Editorial: Audit reveals Allegheny County’s unacceptable failure in matching homeless to available beds
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There is a simple currency in providing service for the homeless.
Is there a person who needs a warm, safe bed in a building with a roof? Is there a bed available? Bring the two together.
The problem of homelessness is much larger than that, of course. It involves dozens of other issues like mental health and unemployment and affordable housing. It’s a complex issue that requires greater long-term, interagency planning.
But connecting people with a place to sleep? That’s a kindergarten-level matching game.
The audit showed up to 58 transitional housing units — more than one-third of the 148 reviewed — left empty at points during the period covered between July 2022 and December 2023. That time period was part of a review of the county’s spending of $12.6 million in state funds on a homeless assistance program.
There could be reasons a homeless person wouldn’t take advantage of available shelter. That was seen in January, for instance, when an encampment was cleared out by Pittsburgh officials in the wake of Mon Wharf flooding. While three people were relocated to a shelter, others declined and sought out their own alternatives.
That was not what happened with the beds in question, according to O’Connor’s audit. While those 58 units were left empty, there were more than 400 people on waiting lists for a bed.
That’s unacceptable.
The homeless population in the county has increased by almost 70% in just three years, going from 689 in January 2021 to 1,164 this year.
The ideas for addressing the long-term needs are good. Tiny houses? Give it a shot. A plan to move people from emergency shelters to transitional housing to establishing permanent housing in an 18-month period? Absolutely. Let’s get this done.
But this continues to be an issue where the chronic illness should be more complicated but everything falls apart with first aid for the bleeding wound.
The region has struggled with providing shelters. There have been issues with underestimating the need, like when the Second Avenue Commons opened in 2022 and immediately filled to overflowing. In 2023, Allegheny County assured people there was a plan for winter needs but didn’t detail them — other than saying it wasn’t using the Downtown winter shelter it had previously utilized at the Smithfield United Church of Christ.
O’Connor called this a larger, systemic problem with a domino effect, and he is half right. It is a bigger problem with the whole system.
But a domino effect? The real way you play dominoes isn’t by standing them up unsteadily and knocking them over in a line. It’s by matching the dots on one end of a domino to the dots on another. O’Connor’s audit shows that’s exactly where the county is breaking down.