Guest Blogger: Jon Russell, Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh

Jon Russell, MPIA-HS, 2014

This summer I had the pleasure of serving as the intern in the Housing Department of the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh (URA).  This appointment took me all the way from Pittsburgh to… Pittsburgh, so needless to say, the move was stressful.  When first arriving at GSPIA back in the fall of 2012, I capitalized on a connection I had within the URA and set up a lunch meeting with the director of the Housing Department.  After an official interview in February, I was offered a summer internship with the URA.  (Let me be an example that networking actually does pay off!)  By the second week of May, I was deep in the throes of my URA responsibilities.

The seemingly insurmountable task laid before me was the completion of the HUD Larimer Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Grant Application (CNIG) for $30 million to revitalize the Larimer section of Pittsburgh.  The project was spurned by a desire on the part of the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh (HACP) to replace the East Liberty Gardens and the Lincoln/Larimer public housing units.  These units are in severe disrepair and do not serve their residents adequately.  HACP partnered with the URA, the City of Pittsburgh, the Kingsley Association, East Liberty Housing Corporation, East Liberty Development Inc., the Larimer Consensus Group, Jackson Clark Partners, McCormack Baron Salazar, and Urban Strategies to implement the work of the Larimer Consensus Group and the Larimer Vision to Action plan which outlines the community’s desire for their neighborhood.

The Larimer CNIG has three primary components to its funding structure; Housing, People, and Neighborhood.  The Housing section is headed by the HACP and provides the applicant with $21 million to rebuild the public housing units.  The People section provides $4.5 million to work with the residents of the public housing units to get them back on their feet by providing individuals with employment and educational opportunities.  The URA is the lead entity on the Neighborhood section which provides $4.5 million for the rehabilitation of the entire Larimer community.  I was responsible for working with all of the CNIG partners as well as URA staff to craft a neighborhood strategy that was faithful to the Larimer Vision to Action Plan while simultaneously remaining financially feasible.  This involved attending weekly community meetings at the Kingsley Association and phoning in on weekly CNIG planning team conference calls.  Once a policy was decided upon, I drafted a description of it, worked to create a budget for the initiative, and identified key partners in the implementation of the policy.  The combined efforts of the CNIG partners and the community leaders of Larimer resulted in a competitive application to HUD which will be submitted on September 10.

While the Larimer CNIG application demanded most of my attention, the URA staff found tasks to occupy the rest of my time.  I worked on drafting URA Board of Directors Agenda items, completing multiple Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission Section 106 Project Review Forms, compiling a PA Department of Community and Economic Development Keystone Communities Grant Application for Wood Street Commons, and developing multiple Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for various development projects in the City of Pittsburgh.

This internship at the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh equipped me with skills in community engagement, in writing grant applications, and in creating project budgets as well as providing me with valuable experience in public administration, especially in an urban setting.  (The networking opportunities alone would have made this internship worthwhile.)  I will continue to work part time at the URA during the fall semester.