Commission outlines partnerships with University of Pittsburgh and community trainings, and lists Pride tabling and other events

At the meeting Rachel Shepard summarized ongoing outreach and education efforts, including plans to expand student training and shadowing and to provide more structured housing-rights education for University of Pittsburgh students.

"I was able to finally meet with Tamar Pearson Brown from the University of Pittsburgh. Um, she does a street medicine course through PIT and Amelia did go and do a presentation for all of the street medicine," Shepard said. Shepard described plans for student shadowing, targeted trainings and a housing resource fair to provide more concrete instruction than the panel discussions previously used in student orientation.

Staff also summarized recent training activity: a three-hour fair-housing training for 50 employees of a single housing provider, a four-hour landlord training with nine attendees, and a continuing legal education session on service and support animals with eight attendees.

Neighborhood Legal Services and Standing Firm have reached out to collaborate on employment matters and domestic-violence accommodation provisions, Shepard said, noting state-level changes referenced as "Governor Shapiro's recent bill" to streamline unemployment compensation for domestic-violence survivors.

On community events, Shepard listed dates and locations: the NAACP Pittsburgh Human Rights Dinner on June 5 (evening), Pride tabling June 6-7 at Allegheny Commons, Lawrencville Pride on June 13 and a multiday Junth event June 19-21. Commissioners were asked to volunteer to staff the commissions tabling shifts.

Shepard also mentioned a billboard campaign that prompted prank voicemails but said staff followed up; billboards are scheduled to remain up for several weeks.