Pitt's History in Greater Hazelwood

2000s

In 2000, the University of Pittsburgh was awarded a Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC) grant from HUD. Led by co-PIs Sabina Deitrick of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA) and Tracy Soska, School of Social Work, along with Pitt’s Governmental Relations Office (COPC Manager John Wilds, Assistant Vice Chancellor), an earlier iteration of the Office of Engagement and Community Affairs,  the COPC grant was pivotal for Pitt's relationship with Greater Hazelwood. Pitt’s COPC linked schools and research centers across campus with community partners to develop neighborhood revitalization and planning projects, build community organizational capacity, establish health and wellness initiatives, and address poverty reduction through education, employment, and entrepreneurship. In 2004, the University received a New Directions grant from HUD to expand its COPC efforts in Hazelwood and Oakland.

Through COPC, Pitt partnered with the newly-formed Hazelwood Initiative to initiate an eight-year agenda of capacity building: aligning student interns, class projects, and research efforts to increase and expand upon the Hazelwood Initiative's community organizing efforts. The work focused on communications, membership recruitment, organizational development, and housing studies. The work also helped with grant writing and data collection, enabling the Hazelwood Initiative to bring on additional staff. This additional staff eventually allowed the organization to expand The Homepage, a community newspaper that provides nearly 10,000 households each month with news and advertising that speak to shared concerns and interests of Greater Hazelwood, Greenfield, the 31st Ward, and Four Mile Run. An Urban Studies’ student pictorial study of past/present places in Hazelwood led to HI’s effort to preserve and stabilize the Wood’s House – the second oldest stone house in Allegheny County – which is today a repurposed whiskey tavern.  COPC interns also supported Hazelwood’s Main Street Initiative, which helped advance Hazelwood Initiative’s community development capacity.

The center also began aligning University student interns with other organizations to help create stability within the partner network including the Hazelwood YMCA, Center of Life, and the Council of Three Rivers American Indian Center (COTRAIC).  In addition, UPMC and the School of Medicine worked with Hazelwood Initiative to establish the Hazelwood Initiative – Healthy Outreach Promoting Empowerment (HI-HOPE) health outreach to address health disparities in the community.  While UPMC’s role was short-lived, the HI-HOPE outreach office continued with funding for a State Health Improvement Partnership (SHIP), a community-based health outreach initiative that PA was establishing in neighborhoods and community throughout the state with Tobacco Settlement funding.  In addition to student interns, COPC was able to provide AmeriCorps VISTA through the Southwest PA Regional Network to Grow Service Learning (SPRING). AmeriCorps members were placed through the campus-based Collegiate YMCA.  Many COPC schools and programs continued outreach through internships, capstones, and other service learning initiatives, including the School of Social Work and Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, which anchored the COPC grants. In total, COPC developed over 50 paid internships for Pitt graduate and undergraduate students, including 15 with Hazelwood partners. A 2007 GSPIA Capstone class, Assessing the University of Pittsburgh Community Outreach Partnership Center, evaluated the COPC along its stated mission, including providing students with experience in community development and concluded that “the COPC has been important in the development of student interns and their role in the community … (and learning) about the critical issues that Oakland and Hazelwood face on a daily basis.”

In the Spring of 2001, students from the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA), participated in a capstone study in economic development, policy and planning for the neighborhood of Hazelwood. The outcome was a comprehensive report (Hazelwood: Making New Connections) that presented themes and future recommendations for the master planning of the former LTV site. To this day, similar studies are conducted and shared both locally and globally.

From 2006 and continuing today, the Graduate School of Public Health began placing graduate students each summer in Greater Hazelwood organizations to develop capacity-building projects in public health. One notable outcome of this program has been an enduring partnership with the Center of Life, through which the Krunk Movement public health rap initiative was created.

From 2007 through 2020, the Swanson School of Engineering completed 11 design projects on topics ranging from designing trail way connections, facility, accessibility, multi-modal solutions, and rain harvesting.

From 2011 through 2013, Pitt’s University Center for Social and Urban Research conducted two significant reports that presented information on the current condition of the Hazelwood community across a broad range of indicators. One report, Hazelwood Property Investor Research Report, examined the housing market in the Hazelwood neighborhood through an in-depth analysis of residential property investor activity. This study helped to inform strategies, investments, and other actions to work to revitalize Hazelwood. The other report, The Hazelwood Neighborhood (2010), includes combined data totals for both Hazelwood and Glen Hazel neighborhoods with key findings on population; housing, markets, and real estate; physical conditions; safety, voter turnout and education; and finally, the economy.