Ed Gainey swept into office vowing to improve life for Black Pittsburghers.
The new mayor of Pennsylvania’s second-largest city formed a diverse cabinet, expanded affordable housing and bettered the lot of minority contractors as he sought to reverse generations of disinvestment and neglect for Pittsburgh’s Black community.
But three years after Gainey notched a historic victory, support from Black voters for the city’s first Black mayor is anything but a given.
Gainey has found himself with a fight on his hands as he seeks reelection in next month’s Democratic primary against a surging rival, Corey O’Connor. Securing the Black vote has become ever more important, and the mayor is acutely aware of the need to win over that critical constituency.
“The African American vote will always be important to me,” Gainey told TribLive recently. “It’s something I cherish. At the end of the day, they’re the ones that raised me and made me and created me in the position to be able to have an opportunity to be mayor. Of course I cherish that. I cherish that more than anything I know.”
About three dozen interviews throughout the city over the past month reveal that Black Pittsburghers have not uniformly embraced the mayor. Voters who spoke with TribLive expressed a range of opinions about Gainey, the job he’s done and whether they think he deserves another term.
Daniel Reid, 64, of Garfield, captured the difficulty in picking a candidate, calling his choice a “toss-up” between the two Democrats.
Reid approves of Gainey’s focus on building housing but believes the city needs more low-cost options at more affordable rates. He’s noticed some roads nearby getting paved but wants to see snow cleared more promptly. He’s pleased crime is going down but is worried that not enough has been done to deter kids from trouble.
“He’s done some great things, but there are some other things left to be dealt with,” Reid said. “If someone else can do better, I’d rather have that.”
Range of opinions
With Black people making up nearly a quarter of the city’s population, courting their votes is critical for mayoral hopefuls.
But Black voters are not monolithic. The Allegheny County Democratic Black Caucus proved that in 2021 when it endorsed then-incumbent Mayor Bill Peduto over Gainey.
“We got a lot of backlash for that,” said William Anderson, caucus chairman and chief of staff for the Democratic National Committee’s Black Caucus. “Just because we’re an African American organization doesn’t mean we are automatically going to endorse an African American candidate. We endorse the candidate we feel is best for the job.”
Anderson stands by the decision four years later.
“Now people are coming back and saying, ‘You know, maybe we made the right decision,’” Anderson said.
Voters going to the polls on May 20 are more likely to cast their ballots based on how well they believe Gainey has performed rather than on demographics, said Berwood Yost, who oversees polling for Franklin & Marshall College.
“I think we have seen that some demographic groups within primaries have been more likely to support a candidate with similar characteristics. We’ve often seen female candidates in a primary do better among women voters, for instance,” Yost said. “But when you have an incumbent on the ballot, even in a primary, what we’re talking about being the decider is how people view that incumbent’s performance.”
Alvin Peoples, 71, of the Hill District, said he didn’t expect positive change for Black Pittsburghers like himself when city residents elected Gainey. He hasn’t changed his mind.
Peoples, who works Downtown as a custodian, worries the Golden Triangle has yet to bounce back from the covid pandemic. He’s frustrated his Hill District neighborhood is once again without a grocery store after a supermarket there paused operations in February. And he thinks officials like Gainey need to do more to invest in communities, engage with constituents and attract businesses and development.
“I don’t think he knows what he’s supposed to be doing,” Peoples said of the mayor. “Terrible job.”
Sylvia Wilson, a Pittsburgh Public Schools board member and elected Democratic committeewoman, views Gainey’s tenure in a different light.
“He’s a great role model,” she said. “He works very hard to represent all the citizens of Pittsburgh.”
Wilson said she feels Gainey is visible in the city and attentive to its residents. She highlighted his work to improve public safety Downtown, attract the 2026 NFL Draft and better maintain bridges, a top concern since the Fern Hollow Bridge over Frick Park collapsed just weeks after Gainey took office.
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Emonie Smith, 26, of Homewood, said she’s voting for Gainey, pointing out his efforts to help launch a $600 million revitalization effort Downtown. She hopes for more investment and representation for her community.
“We’re not represented as much,” she said. “We’re always overlooked.”
A ‘city for all’
When he first ran for mayor, Gainey pledged to focus on issues critical to Black residents and start reversing decades of disinvestment in minority communities.
He campaigned on making Pittsburgh “a city for all” — a place with affordable housing, accessible city services and safe neighborhoods for everyone regardless of race, socioeconomic status or what part of the city they called home.
