People
The Hill CDC is committed to the social and economic development of Hill District residents, many of whom have been historically disadvantaged. A variety of programs are offered for business owners, entrepreneurs, aspiring homeowners, creatives and culture workers.
Place
The Hill CDC leads the planning and redevelopment efforts for the neighborhood on behalf of residents and stakeholders of the Hill District. With over $2 Billion of development slated for the area, the Hill CDC is focused on commercial revitalization and affordable homeownership. Equitable outcomes that foster place-keeping and transformative economic investment is the cornerstone of the Hill CDC’s work.
Policy
The Hill CDC is guided by the Greater Hill District Master Plan. This community-endorsed vision establishes fundamental values and development principles that are central to positive activities and healthy neighborhood development. The Hill CDC focuses on land-use policy, social and economic equity, and centering community voice.
Social
✍🏾Weekly Weekend Round up Spotlight:
“In 1996, two successful mid-career poets launched a new venture. Cornelius Eady and Toi Derricotte gave the initiative the Latin name Cave Canem, and a mission to support Black poets, whose work they considered painfully marginalized.
‘Cave Canem has become both the premier body for cultivating and promoting Black poetic voices and has left a truly indelible mark on the broader literary landscape,’ said the National Book Critics’ Circle in 2022, in handing the group its inaugural Toni Morrison Achievement Award. ‘No institution has played such a definitive role in shaping the poetry of the 21st century.’
The group marks the anniversary this week with both its annual retreat in Greensburg and a special event and exhibit at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center.”
Read the full story here: https://www.wesanews.org/arts-culture/2026-06-18/cave-canem-poetry-black-group
👩🏾💻 Sign up for the Hill District Weekend Roundup here: https://www.hilldistrict.org/signup/
✍🏾Weekly Weekend Round up Spotlight:
“In 1996, two successful mid-career poets launched a new venture. Cornelius Eady and Toi Derricotte gave the initiative the Latin name Cave Canem, and a mission to support Black poets, whose work they considered painfully marginalized.
‘Cave Canem has become both the premier body for cultivating and promoting Black poetic voices and has left a truly indelible mark on the broader literary landscape,’ said the National Book Critics’ Circle in 2022, in handing the group its inaugural Toni Morrison Achievement Award. ‘No institution has played such a definitive role in shaping the poetry of the 21st century.’
The group marks the anniversary this week with both its annual retreat in Greensburg and a special event and exhibit at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center.”
Read the full story here: https://www.wesanews.org/arts-culture/2026-06-18/cave-canem-poetry-black-group
👩🏾💻 Sign up for the Hill District Weekend Roundup here: https://www.hilldistrict.org/signup/
✨ Tonight`s event is officially SOLD OUT! ✨
Thank you to everyone who reserved a spot for Sat Down Somewhere. We`re looking forward to an evening of yoga, meditation, reflection, and community!
For those attending, we`ll see you tonight at Nafasi on Centre from 7–8 PM. 💛
✨ Tonight`s event is officially SOLD OUT! ✨
Thank you to everyone who reserved a spot for Sat Down Somewhere. We`re looking forward to an evening of yoga, meditation, reflection, and community!
For those attending, we`ll see you tonight at Nafasi on Centre from 7–8 PM. 💛
📢 Catch up on the latest news from the Hill District and beyond in this week`s Weekend Roundup!
🔬 New STEM Hub Opens in the Hill District
🏘️ Housing & Stability
🎤 Cave Canem`s Pittsburgh Ties
📸 Charlese Dawson Receives Major Arts Award for `Send My Love to the Hill`
🗳️ Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Addresses Voting Rights Concerns
📬 Read the latest edition and stay connected to what`s happening in the Hill. Click here: https://mailchi.mp/hilldistrict/weekendroundup-6-20-2026
👩🏾💻 Sign up for the Hill District Weekend Roundup here: https://www.hilldistrict.org/signup/
📢 Catch up on the latest news from the Hill District and beyond in this week`s Weekend Roundup!
🔬 New STEM Hub Opens in the Hill District
🏘️ Housing & Stability
🎤 Cave Canem`s Pittsburgh Ties
📸 Charlese Dawson Receives Major Arts Award for `Send My Love to the Hill`
🗳️ Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Addresses Voting Rights Concerns
📬 Read the latest edition and stay connected to what`s happening in the Hill. Click here: https://mailchi.mp/hilldistrict/weekendroundup-6-20-2026
👩🏾💻 Sign up for the Hill District Weekend Roundup here: https://www.hilldistrict.org/signup/
💙 Happy Father`s Day!
Today, we celebrate the fathers, grandfathers, stepfathers, mentors, and father figures who lead with love, strength, wisdom, and dedication.
Thank you for the countless ways you support your families and communities—through your guidance, encouragement, sacrifices, and presence. Your impact extends far beyond your own households, helping to shape future generations and strengthen the communities we call home.
