Our Community Wellness programs are crucial for the city of Pittsburgh, especially for our city’s historically disadvantaged Black and Brown Communities. While Pittsburgh has been deemed the Most Livable City in America for several consecutive years, it also has a long standing history of segregation and racism which has been amplified, especially over the past several years.

Published in September 2019 by the City of Pittsburgh’s Gender and Equity Commission, Pittsburgh’s Inequality Across Gender and Race report illustrated just how staunchly disproportionate life is for Black residents in this city.

A few short months later, Pittsburgh found itself in a State of Emergency due to COVID-19, another situation that highlighted the lack of resources existent within Black and Brown communities. In historically Black areas such as Homewood, where there are no grocery stores, no convenience stores, a single rundown clinic, and a limited gym, residents struggled to survive during the 18-month quarantine.

If one also considers the consistent trend of police brutality, even here in the Steel City, the picture of life for Black Pittsburghers is bleak at best. All of these ingredients have allowed for the perfect storm, driving particularly, young Black residents out of the city in droves.

As Pittsburgh is striving to advance and become a metropolis of the East Coast, it is crucial that the culture of the city changes as well. It is oxymoronic to be making forward advancements in areas of medicine, technology and business while simultaneously driving out the very people that aided in building this city’s foundation, discouraging diversity.