By: WPXI News | October 11th, 2019 | Read the full article

Photo credit: WPXI.com

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PITTSBURGH – A new city program is helping Pittsburghers become the owners of newly renovated affordable housing.

The Urban Redevelopment Authority is working with the Schenley Heights Collaborative and other organizations to repair vacant buildings and turn them into homes. “I appreciate them so much because without them, I don’t know what house I would have ended up with,” Brea Williams said.

Williams is one of the first beneficiaries of the program, and she said it couldn’t have come along at a better time.

“A lot of the houses in the price range that I was looking at, they were not going to pass inspections. There is no way they would’ve passed at all,” she said.The Schenley Heights Collaborative took an early lead when organizers discovered the number of vacant homes.“The collaborative then bought into that and slowly began to acquire the properties that needed a repair,” Phyllis Lavelle, president of the collaborative, said.

To learn more about how Williams got connected with the initiative and hear how it’s impacted her life, watch the full report from Channel 11’s Michelle Chavez above.