This section of the Web site was placed online January 26, 2009.

The community of South Oakland in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is “home” to the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). This community provided the foundation for the growth and development for both of these multi-billion dollar institutions.

South Oakland is also the “home away from home” for students of Pitt and UPMC. Although most people will agree that the vast majority of these students cause no problems, there are tremendous problems in our community caused by those students who do not have a deep sense of caring and respect for the elderly long-time residents of South Oakland.

The impact of Pitt and UPMC’s expansion in our community has helped to contribute to a decline in population of long-time residents, whereby long-time residents now may comprise only 20-30% of the present day population. Nevertheless, these elderly long-time residents deserve to live out the remainder of their lives with dignity.

Our community has attempted intensely since 2007 to resolve these problems, but too often our community has been dismissed, ignored or stonewalled by Pitt and UPMC. These problems are not that difficult to resolve. Pitt and UPMC have the resources and the ability to easily resolve these problems.

There are certainly many communities such as ours throughout America that face similar problems. This Web site will focus mainly on the trash and litter problems in our community, and will hopefully bring to light the need for the leaders of Pitt and UPMC to have a deeper sense of caring and will assume greater responsibility for the community they have impacted so severely. The fact that this Web site exists at all is a testament to the frustration of our community at not having these problems resolved.

We will not mention the names of all the individuals involved in our correspondences, because the solution to our community’s problems involves the changing of a collective consciousness within Pitt and UPMC. The leaders of these institutions are mentioned though, because they are representative of this consciousness and of the resistance our community is facing.

We look forward to the day when the long-time residents of South Oakland will enjoy the quality of life they so well deserve and this Web site will no longer be necessary.