The Intimate Partner Violence Reform Initiative was created in May 2022 to coordinate policy and system-level work across agencies in Allegheny County to improve a complex and fragmented system for both survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) and those who use violence.

Stakeholders from local and federal criminal justice systems, victim service organizations, community groups, healthcare and human services are working to improve the ways in which people can access help, how our systems work together and share information, and how we can prevent the most serious harm. This includes innovations in adapting and implementing intimate partner violence focused deterrence strategies in Allegheny County.

Each year, Allegheny County participates in a national census, required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), of the number of people experiencing homelessness on a single night. The Point-in-Time count enumerates people experiencing homelessness in the County who are sheltered (residing in emergency shelters), unsheltered (residing in places not meant for human habitation) or participating in a short-term, supportive housing program (transitional and safe haven).

What happened in 2025?

Allegheny County’s 2025 count was conducted on January 28, 2025. The number of people counted as unsheltered increased by 66%, from 169 in 2024 to 281 in 2025. These increases did not align with DHS’s real-time data collection (from street outreach and weekly monitoring of tents), which indicated stable or even downward trends in unsheltered homelessness.   

Unable to explain these contradictory results, we began a review of the methodology used for the Point-in-Time count. Our review found that the process for the January count did not have clear documentation and that some practices did not align with HUD recommendations, making interpretation of the results challenging. We decided to repeat the count, with a clearly documented methodology based more closely on HUD guidance, on March 18, 2025. The March 2025 count showed a 44% increase in unsheltered homelessness since January 2024 (from 169 to 244 people).   

We consulted with representatives from street outreach teams and members of the Homeless Advisory Board (HAB) to discuss results and for assistance in interpreting patterns in the data. The 2025 Point-in-Time report describes the methodologies and results of both the January and March counts. Also included are preliminary interpretations of the results and next steps. Refer to the dashboard to explore Point-in-Time data trends over time.

Key Takeaways in 2025?

1. We’ve seen increases in shelter usage among both adults and individuals in families with children. More adults and individuals in families with children were staying in shelter during both 2025 Point-in-Time counts than in the 2024 count. In January 2025, 570 adults and 354 individuals in families with children were in shelter. In March 2025, 550 adults and 336 individuals in families with children were in shelter. Compared to 2024, these counts represent relatively small increases, ranging from 3-7% for adults and 4-9% for individuals in adult-child households.
2. We have greatly expanded outreach, which likely resulted in a more comprehensive count. The City of Pittsburgh and the County have invested in outreach workers in recent years to help deal with rising homelessness. These workers are the main enumerators in annual Point-in-Time counts. The increased capacity for and geographic scope of outreach workers has likely resulted in identifying more people experiencing homelessness over the years. For example, increases in people counted in the East End may be at least partially explained by increases in street outreach capacity.
3. There are high rates of turnover in the unsheltered population. Only 19% of individuals counted were counted in both the January and March counts. For those counted in only one, almost two-thirds were not enrolled with street outreach programs using HMIS.
4. Using “people working with street outreach” as a proxy for a count of unsheltered individuals results in an incomplete picture. The 2025 Point-in-Time counts illustrated that the proxy we used for estimating people experiencing unsheltered homelessness—working with street outreach—misses people experiencing short or intermittent episodes of unsheltered homelessness.
5. The Point-in-Time count of unsheltered people has increased, but changes in approach make interpretation of the results challenging. Identifying increases or decreases in unsheltered homelessness year-over-year is problematic given changing methodologies over time. This means that we cannot confidently attribute these changes to real changes in the number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness versus changes in how we are counting people.

How is the County moving forward?

DHS is partnering with Bloomberg Associates, experts in Point-in-Time count methodologies, to facilitate a diverse workgroup of stakeholders to evaluate the methodology we have employed, to compare that current methodology to best practices in other jurisdictions, to provide recommendations for improving our methods, and to create a refined methodology that they will help us implement in January 2026. Bloomberg Associates will also externally validate our fidelity to the new methodology.

We expect that the methodology employed in the January 2026 count will differ from what we have used in the past. It may include the use of a larger and more diverse set of volunteers, a more explicit way to choose the locations to canvass throughout the County and/or a more intentional plan to survey people on the night of the count. Because of anticipated improvements, the newly designed methodology will serve as our baseline going forward. We will make the new methodology available publicly.

Previous Reports in this series

• 2024 Point-in-time Brief
• 2023 Point-in-time Brief
• 2022 Point-in-time Brief
• 2020 Point-in-time Brief
• 2019 Point-in-time Brief
• 2018 Point-in-time Brief
• 2017 Point-in-time Brief
• 2016 Point-in-time Brief
• 2015 Point-in-time Brief
• 2010-2014 Point-in-time Brief

What are these reports about?

