In The News

Harvard sociologist Matthew Desmond gave a lecture about the costs of eviction to Pittsburgh tenants, landlords, and public officials at the University of Pittsburgh. Desmond is touring the country in support of his book Eviction, which tells the story of various families and individuals facing the fallout from eviction in Milwaukee.

The conversation was facilitated by the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania, in collaboration with the Pittsburgh Foundation and Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures.

Local veterans are experiencing lowered levels of anxiety, depression, and stress after receiving highly trained dogs from the Florida-based Guardian Angels Medical Service Dogs Inc. One of the dogs can even tell her owner, who has diabetes, if his blood-sugar level is too high or low. “Twenty-two is the number of veterans who commit suicide each day,” activist Tony Accamando said. “For veterans who have received a Guardian Angel dog, the number of suicides is zero.”

Author Matthew Desmond is giving a lecture today on the effects of eviction on both tenants and landlords. Though his book Eviction is set in Milwaukee, Desmond thinks that the stories he tells are applicable to any Rust Belt city, including Pittsburgh. Note: This article includes a quote from Max King, and Mr. Desmond’s lecture is sponsored by the Pittsburgh Foundation.  

The event was the first of Ligonier Valley Historical Society's History With a Purpose events, which recently received a $3,000 grant from a group of young philanthropists, the Visionaries of the Community Foundation of Westmoreland County.  

Olga M. Welch has been dean and professor at the Duquesne University School of Education since 2005 and has served on many community boards in Pittsburgh, including The Pittsburgh Promise, The Hill House Association and Communities in Schools. She is working on a book about African-American women leaders in education.

Researchers led by University of Pittsburgh Chemistry Professor Alexander Deiters have developed a technology that allows a small-molecule phosphine to act as an “off-to-on switch” to control protein activity, giving scientists more control over studies involving the molecular details of biological processes. The research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Charles E. Kaufman Foundation of The Pittsburgh Foundation.

 “I think the huge challenge, at least for me, when trying to write about the texture of poverty in America is the temptation to reduce people to the problem,” says Desmond, who appears Aug. 4 at Carnegie Library Lecture Hall in Oakland as a guest of Pittsburgh Arts& Lectures New & Noted series. The Pittsburgh Foundation sponsored this talk.

The goal is to generate long-lasting resources that will benefit students, improve the overall quality of education and enhance the school and community in general as attractive places to learn and live,” Grata said. This committee will serve as a fundraising entity under the Community Foundation of Westmoreland County, which has accumulated over 200 individual funds and assets in excess of $22 million since its establishment in 1995.

At the “Poetry and Race in America,” three generations of African-American poets gathered to discuss the relationship between race and poetry in America. Pittsburgh Foundation President and CEO Maxwell King announced the inauguration of The Ed Ochester Lectureship on African American Poetry and Poetics.