We especially want to wish all of our #HillDistrictDads a wonderful Father`s Day and a relaxing, joy-filled weekend surrounded by family, friends, and loved ones.
From all of us at Hill CDC, thank you for all that you do!
💙 Happy Father`s Day!
Today, we celebrate the fathers, grandfathers, stepfathers, mentors, and father figures who lead with love, strength, wisdom, and dedication.
Thank you for the countless ways you support your families and communities—through your guidance, encouragement, sacrifices, and presence. Your impact extends far beyond your own households, helping to shape future generations and strengthen the communities we call home.
We especially want to wish all of our #HillDistrictDads a wonderful Father`s Day and a relaxing, joy-filled weekend surrounded by family, friends, and loved ones.
From all of us at Hill CDC, thank you for all that you do!
🖤📰On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all enslaved people in Confederate states legally free. But the law meant nothing without enforcement.
In Texas, enslavers continued to hold Black people in bondage by force. With no significant Union military presence, they faced no consequence for defying federal law. Many relocated to Texas from other states specifically to preserve their ability to enslave people.
It wasn’t until June 19, 1865, more than two years later, that 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston and enforced what had long been the law. Only the presence of armed federal power ended what enslavers had continued illegally and violently.
Historians and the words of formerly enslaved people themselves confirm that many knew about the Proclamation long before June 19th. They knew. They were held anyway; by force, by threat, and by the murder of those who tried to leave.
The formerly enslaved people didn’t waste a moment. They immediately began reunifying families torn apart by slavery, building schools, running for office, and demanding their full rights as citizens. Against every effort to break them, they built something extraordinary — and they celebrated. They cooked, they gathered, they danced, they praised and paraded. That joy was an act of resistance then, and it is our inheritance now.
That is what we celebrate today.
Happy Juneteenth! 🎊
🖤📰On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all enslaved people in Confederate states legally free. But the law meant nothing without enforcement.
In Texas, enslavers continued to hold Black people in bondage by force. With no significant Union military presence, they faced no consequence for defying federal law. Many relocated to Texas from other states specifically to preserve their ability to enslave people.
It wasn’t until June 19, 1865, more than two years later, that 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston and enforced what had long been the law. Only the presence of armed federal power ended what enslavers had continued illegally and violently.
Historians and the words of formerly enslaved people themselves confirm that many knew about the Proclamation long before June 19th. They knew. They were held anyway; by force, by threat, and by the murder of those who tried to leave.
The formerly enslaved people didn’t waste a moment. They immediately began reunifying families torn apart by slavery, building schools, running for office, and demanding their full rights as citizens. Against every effort to break them, they built something extraordinary — and they celebrated. They cooked, they gathered, they danced, they praised and paraded. That joy was an act of resistance then, and it is our inheritance now.
That is what we celebrate today.
Happy Juneteenth! 🎊
🏫Weekly Weekend Round up Spotlight:
“Taliaferro was the most outspoken against the Future Ready Facilities Plan. During her remarks before the votes were counted, Taliaferro said she’s had ‘countless conversations, text messages, Facebook DMs,’ etc., from people sharing their thoughts about the proposed PPS plan, ‘and the impact that this decision will make on them. And I don’t discredit those voices; in fact, many of those voices I represent. Five of the schools on this list are in District 2.’
Taliaferro slammed the school board for not listening to the constituents, the parents, etc., who didn’t want this affirmative vote to close schools.
‘I thought when we run for school board, that we are servants of the people. And to disregard those voices because they’re too many, or they’re too loud or too privileged…’
‘Everything I do is for little Black and brown children,’ Taliaferro added, ‘because if we do it right for them, everyone else will be fine.’
While Black students make up more than half of the student enrollment in PPS, there are some schools that are a vast majority African American, like King PreK-8 on the North Side, and McKelvy (Miller PreK-5) in the Hill District. It’s not known yet which schools those students would attend when their schools close.
And that’s unsettling to many parents.”
Read the full story here: https://newpittsburghcourier.com/2026/06/11/change-is-hard-dr-walters-says-as-pps-board-votes-to-close-9-buildings-12-schools/
👩🏾💻 Sign up for the Hill District Weekend Roundup here: https://www.hilldistrict.org/signup/
🏫Weekly Weekend Round up Spotlight:
“Taliaferro was the most outspoken against the Future Ready Facilities Plan. During her remarks before the votes were counted, Taliaferro said she’s had ‘countless conversations, text messages, Facebook DMs,’ etc., from people sharing their thoughts about the proposed PPS plan, ‘and the impact that this decision will make on them. And I don’t discredit those voices; in fact, many of those voices I represent. Five of the schools on this list are in District 2.’
Taliaferro slammed the school board for not listening to the constituents, the parents, etc., who didn’t want this affirmative vote to close schools.
