About a dozen sex offenders living in a recovery house in Pittsburgh’s South Side Slopes will be moving out amid community uproar, according to the city councilman who represents the neighborhood.
The three-quarter house on Salisbury Street spurred concerns among neighbors who received notifications that sex offenders were moving in, as is required by Megan’s Law, Councilman Bob Charland, D-South Side, said Monday.
Charland, who described the neighborhood as “highly residential” with a lot of families, said he was concerned about the site in a neighborhood with families housing people who had committed “pretty heinous crimes.”
A long-empty building not far from Arlington Playground and Arlington Recreation Center was recently converted to a three-quarter house with no outreach to the community or elected officials, the councilman said.
Typically, if a halfway or three-quarter house moves into a neighborhood, Charland said, the operator will reach out to “be good neighbors.”
In this instance, the company operating the site, Skyline Recovery, did not do so, Charland said.
Skyline Recovery’s website was down Monday. A call to a phone number associated with the company was not returned.
Online Megan’s Law records showed a dozen sex offenders living at the address in the 2800 block of Salisbury Street. Seven more lived within a half-mile radius.
The city does not regulate such facilities. It does not have zoning rules that govern where they can operate, Charland said.
The councilman said he talked this weekend with the property’s operators, who agreed to move out “as soon as possible.”
“They will not attempt to operate here further,” he wrote in a social media post over the weekend.