. Then, I’ll come back and start all over again.”

Ryan, a man experiencing homelessness who asked TribLive not to publish his full name, said he planned to sleep Wednesday night in Second Avenue Commons.

Ryan has family in Pennsylvania, but he said that when he fled an abusive partner in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., and arrived at Pittsburgh International Airport 10 days ago, nobody was there to greet him.

The former human services employee slept in the Findlay airport for a night, then found a bed Downtown. He said this was the first week that he’s ever spent in a homeless shelter.

Ryan said he’s getting familiar with the city. He walked to a nearby library this week to work on his resume.

“I think I want to take care of something — a building, maybe,” he said.

First, he said he wants to work on stabilizing himself and needs time to heal — a sentiment expressed by several people at Second Avenue Commons. Trauma is a big part of the homeless experience, officials said.

“I need to be selfish and take care of me.”