Innamorato declares success in 'bold' goal to house 500 people in 500 days

For three years, Andrea Johnson alternated between living in a storage unit and sleeping in shelters that made her uncomfortable.

“The shelters, as you can imagine, weren’t the best,” Johnson, 30, said Tuesday, recalling bedding down around drug addicts and having unpleasant interactions with shelter workers.

Johnson wanted to find stable housing. But she didn’t have savings and her poor credit score made it hard to secure an apartment.

That changed when she connected with Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato’s signature 500 in 500 initiative, which focused on creating 500 units of affordable housing in 500 days.

Through that program, Johnson recently secured an apartment in Pittsburgh’s East Liberty neighborhood.

“I got the keys and it was amazing to move in and just feel like you had a place to feel safe and feel like you could exist,” she said. “So much stress just lifted off of me. And I’m just so grateful.”

Innamorato just over 500 days ago unveiled her hallmark affordable housing initiative, setting for her administration a “bold but achievable goal” of providing 500 new units of affordable housing to the area’s lowest-income residents.

The goal, she said, was to move 500 people out of temporary shelters and into permanent housing — and to do it in 500 days.

Innamorato at a press conference at the Flats on Forward mixed-income housing development in Squirrel Hill said officials exceeded the goal.

Johnson is one of 622 people who moved from the street or shelters into affordable housing since Innamorato announced the program in June 2024.

But the program hasn’t created 500 units of affordable housing yet. As of Tuesday, county officials identified 568 units of affordable housing, but 82 are still under construction.

Of those 568 total housing units, 387 are occupied by the more than 600 people who have been assisted through Innamorato’s initiative.

Innamorato touted the program as a success, standing between two gold ‘500’ balloons.

“We did something government isn’t typically known for — we set a very bold and tangible goal,” Innamorato said of the initiative.

“We met and we exceeded that goal,” she added.

The project hit close to home for Innamorato, who has experienced housing insecurity firsthand. As a teenager, she bounced among 10 different places before graduating high school.

“I know what it’s like to not have a safe, stable place to call home,” she said.

Allegheny County Department of Human Services Director Erin Dalton said the county was “overwhelmed” with homeless people as it emerged from the covid-19 pandemic.

Shelters exceeded their capacities, forcing people to live on the streets. Shelter beds were slow to become available, as people lived longer in emergency shelters because permanent affordable housing was hard to find.

There was pressure, Dalton said, to expand shelter capacity.

“But shelter was never going to be enough,” Dalton said.

People wanted permanent housing.

The 500 in 500 program repaired existing housing units that had been sitting empty and prioritized moving people from shelters into units made available through the city and county’s housing authorities and other private landlords.

County officials slashed red tape to make it easier for low-income residents with housing choice vouchers to find suitable homes in various municipalities throughout the county, Dalton said.

The county implemented new technology to help case managers match people with suitable units and provided additional supports to tenants to ensure they could stay in their homes.

Of the 622 people who have been placed in affordable units through the program, 97% have remained in their new housing and not returned to homelessness.

“More than just providing housing, we restore hope,” Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey said.

U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, credited local officials and their private partners — which included developers, housing advocates and the philanthropic community — with addressing homelessness.

“Those are real results,” Lee said. “That’s real impact. And those are real people whose lives and futures are being drastically changed.”