Editorial: Pittsburgh’s public shame campaign misguided

According to an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh city Councilman Bill Peduto proposed a (somewhat archaic) plan Wednesday to improve homes in Pittsburgh: publicly shaming their owners.

Peduto’s plan involves the city’s public works department identifying the 10 worst properties in Pittsburgh and posting signs that include the owners’ names, phone numbers and addresses in front of them. A similar strategy was implemented in the late 1990s to address the city’s five most run-down properties, and following the campaign, all of the featured properties were sold, demolished or fixed. Peduto said that the program’s main goal would be to increase the property values of homes located in the vicinity of those that need improvement by allowing neighbors and other invested community members to put public pressure on owners.

On a lighter note, there is potential for this plan to result in some humor — if one of the city’s worst homes was located in Oakland, for example, we could imagine Pitt students holding “trash the 10th worst home in Pittsburgh” parties. Even so, we do not think that the city government should go forward with this plan.

We disagree with the government inviting negative public pressure to provoke change in a community. Although posting signs in front of houses with the owners’ contact information does not precisely constitute an invasion of privacy — that information is usually available to anyone who is willing to look for it on the Internet or in a phone book — the government posting this information in front of unattractive homes invites people to contact the homeowners and apply pressure or harassment in a way that we think is inappropriate.

A limitation we see in this type of program is that it would most likely remediate the worst 10 properties in Pittsburgh, but it would not necessarily force landlords to improve their practices. It also wouldn’t necessarily improve properties in Pittsburgh in general. A plan with such a limited scope is unlikely to improve properties or help people in Pittsburgh in the long run.

While this policy is intended to benefit the people living in the neighborhoods surrounding Pittsburgh’s 10 worst homes, this policy might have other negative effects — namely, subjecting the occupants of the homes to embarrassment. Occupants who rent homes or apartments would not have their names and phone numbers on the signs, but they would have to live in a home that was clearly marked as one of the worst in Pittsburgh.

While shaming neglectful property owners might benefit students who would otherwise have to learn to negotiate with unresponsive landlords and contend with less-than-satisfactory apartments and houses, we suggest that students contact other resources to help them choose housing. Pitt’s Office of Off-Campus Living provides information on renting apartments, and it also has a database of landlord reviews, which are available for those with a valid University login.

Instead of this campaign, we think the city should make the offices that help people resolve housing conflicts more available. The city’s zoning office, which oversees housing code violations, could more aggressively pursue inspections and fines for owners who do not respond to complaints in a timely manner.