Our journalists spend countless hours with individuals and communities, uncovering complex stories that often carry hidden gems, which we’re now polishing off for you. Here’s what people are telling PublicSource about the issues important to Pittsburgh.
“We make sure we purchase our coffee and donuts from a place like that. You take care of companies that take care of labor.”
— Darrin Kelly, president of the Allegheny/Fayette Central Labor Council
“The funeral homes that are looking for white male employees are going to run out of white male students.”
— Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science and Point Park instructor Chelsea Cush
“Imagine if the other thousands of nurses that work at the other hospitals were to get on board.”
— John Hobdy, a nurse at UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital
“It’s unfortunate that Pittsburgh Public hasn’t necessarily hired those wonderful [students]. We’ve lost them to other districts.”
— Katie Salinetro, teacher in the Pittsburgh Public Schools Emerging Educator program
“Do I want to cede the future to a place where the generosity, the friendliness, the optimism, the the hope that is inherent in most nonprofit missions is extinguished?”
— Peggy Outon, nonprofit consultant and founder of the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management
“Our power never came from the [NLRB]. It’s just a tool that’s used to support us. … Our power always came from our membership.”
— Cas Borowitz, organizer for Starbucks Workers United and shift supervisor at a Starbucks in Pittsburgh
“This really helps to get things into memory for kids because it is involving their movement and their vision.”
— Taylor Erickson, reading tutor
“This was about making sure they had a say in their future and that they were given support necessary to transition into safe, long-term housing.”
— Muhammad Ali Nasir, known as MAN-E, of Community Care and Resistance in Pittsburgh
“I have to live in a bubble, you know, in order to not succumb to an attack. And I think that’s just a new reality that I’ve come to accept so long as I’m living here in Pittsburgh, or really near any major pollution source.”
— Qiyam Ansari, board president of Valley Clean Air Now
“We don’t have any funds for anything at all. And that’s what you chose to do with your money.”
— Rebecca Goldstein, who has experienced homelessness in Pittsburgh
“We will be heard. You will hear us. We will fight for America. Will you?”
— Kali McLaughlin, an organizer with Indivisible
“She just became so excited and proud talking about how she was like Attorney Woo. She got to a point where she was kind of proud of it.”
—Maribeth Hamel, mother of a daughter on the autism spectrum
“This could have the same harmful effect as running highways through Black and brown communities in Pittsburgh. We should make sure we’re doing this correctly.”
— Connor Hayes of Lawrenceville, speaking at a City Planning Commission meeting on inclusionary zoning
“All of us as international students here, even when we are OK in terms of migratory documents and we have our visas and everything, we can be scared too of what is changing.”
— Alejandra, a University of Pittsburgh student from Colombia
“Some of the architectural significance of gay bars of that period is that they’re pretty low profile because it wasn’t necessarily safe to be out. The anonymity is part of its architectural significance.”
— Dade Lemanski, who nominated Donny’s Place for historic designation
“America should be a leader on humanitarian grounds, not only in things like space or wars.”
— Khara Timsina, director of the Bhutanese Community Association of Pittsburgh
“I don’t know how they got away with it for so long.”
— Jerome Maynor, 74, who was denied continuation of methadone in the Allegheny County Jail in 2021
“We haven’t had a leader in a long time. It’s just amazing. Having Trump in makes us feel very safe and secure.”
— Kathy Wagner, a Shaler Republican activist
“Our mothers and their babies are dying [of] preventable causes, and that is unacceptable. Those numbers should be zero.”
— Dr. Margaret Larkins-Pettigrew, OB-GYN, senior VP at Allegheny Health Network and new member of the Allegheny County Board of Health
“A lot of the organizations, the agencies that are available to assist the community need to have one central communication center so that information can be branched off instead of doing little pockets of care.”
— Jacqueline Ruple, advocate for the Alzheimer’s Association
“For me, I want the developers to have a relationship with the community and we can’t do that with only one meeting.”
— Sonya Tilghman, executive director, Hazelwood Initiative
“When you’re talking about this, you have to make a choice, either move your history forward or lose it.”
— Stanley Lowe, member of Manchester Neighbors
“So my dream has come true. And, you know, right at the end — you never know when it’s going to happen — but right at the end, because I’m really trying to retire.”
— Keith Giles, executive director, First Step Recovery Homes
“When Blacks were rejected from an establishment, they built their own.”
— Gwen Cole Strickland, whose mother, Bettie Cole, chronicled Black Sewickley
“We have zoning for a reason. It was made to stop money-hungry developers from building unsafe structures.”
— Adrienne Johnson, longtime Fineview resident