In pursuit of that agenda, Gainey invested in affordable housing and has helped minority-owned businesses secure more city contracts.
From 2022 through last year, the city awarded nearly $58 million in contracts to minority, women and disadvantaged business enterprises, more than triple the $16 million given out in the three years before Gainey took office.
Gainey elevated Black men and women to top positions in his administration, tapping the city’s first Black EMS chief and first biracial police chief.
The mayor’s backers say seeing people of color can achieve any position — even mayor — is an inspiration.
Gainey said he’s working to make good on his promises to underserved communities. He stressed, though, that it takes time to achieve the lofty goals of solving an affordable housing crisis, repairing fractured community-police relations and investing in infrastructure that has long been overlooked.
“We’re trying to change decades and generations of neglect, of people who have not been seen,” the mayor said.
Not everyone is convinced of his progress.
Anna Fontanez, 61, of Homewood, said she didn’t think Gainey has done enough to help older Pittsburghers. She wants to see bus shelters and benches in the neighborhood but feels that no one listens to residents.
Pointing to debris littering an empty lot, she questioned why the city didn’t clean up her neighborhood.
“If he really had care and concern, he would notice things,” Fontanez said.
Wilson, the school board member, said Gainey has been particularly focused on what she considers the top issue in the Black community: affordable housing.
She cited as an example the ongoing efforts to convert to affordable housing empty Downtown office space. Under Gainey, the city backed an Urban Redevelopment Authority initiative to fund affordable housing, though some council members questioned the move.
Gainey touted the authority’s Own PGH program, which helps low-income residents buy their first homes.
The program has helped 169 people so far, said Dana Bohince, an authority spokeswoman. Of the recipients, 91% identified as minority- or women-owned households, she said.
Under Gainey, the city secured a $50 million federal grant to redevelop the low-income housing community Bedford Dwellings in the historically Black Hill District neighborhood.
And the mayor has proposed sweeping zoning reforms that he hopes will encourage developers to build more affordable units — though the controversial zoning package has yet to earn City Council approval.
Mindy Gump, 47, of Homewood, credited the mayor for helping spur development in the East End. She called on Gainey to do even more. Her neighborhood, she pointed out, is full of vacant structures.
“He needs to do more for the homeless out here, especially in Homewood,” Gump said.
Miesha Bell, 34, of Allentown, said she thinks Gainey has already made tremendous strides in addressing housing and homelessness.
Bell, who said she was once homeless, highlighted the Second Avenue Commons shelter Downtown as an example of investments made by the city to help people living on the streets.
Feeling taken for granted
Gainey often stresses inclusion.
“Our city is at its best when every resident has a seat at the table,” Gainey said in January 2022, moments after being sworn in.
Some Black Pittsburghers, though, feel they still don’t have a seat. They clamor for more progress in historically Black neighborhoods.
“African Americans are still worse off in the city of Pittsburgh,” said Anderson of the county Democratic Black Caucus.
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A February analysis by ApartmentList, an online apartment rental finder, placed Pittsburgh last among 75 cities in a ranking of best cities for Black professionals. In 2023, an analysis from the Brookings Institution showed barely more than 1% of the city’s businesses were Black-owned.
In his neighborhood of Homewood, Anderson still sees potholes and stormwater problems. To him, these are signs of continued disinvestment.
William B. Marshall, a vocal Gainey critic, is an event organizer who for more than a decade has put on an annual Juneteenth celebration. He clashed with the mayor over his handling of the holiday commemorating the end to slavery in the United States.
Last year, Gainey bypassed Marshall and chose a different promoter to host a city-sponsored Juneteenth event. Marshall criticized the move, saying it didn’t help the Black vendors and businesses who participate in his festival.
Marshall was initially excited to see Gainey take office. He had hoped Gainey would support his events, but now he feels excluded.
“Sometimes what ends up happening is when white people are in office, they feel the need to make sure they address the suffering minorities are having,” Marshall said. “On other occasions, when minorities get into office, they kind of take us for granted. They feel that they don’t have to do as much because they are a minority themselves. That’s where we have problems in the communities.”
Marshall’s concerns extend beyond Juneteenth. He complained about Gainey’s decision to eliminate a Peduto-era proposal to provide guaranteed basic income payments to low-income residents, with an emphasis on Black women.