DHS’s Strategic Initiatives are bold, transformative efforts designed to improve the effectiveness of human services for everyone. These reports describe innovative strategies aimed at supporting the people of Allegheny County and detail featured accomplishments that have strengthened essential systems in the County.  

2025 Strategic Initiatives

Strategic initiatives featured in the 2025 report include expanding caregiver support, improving access to key programs for individuals with serious mental illness and developing crisis support for families involved in the child welfare system. View the 2025 Strategic Initiatives report here.

2024 Accomplishments

During 2024, DHS and its partners made significant progress toward achieving several goals by focusing on annual Strategic Initiatives. The 2024 Accomplishments report features several accomplishments, including the launch of Allegheny Go, an increase in the number of people transitioning from shelter to permanent housing, reduced wait times for Allegheny Link, improved access to support for seniors and fewer law enforcement encounters.

Previous Reports:

• 2024 Goals and Key Initiatives
• 2023 Goals and Key Initiatives
• 2019-2020 Strategic Initiatives

 

Overview: 

In 2021 and 2022, states and localities reached historic settlements with manufacturers and distributors of opioids, as well as pharmacy chains and a consulting firm, for their roles in the opioid epidemic. The settlement funds were designed to promote the long-term goals of (1) reducing fatal overdoses and (2) reducing the harms from opioid use disorder. As a result of these settlements, Allegheny County will receive annual payments in varying amounts through at least 2038.

In 2022, Allegheny County received $8.4M and in 2023 the county received $6.05M in settlement funds. In December 2024, however, Allegheny County received $26.4M in 2024 from Opioid Settlements — a payment that is substantially larger than payments received in 2022 and 2023 and those expected in future years. In preparation for receiving the 2024 payment(s), Allegheny County solicited feedback from community members, providers, and other stakeholders through a series of listening sessions. These sessions aimed to engage and inform the public about the impact of opioids on the community and to collaboratively brainstorm solutions for opioid misuse.

What You’ll Gain from the Resources: 

The linked resources provide background on the national opioid settlements and detail how Allegheny County has allocated settlement payments to enhance the substance use services system.

The listening sessions report (2025) describes Allegheny County’s community engagement efforts and summarizes participants’ top priorities for settlement fund investments. Some major takeaways from the sessions include the need to reduce stigma, expand harm reduction services, improve access to treatment, and address housing and economic barriers that make recovery from opioid addiction hard. To learn more about community-driven priorities and planned investments, consider reading the full report.

The dashboard offers additional insights into funding distribution and shows how investments support initiatives.

Trouble viewing the dashboard below? You can view it directly here.

 

 

 

Since 2016, Allegheny County Jail has been expanding access to MOUD to incarcerated individuals. This dashboard serves as a tool to display the current population of incarcerated individuals who are receiving MOUD in ACJ, as well as associated outcomes before and after their release.

Medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD), which includes the medications buprenorphine, methadone, and naltrexone, is a critical component to helping individuals who are incarcerated reduce risks of overdose and relapse upon release. Individuals receiving MOUD are also more likely to continue treatment post-incarceration, which leads to better long-term recovery outcomes, like lower recidivism rates. By addressing the opioid use disorder within the jail system, communities can see a positive impact on both individual lives and broader societal health.

In May 2022, Allegheny County assembled a taskforce of leaders to reduce intimate partner violence (IPV) through improved coordination, information sharing, training, and implementation of interventions that target both those who use violence and those who are victims or survivors of it.

Historically, the County’s understanding of IPV has been based on national data, which, though useful, fails to capture local nuances that lend greater insight into specific community needs. The county published a report and dashboard to provide more local context to problems of IPV in Allegheny County by describing trends in demographics, human services involvement, and criminal histories among victims and perpetrators of intimate partner homicides (IPH). The report covers January 2017 through September 2022. The dashboard includes more recent information and is updated annually.

The analysis point to a disproportionate impact on individuals who are disadvantaged not only by their gender identity, but also by systemic racial and socioeconomic inequalities. Though IPV has traditionally been framed as an issue related to gender alone, a more intersectional understanding of risk and impact can better inform strategies for effective prevention and mitigation.

