Poverty in focus at Community Action Southwest breakfast
Those in attendance at the Community Action Southwest legislative breakfast on Friday included, from left, CAS board President Michael Chaido, state Sen. Camera Bartolotta, CAS CEO Darlene Bigler, state Rep. Pam Snyder and state Rep. Brandon Neuman.
From left, Community Action Southwest Vice President of Finance Joseph Perotti, Greene County Commissioner Dave Coder, CAS board member Brian Uplinger, CAS board member Lugene Calderone, CAS Director of Senior Services Stacy Stroman, Greene County Commissioner Blair Zimmerman and CAS Director of Nutrition Services Rosa Snyder-Boyd take part in Friday’s CAS legislative breakfast in North Strabane Township.
Greene County Commissioner Blair Zimmerman said the natural gas industry has “been a blessing and it’s not been a blessing.” One example of the latter is that it’s driven up the rates landlords ask from their tenants.
In the heyday of the Marcellus Shale boom, landlords sometimes raised the monthly rate on a house that might normally have gone for $400 a month to about $1,000 or $1,200, he said.
“Now we no longer have those pipeliners or gas people here, and these houses are sitting, and these people – after they were receiving those dollars – wanted to continue, and these houses are sitting now. And people can’t afford them,” said Zimmerman.
Affordable housing in the region was among the topics of discussion at Community Action Southwest’s annual legislative breakfast Friday.
The event, whose focus was on addressing poverty in Washington and Greene counties, included a presentation by Darlene Bigler, executive director of the nonprofit, and open-ended discussion.
About 30 people – many of whom were local, state and federal officials – attended the event at the DoubleTree by Hilton in North Strabane Township.
Bigler touched on services the group provided in 2016.
She also gave an overview of issues related to poverty in the suburban and rural areas where the group provides social services. Drawing on a 2016 University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics report, Bigler made policy recommendations in areas including housing, education, economic inequality and transportation.
She said increased transportation subsidies, especially for rural areas, would help address the difficulty of finding “walkable neighborhoods” and problems that grow out of limited public transit.
For example, many of the group’s clients work in the Murtland Avenue corridor in Washington.
“There are no sidewalks, and they do not have transportation,” Bigler said. “And as you drive there, you can see people walking, and you’ll wonder, sometimes, ‘That couldn’t be safe. Why are they doing that?’ They’re on their way to work.”