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Low-income children are no longer_solely concentrated in the inner city but are progressively
moving to municipalities outside the City of Pittsburgh. This trend is likely ro contiiue as the federal
Department of Housing and Urban Development progressively dismantles public housing projects and
encourages their residents to disburse throughout the metropolitan area.
Low-income children are located in three types of geographic locations:
- Neighborhoods in the City of Pittsburgh having high poverty rates -- including Fairywood, St.
Clair, Terrace Village, Arlington Heights, Northview Heights, and Bedford Dwellings.
- School districts having high percentages of children eligible for the National School Lunch
Program -- including Duquesne City (89Eo eligible), Wilkinsburg (8l%o),Sto-Rox (79%o),Clairton
Ç¡!y {4U"¡, City of Pittsburgh (6lVo), McKeesport City (56qò,Sieel Valley (52Vo),andWoodtand
Hills (517o). These districts, plus Penn Hills and West Mifflin, also represénr municipalities with
more than 100 children currently enrolled in TANF.
- Individual elementary schools with substantially higher percentages of children eligible for
free or reduced lunch than the overall rate in their districts -- including Franklin el07o of
enrolled children eligible) and Barrett (857o) both in Steel Valley School District, Veiona (67Vo) in
Riverview District, Grandview (63Vo) in Highlands District, Pitcairn (557o) in Gateway District,
Reserve (42Vo) and Marzolf (367o) both in Shaler Area Districr, Kerr (28Vo) in Fox Chãpel Distiict,
and Hyde (27Vo) in Moon Area District.
Currentlyn school districts in the County having relatively high numbers or percentages of
children not served by existing nonschool-hour services incluãe the City of piìtsburgh (zl,zqq
children or 77Vo not served), Woodland Hills (3,904 ,91Vo), Penn Hills (3,i14,9}Vo),NfcKeesport
Atea(2,656,7\Vo),West Mifflin(2,040,99Vo), Steel Valley (1,576,99Vo),Wilkinsburg (1,184, 74Vo),
Clairton City (657, 95Vo), and Duquesne City (589, gg7o).
The areas in which there is particular need for services relative to the number of low-income
child¡en are represented graphically in Map 2 (for the City of Pittsburgh) and Map 3 (Municipalities
of Allegheny County) in Appendix II. The maps show in maroon and red shaãed areas the
location of substantial numbers of low-income children as determined by school lunch enrollments, and
the locations of nonschool-hour programs in large green concentric ciicles (Child Care partnership
programs) or red circles (from OCD's community survey). Red or maroon areas with small and/or
fewer dots represent the areas of greatest disparity between needy populations and availability of
programs as mentioned above.
The dispersion of poYerly throughout the County means that simply targeting services at impoverished
inner'city neighborhoods is not sufficient. As low-income õtrit¿reñ coniinue to spread
throughout the County, geographic targeting of services becomes more difficult, less effective, and
unfair to those low-income children who do not live in areas of substantial concentration of poverty.
Ultimately, other strategies of targeting assistance must be adopted; for example, subsidies ór vouðhers
for individual families, sliding-fee scales and agency subsidies or reimbursements, universal programs
available to all, and perhaps other innovative approaches.