Housing and Basic Needs

Analysis and research about housing and homelessness in our region, including shelter usage, annual counts of the homeless population, rental assistance programs, eviction and housing displacement.
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Improving Prioritization of Housing Services: Implementation of the Allegheny Housing Assessment (AHA) and the Mental Health Allegheny Housing Assessment (MH-AHA)

New information added. Since 2017, DHS has used data driven models to support prioritization of housing resources. Read more about their development and deployment in the homelessness and behavioral health systems.

Needs Assessment of Economic Security

This updated 2024 Needs Assessment explores the needs of people living in poverty, barriers to living-wage employment, and challenges to achieving stability and economic security.

Cash Assistance for Allegheny Young Adults: Impacts and Implications

This report presents a mixed-methods approach to evaluating the impact of DHS cash assistance program, including longitudinal surveying, a quasi-experimental analysis of administrative data, and semi-structured interviews with cash recipients.

Allegheny Go Program: Interactive Dashboard

This dashboard reports on application statistics and participant demographics for the Allegheny Go program, a transportation assistance program.

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Community Need Index

Updated with 2022 data. The Allegheny County Need Index was developed to identify areas of the County that have greater relative need. This report and related materials explore census tracts in need and recent trends.

Allegheny County Discounted Fares Pilot Program

The Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) partnered with Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) to launch a new transportation assistance program in November 2022 called the Discounted Fares Pilot. This […]

Point-in-Time Count of People Experiencing Homelessness: Annual Reports

Each year, Allegheny County participates in a national census of the number of people experiencing homelessness on a single night. The Point-in-Time count enumerates people experiencing homelessness in the County who are sheltered, unsheltered or participating in a short-term, supportive housing program.

DHS Goals and Key Initiatives: 2024

DHS can reach our goals more quickly if we devote time and attention to several big, bold initiatives that will make our systems and our organization work better for everyone we serve. This document outlines our key initiatives in 2024—which are in addition to our core work of running effective systems of care for people.

DHS 2023 Accomplishments

This report highlights the 2023 DHS accomplishments that stood out. There are many, many other achievements. We chose the ones that made the biggest difference.

Families using emergency shelters in Allegheny County

This data brief focuses on families using emergency shelter in Allegheny County from April 2022-March 2023

People using adult-only emergency shelters in Allegheny County

A data brief on people using adult-only emergency shelters in Allegheny County from April 2022-March 2023

DHS Annual Plans and Budgets

In its responsibility for administering publicly-funded human services, Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) plans for the allocation of more than $1B in areas that span behavioral health, children […]

Trends in people experiencing sheltered and unsheltered homelessness: Interactive Dashboard

This dashboard shows trends in the number of people experiencing sheltered and unsheltered homelessness. What is this dashboard about? This dashboard displays: 1) the number of people who were active […]

Who are the people experiencing unsheltered homelessness?

The Allegheny County Department of Human Services’ (DHS) street outreach team works with people who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness, offering them immediate in-person support and help with basic needs, while […]

Landlord/Tenant Cases: Interactive Dashboard

What is this dashboard about? These interactive dashboards contain information about Landlord/Tenant cases filed in Allegheny County in magisterial district courts from 2012 to the present. Users can see information […]