‘I thought when we run for school board, that we are servants of the people. And to disregard those voices because they’re too many, or they’re too loud or too privileged…’
‘Everything I do is for little Black and brown children,’ Taliaferro added, ‘because if we do it right for them, everyone else will be fine.’
While Black students make up more than half of the student enrollment in PPS, there are some schools that are a vast majority African American, like King PreK-8 on the North Side, and McKelvy (Miller PreK-5) in the Hill District. It’s not known yet which schools those students would attend when their schools close.
And that’s unsettling to many parents.”
Read the full story here: https://newpittsburghcourier.com/2026/06/11/change-is-hard-dr-walters-says-as-pps-board-votes-to-close-9-buildings-12-schools/
👩🏾💻 Sign up for the Hill District Weekend Roundup here: https://www.hilldistrict.org/signup/
✊🏾Weekly Weekend Round up Spotlight:
Two verdicts came down within days of each other this month, in two different states, involving two Black teenagers. In Texas, 19-year-old Karmelo Anthony was convicted of murder in the death of a fellow student athlete following a confrontation at a track meet. In South Carolina, a jury acquitted convenience store owner Chikei Rick Chow of murder in the 2023 shooting of 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton, whom Chow chased more than a hundred yards and shot in the back over a wrongly suspected theft of water bottles the teen had already returned. At a rally following the acquittal, Carmack-Belton`s mother, Nicole Carmack, told supporters her son "bled out on the side of the road with strangers."
Neither story is really about the legal outcome alone. Together, they`re landing on a community already carrying a sense that Black children, especially Black teenagers, are being watched, judged, and treated as threats before anyone asks who they actually are.
Here at home, that feeling has been building for weeks with consistent critiques of young people in the media. In early May, the City quietly rolled out a new policy restricting unaccompanied teenagers from Market Square, requiring anyone under 18 to be with someone 21 or older. The policy followed complaints from some Downtown businesses about large groups of teens, and it brought a visible mix of private security, police, and youth outreach workers to the public square`s entrances. City Council President Daniel Lavelle, whose district includes Market Square, called the approach an overreach that punishes many for the actions of a few, and the ACLU of Pennsylvania raised concerns about how officers would distinguish a 17-year-old from an 18-year-old without inviting profiling...
Read the full story here: https://us18.campaign-archive.com/?u=0227e7478f00c6333e6239cde&id=0bf2392ec0
👩🏾💻 Sign up for the Hill District Weekend Roundup here: https://www.hilldistrict.org/signup/
✊🏾Weekly Weekend Round up Spotlight:
Two verdicts came down within days of each other this month, in two different states, involving two Black teenagers. In Texas, 19-year-old Karmelo Anthony was convicted of murder in the death of a fellow student athlete following a confrontation at a track meet. In South Carolina, a jury acquitted convenience store owner Chikei Rick Chow of murder in the 2023 shooting of 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton, whom Chow chased more than a hundred yards and shot in the back over a wrongly suspected theft of water bottles the teen had already returned. At a rally following the acquittal, Carmack-Belton`s mother, Nicole Carmack, told supporters her son "bled out on the side of the road with strangers."
Neither story is really about the legal outcome alone. Together, they`re landing on a community already carrying a sense that Black children, especially Black teenagers, are being watched, judged, and treated as threats before anyone asks who they actually are.
Here at home, that feeling has been building for weeks with consistent critiques of young people in the media. In early May, the City quietly rolled out a new policy restricting unaccompanied teenagers from Market Square, requiring anyone under 18 to be with someone 21 or older. The policy followed complaints from some Downtown businesses about large groups of teens, and it brought a visible mix of private security, police, and youth outreach workers to the public square`s entrances. City Council President Daniel Lavelle, whose district includes Market Square, called the approach an overreach that punishes many for the actions of a few, and the ACLU of Pennsylvania raised concerns about how officers would distinguish a 17-year-old from an 18-year-old without inviting profiling...
Read the full story here: https://us18.campaign-archive.com/?u=0227e7478f00c6333e6239cde&id=0bf2392ec0
👩🏾💻 Sign up for the Hill District Weekend Roundup here: https://www.hilldistrict.org/signup/
The 2026 Home Accessibility Program for Independence (HAPI) Application at the URA is opening soon! HAPI is a grant program to assist qualifying homeowners with permanent disabilities to make accessibility modifications to their homes. The maximum grant allotment is $15,000 which can be used strictly for accessibility-based repairs or modifications.
Apply here: https://ura.jotform.com/261234646451051
The 2026 Home Accessibility Program for Independence (HAPI) Application at the URA is opening soon! HAPI is a grant program to assist qualifying homeowners with permanent disabilities to make accessibility modifications to their homes. The maximum grant allotment is $15,000 which can be used strictly for accessibility-based repairs or modifications.
Apply here: https://ura.jotform.com/261234646451051
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July 9, 2026 @ 10:00 am
