Pamela Henderson wiped tears from her eyes as she recalled moving her three sons into a friend’s house after losing her job about 10 years ago. A year later, she opted to move into her mom’s home, a decision she thought would be temporary while she saved for a home of their own.
Today, she still lives in her mom’s Whitehall home, and she struggles to keep up with bills as she runs her own cleaning business.
“There are four working adults living in this house, and none of us can afford to live without each other,” she said to a crowd of around 100 last week. “So, it just kind of feels hopeless as a single parent right now, I feel like I can’t grow or chase after my dreams anymore.”
Last Thursday, community members gathered to discuss the affordability crisis at a town hall event hosted by Pennsylvania United at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s Homewood branch. Several residents told their stories in front of the elected officials present, including state Rep. Abigail Salisbury, D-Swissvale, and Pittsburgh councilors Deb Gross and Barb Warwick.
Town hall participants — as well as social media commenters and respondents to a recent Pittsburgh’s Public Source request for reader input on prices — called for improved affordability in housing, groceries and utilities.
Inflation has been higher than normal since the COVID-19 pandemic. Tariffs and the U.S. attack on Iran, alongside changes to Medicaid and SNAP food benefits, have also raised the cost of living for many. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 restricted eligibility for Medicaid and SNAP coverage, and provisions will also cut billions of dollars in funding for both programs over the next decade, resulting in millions losing health insurance coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Some residents said they are losing hope as they are forced to accept shared living arrangements, multiple full-time jobs and inadequate housing. Three proposed state House bills aim to help.
Joshua Malloy, one of the town hall organizers and director of Pennsylvania United’s Pittsburgh chapter, said conversations with community members indicated a crisis. He heard from people whose insurance skyrocketed amid Affordable Care Act rollbacks and others frying flour and water for sustenance after losing SNAP benefits.
“I’ve knocked doors all over Pittsburgh and across the full spectrum of people, across all identities, and the commonality from everyone is that things are just too expensive,” Malloy said. ”People are frustrated, people are tired and people are angry.”
Wages down, beef and egg prices up
Over the past five years, the average electric bill for an Allegheny County resident has increased by 42%. Even with this increase, Allegheny County has some of the lowest electric bill rates in the state. Throughout the year, water bills will increase by 15% for the typical Pittsburgh Water customer.
Pittsburgh’s Public Source recently asked residents for their opinions. Community members wrote about their experiences with high electric bills, gas bills, and costs for transportation and groceries. Audrey Glickman of Greenfield wrote to Public Source that if wages increased at the same pace as housing, rent, tuition and cars, the rising costs would be “more palatable.” Real household income, though, has declined in the state since peaking in 2019.
Jean Givner, a Wilkins resident, was finally able to buy a house for her family during the COVID-19 pandemic, she said during Thursday’s town hall. Today, she works two full-time jobs to help support her kids and four grandchildren, and her family still struggles to make ends meet.
“We have absolutely zero margin for error on the financial side,” she said. “Any surprise cost, any emergency expense, big or small, and the bottom will fall out on my household.”
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, grocery prices have fluctuated over the past five years. The prices of tomatoes and bread have stayed relatively stable at around $2 per pound, while ground beef has substantially increased from $4.50 per pound in March 2021, to $6.68 currently.
“Every time I go to the grocery store I have to decide between buying healthy foods versus low-cost, lower-quality foods for my family,” Givner said. “I have to purchase clothing for my grandkids to share and hope the materials last long enough to be passed down to each other.”
Legislation seeks to level tax playing field
Henderson is hoping to eventually find housing in the city to give her kids their own space but feels like it isn’t possible on top of her bills. “I’ll make enough money to get by, to pay for the car to get to the job, to where there’s no money left at the end of the month,” she said. “I’m borrowing money to take my kids to the movie theater, so that they can have some kind of a normal life.”
As she called for solutions, such as taxing the wealthy, the crowd cheered, some attendees becoming emotional with Henderson.
At the end of the town hall, Malloy discussed three proposed state bills with the attendees:
- House Bill 1610 would, its sponsors argue, close loopholes for large Pennsylvania corporations which avoid paying taxes by operating companies out of state while profiting in Pennsylvania.
- H.B. 1678 would levy new taxes on big tech companies, like Google, Amazon and Meta, for profits made on digital advertising.
- H.B. 141 would increase taxes on earnings from passive income, such as revenue from stocks, real estate and trusts, to potentially fill gaps in funding for programs like Medicaid and SNAP.
The bills are supported collectively by the advocacy coalition Tax Billionaires, Fund PA which seeks to increase taxes on large corporations to redistribute money through state programs to help people of middle and lower incomes. Rep. Salisbury signed onto all three bills after Thursday’s town hall.
Apartments: Applications alone unaffordable
Teaira Collins sat on the town hall stage as she addressed the crowd. After Collins had two back surgeries in 2016, she lost her job and was denied disability. Two years later, her house went into foreclosure. Since moving into emergency Section 8 housing in 2018, she has struggled to find a permanent residence and a home to accommodate her disability and her son, Judah, who has Down syndrome.
During that time, she said, one place she moved into had stairs, which she struggled on with her back, and another charged her an unexpected amount of rent. Most recently, she found out her landlord is selling the house she rents in Greenfield, and she will have to move for the fourth time since her housing struggles began.
“When is the world going to wake up and actually start helping people become self-sufficient?” Collins asked during the town hall. “We only get to the first step, and then we get knocked back down to the bottom.”
While rent for a one-bed apartment in Pittsburgh is around $150 lower per month than the national average, application fees and security deposits prior to renting are holding Collins back from taking the next step.
“If I have to pay $50 to $100 application fee for each place, and I’m looking at 45 places, how can I afford to move?” Collins asked.
Earlier this year, Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed a housing plan that includes a statewide cap on rental application fees.
Collins hopes her next home will have a bathtub for her son, who struggles with sensory issues in a shower, but has little faith she will receive the help she needs.
“This system needs to be torn apart and rebuilt, and it needs to be rebuilt by the people that it serves,” Collins said.
Correction (5/8): Pittsburgh Water serves most of the City of Pittsburgh and a few surrounding neighborhoods. A prior version of this story mischaracterized the agency’s service area.
Sophia Lucente is a freelance reporter and photographer in the Pittsburgh area and can be reached at sophia.lucente@outlook.com.
This story was fact-checked by Jamie Wiggan.
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