Residents and businesses on Pittsburgh’s North Side are banding together to petition the city to shut down a center that provides services to people experiencing homelessness and needles to people struggling with addiction.
Those businesses said East Ohio Street has become the site of overdoses, thefts and assaults — creating an unsafe environment and keeping customers away.
Lauren Bradley and her husband renovated a building on the street and turned it into an upscale espresso bar and shop, but she says all that street activity is keeping customers away.
“Lack of foot traffic, people feel unsafe, financial hardship for a small business,” said Lauren Bradley of Annex Espresso and Goods.
The outreach center opened during the pandemic and is run now by the city’s street outreach team, providing social services that include free needles. Though the center is well-intentioned, businesses say it’s become a magnet for people struggling with addiction who shoot up drugs in alleyways and overdose on East Ohio Street, where KDKA found syringes and Narcan packages.
“Having it located on East Ohio Street in the middle of a vibrant business district is not the right location for it,” landscape architect John Buerkle said.
Also citing a spate of recent assaults and thefts, the business owners have petitioned the mayor to move to the center. Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Lee Schmidt confirms the city is actively searching for another location, but he says that’s not as easy as it sounds.
“We have to be strategic, otherwise all we do is move the problem around over and over again,” Schmidt said.
Like the decommissioning of homeless encampments, Schmidt said the city doesn’t want to relocate the center only to repeat the problems somewhere else. But the business owners say they’ve had enough and want action now.
“You’re not going to close it down immediately?” KDKA’s Andy Sheehan asked Schmidt.
“Not immediately,” he said. “We do have every intention of moving it to a different location. We’re just asking for a little more time to find a good location, so we’re not just constantly moving it every six months or every year.”
The center will stay on East Ohio Street at least for the next several months, while the city tries to figure out which neighborhood will have it.