Key Findings from Report

• There were 45 victims (43 incidents) of IPV and IPV-spillover homicides from January 2017 through September 2022.
• The demographic trends among individuals involved in IPH are similar to those of overall homicides: victims and perpetrators are disproportionately Black, young (aged 25-34) and living in high-need areas. Black women represent the highest proportion of victims (37%, n=16), while Black men constitute the highest proportion of perpetrators (56%, n=23).
• Unlike homicides at large, IPH victimization disproportionately impacts women: 63% of victims of IPH are women.  While IPH accounted for roughly 7% of all homicides from January 2017 through September 2022, they made up 30% of all homicides with female victims.
• Both victims and perpetrators of IPH had high rates of involvement in human services.  74% of perpetrators had prior involvement with child welfare, publicly funded behavioral health, or homeless and housing systems.
• 58% of victims had prior involvement with child welfare, publicly funded behavioral health, or homeless and housing systems.
• Across all gender, race and role categories, about 53% of individuals involved in IPH – 47 of 88 – had criminal justice involvement at some point prior to the homicide incident: 63% of perpetrators (27 of 43) and 44% of victims (20 of 45). Among perpetrators with criminal justice involvement, both Black and White men had higher rates of involvement than either Black or White women.
• Roughly 24% of all IPV perpetrators had indicators of IPV history in either the criminal courts or child protection system. This is likely an undercount of true IPV history, as data limitations, legal restrictions and underreporting make identification of non-fatal IPV in the data difficult. Among those with domestic violence related criminal cases, the majority occurred in the 18 months prior to the homicide incident.

Read more about the county’s IPV work here.

 

 

Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) developed these publicly available, interactive dashboards in collaboration with resolve Crisis Services, the County’s provider for the 24-hour, 365-day mental health crisis service provided free to all Allegheny County residents.

These dashboards provide information about:

Crisis Calls: Overview of call volume to resolve Crisis Services through 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline and resolve’s 24-hour hotline 1-888-7-YOU-CAN (796-8226), consumer wait time to reach call clinician, abandoned call rate, and demographics of person-in-crisis who received call services. Aggregate call information is from April 2021 to present and is updated monthly. Demographic information is available from March 2023 to present and is updated monthly.

Mobile Team Dispatches: Overview of mobile team dispatch volume, consumer wait time, reasons for mobile team dispatch, dispatch rate by neighborhood, and demographics of people-in-crisis who received mobile interventions. Information is available from September 2023 to present. Data updated monthly.

Police Involvement: Percentages of calls and mobile team dispatches with police involvements. Information is available from September 2023 to present. Data updated monthly.

Allegheny County residents face significant challenges in accessing behavioral health services, an issue highlighted by recent studies and surveys. Notably, a Countywide survey revealed that 42.7% of respondents believe improving access to mental health care, particularly for young people, should be a priority. This finding is supported by research from the University of Pittsburgh, which documented long wait times for appointments and challenges in connecting with providers. These issues stem from a critical shortage of behavioral health professionals and are compounded by time-consuming provider search processes.

In response, the Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS), along with Community Care Behavioral Health (CCBH), the County’s behavioral health managed care organization, are pursuing a series of investments and initiatives aimed at addressing these barriers and increasing service availability.

To improve access and reduce wait times, DHS and CCBH are focusing on:

• Creating visibility into appointment availability so clients and providers spend less time searching for services.
• Supporting the behavioral health workforce through loan repayment and cohort-based training programs to increase the number of providers.
• Investing in community-based mental health supports to offer additional options outside the traditional system.
• Expanding access to proven treatments like medication-assisted therapy for opioid addiction, cognitive behavioral therapy and group therapy.
• Augmenting clinical decision-making to ensure those who need help most get it quickly

The Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) funds programs to assist young adults who are transitioning out of the child welfare system (also known as transition-aged youth) to secure employment, education, housing, behavioral health services, financial advice and more. Despite these service offerings, transition-aged youth have higher rates of homelessness, substance use, mental health challenges and incarceration, as well as lower rates of high school graduation compared with people who were not involved with the child welfare system. While targeted services are important, some human service needs result from poverty, which can be mitigated by providing direct financial assistance.

What is this report about?

In the summer of 2023, DHS launched a direct cash support program called Cash Assistance for Allegheny Young Adults (CAAYA), which provided a one-time payment of $4,000 to young adults, ages 18 through 22, with a history in the child welfare system, who were experiencing homelessness or were young parents who had an open case with Allegheny County’s child welfare office. In this report, we present a mixed-methods approach to evaluating the impact of CAAYA, including longitudinal surveying, a quasi-experimental analysis of administrative data in the Allegheny County Data Warehouse, and semi-structured interviews with cash recipients.

What are the takeaways?

