Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato is on the City Cast Pittsburgh podcast talking about some of the county's big achievements over the past year, how she's navigating federal funding cuts, affordable housing, and more. Here's a snippet of our interview.
500 in 500 — your initiative to create 500 affordable housing units in 500 days — just celebrated its first birthday. That feels kind of momentous.
It really is. We still have until October, but we've housed over 300 people across hundreds of units. And these are units that wouldn't be available but for us bringing the table of people together to design this program. And it's gonna live on beyond day 500, which is really exciting.
A lot of what 500 in 500 was — yes, bringing units online that were offline in the Housing Authority's portfolio [and] working with developers to set aside units for people who were in our shelter system, but a lot of it was actually streamlining bureaucracy and making it work better for both property owners and for the people who were using our shelter system and were in need of a safe, stable, and affordable home.
In the true spirit of Allegheny County, where we have 130 municipalities and hundreds of fire departments, police departments, and 43 school districts, we also have three housing authorities. So where it worked best was really just getting the city and the county to work together.
Now people who own property are having a better experience interacting with the housing authorities. We're putting people in units in a much quicker fashion, and it's ultimately not costing a whole lot of money.
You recently launched 1st Home Allegheny, a first-time homebuyer program for county residents. Why was this program and tackling the concept of ownership so mission critical for you?
Our approach to creating housing for all is an “all of the above” approach that involves getting folks out of our shelter system into safe, stable, affordable housing. It's also creating more homeownership opportunities because those are individuals who grow roots here, who are less likely to move, who can build a family, and ingrain themselves in a community. And it was really important for us to create a product that worked with middle-income Allegheny County residents who want a little piece of that American dream. 1st Home Allegheny is our commitment to making that happen. It's a few million dollars we put aside to help people with all of the closing costs that come along with purchasing your first home.
And so this is about having an economic development strategy that invests in the people and the businesses that are already here, because sometimes we can think about what's outside of the borders of Allegheny County and outside of Pennsylvania and say, how do we attract people here? And that's absolutely necessary. But like, what about the people here? What about the people who've called this place home for generations, that wanna stay here and are proud to be a yinzer and know all there is to know about Pittsburgh? How do we make sure that we're caring for our neighbors in the big spectrum of our economic development strategies?
Pittsburgh is hosting the NFL Draft in 2026. You recently got to attend the 2025 event in Green Bay. I've heard you say you're not necessarily a sports person, but is there anything you saw there that made you go, "That's cool. I want that here!"
It was really hard not to get into it, because it's just electric. I loved that the moment I walked off the plane in Green Bay, that there was like a tailgate [in the airport]. They were like, "spin this wheel, eat these cheese curds, take a photo." I was like, "Oh, the energy is HERE." And then everyone who was part of their chamber and their tourism group, they had bags that they were handing everyone out with just a taste of local Green Bay.
So I think [it's asking ourselves] how do we create a very Pittsburgh experience the moment people set foot in our region? It'll be a lot of fun to really show off what we have to offer. Yes, we're a sports city, but we also have great arts and culture. We also have beautiful scenery and wonderful parks, and we have emerging industries like life science and technology and some legacy ones like eds and meds and steelmaking and manufacturing. So come see what we're all about. And we have some really great people who live here and I know we're gonna be neighborly to the folks who come and make them wanna come back and spend their money some more and maybe move here.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Check out the full interview and tinker with the county’s new Balancing Act budget tool to find your tax receipts, make a mock budget, and more.
