Agency that helps needy may buy Hill House center

A neighborhood senior services center on Bedford Avenue in the Hill District could be the new home of Focus Pittsburgh, an agency that provides free health care, backpacks full of food and trauma support for the needy.

Hill House Association, the cash-strapped nonprofit that owns the senior center, wants to sell it to help raise money to pay off a debt load estimated at $12 million. Hill House, which is in the process of divesting properties it owns throughout the Hill as it prepares to dissolve, held a community meeting Wednesday at the Kaufmann Auditorium on Centre Avenue to update residents on its progress.

“All the decisions we’ve made are to make sure that services provided in the Hill continue to be provided and so no one in the Hill District will suffer in any way without the Hill House at the helm,” said Emma Lucas-Darby, chair of Hill House’s board of directors.

Hill House currently manages the home-delivered meals and other programs for seniors based at its Bedford Avenue building. But, on July 1, another nonprofit,

Macedonia Family and Community Enrichment Center, is set to take over those programs and has said it will relocate the senior center to the YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh’s Hill District branch on Centre Avenue.

Focus Pittsburgh has outgrown its current home in the Hill District and can “fill every inch” of the Bedford Avenue building, which has about 10,000 square feet of space, said the Rev. Paul Abernathy, founder and director of Focus. His 9-year-old agency is seeking pledges to buy the property, but he declined to provide the asking price.

Hill House approached Focus about taking over the site, he said, “because they really wanted it to go to someone doing social services.”

In addition to food, health care and emergency relief for people having trouble paying utilities and other bills, Focus addresses trauma in the community. Its volunteer trauma-response team assists families who have lost children to gun violence, and it tries to foster community engagement by going block by block through the Hill to connect with residents.

If Focus acquires the Bedford Avenue site, the agency would still welcome seniors there to participate in its programs, Rev. Abernathy said.

“The vision for the community must be that the Hill District is where every neighbor matters,” he said.