• CAAYA recipients demonstrated significant financial need. At the launch of the program, only 35% reported being currently employed and only 29% reported being in school either full-time or part-time. Those who had some form of formal employment in the 12 months before the program had mean annual earnings of $10,174. Twenty-eight percent had one or more children.
• CAAYA recipients also lacked financial support within their community. Two-thirds of recipients reported not knowing anyone who would lend them $500 in a time of crisis.
• Overall, the program encouraged about 100 individuals to open a bank account. Seventy-five percent (n = 774) of recipients chose to receive the money via bank account transfer and 25% via a virtual gift card.
• Recipients used the cash assistance quickly. On average, $2,769 of the $4,000 was spent within the first month.
• Car-related expenses ranked as the number one item for planned expenditures, and there was a 41% relative increase in car ownership three months after receiving the money.
• The program improved self-reported well-being after receiving financial assistance, but the effects faded in the subsequent months.
• CAAYA recipients increased their use of mental health outpatient therapy by 7% compared to a control group of individuals who were narrowly ineligible for the program. There was no change in utilization of crisis and inpatient services. In contrast to self-reported well-being, the program’s impact on usage of outpatient mental health services persisted for at least eight months after receiving funds.

How is this report being used?

As a result of this program, we are exploring additional opportunities to leverage cash assistance with this population to increase engagement in holistic supports and services. We are also considering longer-term programs with more frequent, smaller payments to targeted populations.  For future programs, we hope to receive state waivers for the impact of cash assistance on public benefits, especially if a program is designed to include ongoing payments.

For other local governments or providers who are considering cash assistance programs, we hope this report serves as a resource for program design and evaluation. Local governments should note that the success of the CAAYA program would not have been possible without our partner organizations. Trust in government significantly impacts the accessibility of services, particularly for marginalized communities. When first hearing about the cash assistance, many individuals who were eligible to receive the money thought that it was a scam. This skepticism was eased by having multiple trusted intermediaries ensure that it was a real program and that they should apply.

The 2008 Act 33 Amendment to the Pennsylvania Child Protective Services law requires state and local reviews of all child fatalities and near fatalities that result from suspected child abuse. In response, the Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) conducts a comprehensive and multidisciplinary review of child fatalities and near fatalities in cases where there is suspicion of child abuse or neglect. These reviews are a component of DHS’s continuous quality improvement process.

What is this report about?

This report covers child fatalities and near fatalities (critical incidents) in Allegheny County reviewed in 2022 and 2023 with a focus on drug ingestions, which have been a growing cause of these critical incidents. The increase in child ingestions and fatalities has been a nationwide trend in recent years and has worsened amidst the nation’s opioid epidemic. The County seeks to understand how these incidents happen and the circumstances surrounding them so that it can develop strategies to minimize them.

What are the takeaways?

• There were 50 critical incidents that occurred during 2022 and 2023. Forty percent (20) of these incidents were the result of unintentional drug ingestion. Unintentional ingestion comprised one-third of the 2022 incidents, rising to nearly one-half in 2023. The number of ingestion-related incidents has been rising year-over-year since 2019 and has been the primary cause of the County’s fatalities and near fatalities since 2022, surpassing blunt force or penetrating trauma and abusive head trauma.
• In 18 of the 20 ingestion cases, at least one of the substances ingested was an opioid. Eighty-six percent of the near fatal and 100% of the fatal ingestions involved opioids.
• The majority (70%) of ingestions occurred in children below the age of three. 40% of victims of ingestions were between one and two years of age compared to 27% of victims of non-ingestion fatalities and near fatalities. This age group are especially at risk for unintentional ingestion as they begin to gain mobility, which increases the likelihood of coming into contact with substances.
• Only 4 (20%) families of ingestion-related critical incidents had active child welfare involvement at the time of the incident, though three quarters (15) of families had a history of child welfare involvement prior to the ingestion incident.
• Sixty-six percent of alleged perpetrators in ingestion cases had received publicly funded substance use disorder services prior to the critical incident.  However, there was a reduction in engagement with these services within a year (43%) and within a month (36%) prior to the critical incident.
• Of the known alleged perpetrators in ingestion cases, 41% had utilized medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) at some point before the critical incident. There was a steady decrease in MOUD use leading up to the critical incident with 31% using MOUD within the year and 13% within the month prior to the critical incident. 

How is this report being used?