The Gainey administration said the program would not be an eligible use of the federal covid-19 relief money that would’ve funded it.
Other cities, however, used the money for similar initiatives.
Fear of ‘overpolicing’
When Gainey first ran for mayor, he said he would prioritize changing how the city approaches policing.
Gainey often promotes his success in reducing homicides, a trend mirrored in cities throughout the nation since the pandemic.
Last year, there were 42 homicides in Pittsburgh, down from 71 in 2022. The majority of those victims were Black.
Marshall questioned whether Gainey emphasized public safety in Black communities as much as in other parts of town.
He noted Gainey ordered his police bureau to launch targeted patrols on the South Side and Downtown to curb violence and make people and businesses feel safer.
“They don’t do that in Homewood. They don’t do that in the Hill (District),” Marshall said. “They haven’t taken those same types of actions or brought the same type of attention to what’s happening in the Black community.”
Gainey said the different approaches were intentional. He said he didn’t want predominantly Black communities to feel “overpoliced.”
“When you’re talking about overpolicing a community, you’re not making people feel safe,” Gainey said. “You’re making people feel like they’re under the spotlight to be watched.”
While on the campaign trail for his first mayoral election, Gainey often pointed out that the city’s Black residents at the time accounted for 56% of arrests, though they accounted for less than a quarter of the population.
“That rate is not alarming; it’s traumatic,” Gainey told TribLive after winning the 2021 primary. “It does devastation to communities, particularly Black communities. We need an equitable police force that’s distributed across the city. There will be some change. Not changes for the sake of changes, but changes for the sake of growth.”
Last year, about 61% of people arrested by Pittsburgh police were Black, down from 67% a year earlier, according to city data.
Police leadership during the Gainey administration has worked to boost positive interactions between officers and residents.
City Councilman Khari Mosley, D-Point Breeze, one of two Black council members who represents a predominantly Black district, said he feels that approach has helped.
Ronald Williams, 70, of Beltzhoover, said police-community relations have been strained for as long as he’s been alive.
“It’s an ongoing saga but it can get better,” Williams said, adding he wants to see the city hire police to address ongoing staffing challenges.
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Williams, who said he’s leaning toward voting for Gainey in what he expects to be a tight primary, believes safety is improving throughout the city.
Tracy Smith, 65, of the Hill District, criticized the mayor’s public safety record.
“Too many killings going on,” Smith said. “He can come out and try to talk to communities. It would be so nice if he would help people.”
Randall Taylor, of East Liberty, said the mayor has done enough to earn his vote.
Taylor, a community organizer for the Hill District Consensus Group, said he’s glad violent crime rates have dropped under Gainey.
“I do think the perception of safety is better,” Taylor said. “And I think the biggest perception that people have is that he does care about these communities.”
Ricky Burgess, a former councilman who is Black and backed Peduto in 2021, is advising the O’Connor campaign.
Burgess said some Pittsburghers are looking to O’Connor as a leader who can do more than the incumbent to create sustainable neighborhoods, provide key resources and improve safety.
“I think we deserve a mayor who can provide resources to African American communities, helping transform communities of isolated, segregated poverty into mixed-income, mixed-use communities of middle class and hope and resilience,” said Burgess.
“I also think in order to do that, we have to manage the resources of the city efficiently. We need to make sure our communities are safe. I think Corey O’Connor can do those things better.”
No longer shut out
Gainey told TribLive he meets regularly with community activists and goes to as many community meetings as he can or sends a proxy in his place.
Leann Younger, Gainey’s campaign chair, said the mayor and his staff have attended about 500 community meetings.
Carmen Pace, a Democratic ward chair in the Hill District, pointed to Gainey’s City in the Streets campaign as an example of the mayor being accessible to residents.
The series has brought Gainey and his top officials from various departments to main streets throughout the city, allowing residents to meet leaders where they are.
“No previous mayors have ever done anything like that,” Pace said.
Gainey said he has sought to ensure the city invests in all neighborhoods, including predominantly Black areas that have historically suffered disinvestment.
People in underserved communities, Gainey said, may still feel they need more because they’re catching up from decades of neglect.
The Gainey administration, Younger said, has sought to assure all Pittsburghers that their voices will be heard when they reach out to city government.
“I think people who have been shut out have been let in,” Younger said. “To me, that is a transformative process, and that’s a transformation that should continue.”
Staff writer Justin Vellucci contributed to this report.