A new homeless shelter in Downtown Pittsburgh opened its doors Tuesday.
Second Avenue Commons, a new year-round shelter on Second Avenue, opened at 2 p.m. It will be available for overnight shelter starting Tuesday night.
The daytime program, known as the Engagement Center, will open for walk-in support starting at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
The shelter has 95 beds, with room for an additional 30 overflow beds.
Second Avenue Commons and its daytime engagement center are operated by Pittsburgh Mercy and Pittsburgh Mercy’s Operation Safety Net. UPMC will operate a primary care clinic at the site, dubbed the UPMC Second Avenue Commons Health Center, that is scheduled to open at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
The shelter has 43 single-room units, which are not currently available as a walk-in service. Outreach workers are working with people who are experiencing homelessness to get the necessary assessments and prioritize who can move into them.
Homeless individuals began moving into those single-room units late last week, officials said.
This comes as city officials have said they are hoping to relocate people from homeless encampments into the Second Avenue Commons. Earlier this month, officials began clearing out an encampment under the 10th Street Bypass, where they said crews needed to clean the site.
The winter shelter that has been operating at Smithfield United Church of Christ on Smithfield Street will continue to support people in need of shelter from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.
Related:
• New homeless shelter to open in Downtown Pittsburgh
• Winter shelter to open for homeless in Downtown Pittsburgh
• Pittsburgh officials hoping to move homeless people from encampments to new shelter