Allegheny County is taking an active role in addressing the ramifications of the opioid epidemic and the rising trend of unintentional ingestions. This includes enhanced training for Child welfare staff and access to naloxone, lockboxes and fentanyl test strips for caseworkers to provide to clients. The County, through its opioid settlement funds, has expanded convenient access to MOUD and evidence-based treatment (e.g., mobile medication, telemedicine prescribing, and incentives for abstinence from stimulants and opioids) and launched a Countywide marketing campaign in April 2024 warning about the dangers of opioid ingestions and the safety of administering naloxone to children. In addition, it has invested in preventative programming like residential substance use disorder treatment that allows families to reside together during a person’s treatment and in the Hello Baby approach, a collaboration which is designed for parents with newborns to improve family outcomes and maximize child and family well-being, safety and security.

Other information

Explore updated annual data and prior reports here.

What is this dashboard about?

The Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) partnered with Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) to launch a transportation assistance program called Allegheny Go. This program offers half-price PRT rides for county residents ages 12 to 64 who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, and do not receive any other transit fare discounts. 

Allegheny Go builds on the success of the Allegheny County Discounted Fares Pilot Program, which ran from November 2022 through June 2024.  

This dashboard describes the application process and reports on application statistics and participant demographics.  

How is this dashboard being used?

DHS has set a goal of enrolling 15,000 participants in Allegheny Go. This dashboard tracks progress towards that goal. Staff monitor how many applications are received, how many are eligible, and make sure eligible participants receive their discounts.  

Allegheny County Department of Human Services developed these dashboards to provide information to the community about violence trends in Allegheny County and the City of Pittsburgh.

What is this dashboard about?

The dashboard contains information about all homicides in the county and city (as reported by the county’s medical examiner) and contains a link to the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police’s dashboard showing shootings within the City of Pittsburgh. The dashboard shows trends in homicides, including trends in demographic data for victims and trends in homicide locations. The dashboard also shows information on human service, physical and behavioral health, income supports and justice involvement for the victims prior to their death.

What data is available?

Data on homicides is available through the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s office. It is available from 2007-present and is updated monthly. Data on program involvement (including prior justice involvement) comes from Allegheny County’s data warehouse, which integrates information from more than 20 distinct sources. Read more about the county’s data warehouse here.

Read about how Allegheny County responded to an 82% increase in reports of need to Older Adult Protective Services.

Click here to read more information about older adult protective services and access real-time data.

Since 2016, the Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) in Pennsylvania has utilized the Allegheny Family Screening Tool (AFST), which assists child welfare call screening caseworkers in their assessment of general protective service (GPS) referrals regarding potential child maltreatment.

What is this report about?

This report reviews the research evidence on algorithms in child welfare, specifically focusing on the causal impacts of the AFST and comparable predictive risk models (PRMs). It begins by summarizing the influence of these tools on child welfare decisions. The report then explores the discrepancies between perceived and actual effects of these models, highlighting the importance of bridging the gap between perception and reality to alleviate concerns and maximize the effectiveness of these tools.

What are the takeaways?

The impacts of predictive risk models in child welfare must be compared with alternative approaches to augmenting call screening caseworker decision-making. Traditional risk assessments in child welfare have been largely manual, prone to inconsistencies, and often omit critical information. Before implementing the AFST, Allegheny County did not employ any structured risk assessment.

The main conclusions from recent research on the AFST are:

• The AFST changed the composition of investigated referrals. The introduction of the AFST decreased the probability of investigation for referrals with low risk of removal and increased the probability of investigation among referrals with high risk of removal. The introduction of the AFST also reduced the racial gap in investigation rates, particularly among higher risk referrals.
• The AFST is reducing, not increasing, racial disparities. Researchers found that the introduction of the model reduced racial disparities in investigation rates across AFST scores, although the size and precision of the reduction varied. The AFST reduced the racial disparity in investigation rates for the highest risk referrals by 83%, from 10.6% to 1.8%. The researchers estimated that the AFST reduced the Black–White gap in removal rates of screened-in referrals by 73%, from 4.3% to 1.2%.
• Screeners use the algorithm but with caution. Researchers found that call screening case workers are integrating information from the AFST effectively, aligning their decisions more closely with predicted removal risk compared with the period before the tool’s introduction. The tool is seen as a helpful source of additional information rather than a replacement for professional judgment. 

How is this report being used?

The application of algorithms to support decision-making, especially in sensitive areas like child welfare, mandates high transparency. It is critical that the complexities of predictive risk models are communicated clearly to all stakeholders to maintain trust and prevent misuse. DHS is committed to keeping the public informed about the use and impact of algorithms at the Department and draw upon current research to shape the implementation of these tools in the field.

Read more about AFST here.

Recently, DHS announced it was eliminating some Education Specialists Position. Read a summary of that decision and click here to find some resources if you need assistance.