Pittsburgh will sleep on the sidewalks of the city this month to raise awareness for the estimated 2130 people in Allegheny County who are homeless.
Sponsored by Community Human Services (CHS), the all-night event will take place on Oct. 17th and feature speakers and activities and help raise money for programs, street outreach, free health care clinics and supportive systems for the homeless people of our region.
“I hope through this people will realize that the homeless are not the people you think they are,” explains Meghan Holohan, a CHS board member and Pittsburgh freelance writer who came up with the idea. The homeless are not simply drug addicted or mentally imbalanced, they’re friends, next door neighbors who’ve lost a job and can’t make a mortgage payment.
“If for one evening, some of us are kinda uncomfortable, maybe people will have a bit more empathy and feel a little more compassion for the homeless,” she says.
The event will take place rain or shine on the portico of the City-County building in downtown Pittsburgh. Anyone over the age of 16 is welcome and those younger are asked to bring a chaperone.
“We hope this will help people to really think about homelessness and look a little more deeply into it,” says Diane McMahon, CHS development director. “We believe there’s a much larger number of people out there than we know about, people hit by foreclosures and costs of utilities and food. We get calls every day that the number is increasing and need to put that in the public eye.”
For more information on the Sleep-in and to register, click here.
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Writer: Deb Smit
Source: Meghan Holohan, Diane Mahon, CHS
Image courtesy Community Human Services