Tony Tye, Post-Gazette Cathy Grizzanti, left, and Laura Heffley, both sophomores at Pitt, live in apartments in a converted house in Oakland, where there are holes in the ceiling and wall and a leak between the second and third floor. Click photo for larger image.

Efforts to address conditions in off-campus housing in Central Oakland are moving into a new phase. The city is beginning to take recalcitrant landlords to court by the dozen, and the University of Pittsburgh is considering creation of a housing code enforcement clinic.

In August, city building inspectors walked through the neighborhood, eyeballing 700 properties and citing 270 for code violations. The sweep came after a June Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story documented widespread slum-like conditions in the neighborhood, which houses thousands of college-age residents.

Of the properties cited in the sweep, 104 were strewn with debris, 68 had overgrown vegetation, 45 had broken sidewalks, 44 had fire escapes that hadn't gotten required engineering reviews, and dozens had graffiti tags, unsteady railings, wobbly decks or porches, damaged steps or rotting wood. Many had multiple violations.

As of Thursday, 196 of the 270 properties cited had passed a second inspection, and another 27 were on their way to code compliance, according to the city Bureau of Building Inspection.

"For a one-time thing, I think we got a lot of abatement," said city Building Inspection Chief Ron Graziano.

His agency has filed Housing Court cases against landlords who own 37 properties that still haven't passed muster, and has had trouble finding the owners of another eight problem properties.

The Housing Court filings, which could bring fines for violators, put the matters in the hands of an institution that had operational problems last year, when it went from being a city operation to a part of the state-run Court of Common Pleas. But the court is now more efficient and effective, according to Common Pleas District Court Administrator Raymond Billotte.

Of 925 city building code cases filed through November of this year, 688 have been resolved, including 382 guilty pleas or guilty verdicts, Mr. Billotte said.

Those who ignore the court's summonses are now tracked down by Allegheny County sheriff's deputies, who compel them to plead guilty and pay a fine or bring them directly to court.

Mr. Graziano is talking with Pitt about the timing for another Central Oakland sweep. Meanwhile, he's shifting inspector assignments to upgrade enforcement in Oakland.

Through this year, the inspector in charge of code violations in Oakland also had to handle the housing-heavy South Side Flats and Slopes. That will change Jan. 2. New territories give the code inspector charged with Oakland only that neighborhood and the thinly populated Lower Hill District.

Pitt pays the city around $23,000 a year, the equivalent of half of a building inspector's salary and benefits, to reflect Oakland's significant enforcement needs. Mr. Graziano said that arrangement continues.

Help from Pitt
Leaders at Pitt, meanwhile, are working on several fronts to address substandard housing, including proposed creation of a "housing code enforcement" clinic.

It would be tacked onto an existing community economic development clinic within Pitt's law school. Eight student lawyers and a supervising attorney would help the city and other parties explore anti-blight legislation and pursue code violations, partly by helping to locate absentee landlords, said David Herring, former law dean and co-director of clinic programs.

"We've started down the road to investigate what other cities have done and other campuses have done," Mr. Herring said.

Daniel Friedson, who heads the community economic development clinic and would likely oversee the new operation, said he'd like to examine whether a system for regular apartment inspections would be feasible.

Meanwhile, Pitt's Housing Resource Center is revamping its Web site for renters and will deploy new marketing materials to raise visibility among students, said Eli Shorak, Pitt associate vice chancellor for business.

And, he said, the university may create an online survey that would allow students to share landlord experiences and let landlords provide information about their properties.

At Ohio State University, a housing law clinic offers students free legal representation in landlord disputes. A November proposal from within Pitt's law school to use student lawyers for a similar service beginning next fall appears unlikely to go forward, at least for now.

Landlords in the neighborhood, meanwhile, are feeling the heat already.

"There's been a lot of pressure put on property owners," said Jason Cohen, owner of Elrod Investments, which owns two Central Oakland apartment buildings. He said he welcomed the enforcement efforts.

Still to come: a stepped-up effort to get the message to students.

"I've agreed to come out and talk as many times as it takes to educate students about what's the minimum they should expect when they rent a place," said Mr. Graziano, adding that no such talks have been scheduled yet.

Meanwhile, debate over squalid student housing, who is to blame and what can be done about it goes on in places like 417 Semple St., which was not cited during the August sweep. On a recent Friday, water could be seen dripping through a second-floor ceiling in the run-down three-story house.

"I've told the landlord about it, but he doesn't do anything. My mom told me, 'You guys should refuse to pay rent until he fixes this,' " said Laura Heffley, a tenant.

The six residents of the house pay $2,000 a month (no utilities included) to landlord Najib Aboud.

Mr. Aboud disputed assertions by his tenants that they contacted him about the leak. He also said he knew nothing about gaps in a second-floor wall and first-floor ceiling that were observed by reporters who visited the apartment this month, or about any other problems.

"Nobody called me for a leak, for holes, anything," Mr. Aboud said. "Everything is OK."

His son, Dourid, later said his father did fix a leak at the property weeks before and had no reason to believe the problem was persisting. He said his father bought the address about a year ago with plans to renovate it but that the current tenants urged him to rent it to them, even as is.

Dourid Aboud said the holes were not there when the new tenants moved in, and he blamed student parties for conditions inside.

Cathy Grizzanti, 20, a Pitt sophomore who lives in the house, said they have not complained to any city or county agency -- even for a strong odor near the leak -- for fear they might have to scramble for another rental if the place were declared uninhabitable or condemned.