Kendall Pelling, executive director of Rising Tide Partners, leads Mayor Ed Gainey, reporters, and community members on a tour of properties that are to be renovated by his nonprofit on Friday, May 16, 2025, in Homewood. (Photo by Caleb Kaufman/PublicSource)

By Ember Duke, PublicSource

Dozens of houses on Hamilton Avenue in Homewood sit vacated and decaying, their windows smashed, wooden porches splintering and lawns overgrown — as they have for at least two decades.

It wasn’t like that, however, when resident Amber Sloan grew up in the area. She remembers block parties and people sitting out on their porches talking to neighbors. Now, the population has dwindled and the properties have become an eyesore, community group leaders said.

Sloan hopes a new housing redevelopment project, led by nonprofit Rising Tide Partners, will return a spirit of community to the area. The project has the potential to fix up approximately 100 units in Homewood. During a sunny, mid-May event on Hamilton Avenue that celebrated the start of property stabilization, community group leaders said it’s a step toward restoration. 

“It would be a lovely thing to see homes open up,” Sloan said. 

Rising Tide Homewood LLC, a subsidiary of the citywide nonprofit, now controls 93 properties in Homewood as part of this effort, and is starting revitalization efforts to make houses habitable for current residents and newcomers, Executive Director Kendall Pelling said.

(Click here to see the rest of the story.)

Ember Duke is a recent graduate of Duquesne University and one of 10 Pittsburgh Media Partnership summer interns.