✍️ Dr. Oz’s letter to UPMC

⚧️ UPMC Gets a Warning Letter

Nine hospitals including UPMC Children's received a letter from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid in May, demanding information about their policies on gender affirming health care. It was signed by Dr. Mehmet Oz, the agency's administrator and a former Pennsylvania GOP Senate candidate, and gave them 30 days to respond. UPMC ended gender affirming care for patients under age 19 last month. [90.5 WESA]

• 🏳️‍🌈 Pittsburgh City Council expanded protections for LGBTQ people this week — legislation that was partly filed in response to UPMC's actions. [QBurgh / 🎧 City Cast Pittsburgh]

🏠 Council Squashes One IZ Idea

City Council rejected a proposal from Councilor Bob Charland that would have allowed neighborhoods to decide whether to implement inclusionary zoning, which requires a dedicated number of affordable units in new housing developments. A separate, citywide IZ bill from Mayor Ed Gainey is still under consideration. [TribLive]

🦌 PA's Sunday Hunting Ban Repealed

Gov. Josh Shapiro signed a law that allows hunting on Sundays starting with deer, turkey, and bear seasons as early as September. The state has 850,000 licensed hunters. Local state Rep. Mandy Steele, who calls herself an environmental advocate, sponsored the bill to expand access for people living close to the land, as well as for thinning herds of "nuisance wildlife" like deer. [WPXI / 90.5 WESA]

Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato is on the City Cast Pittsburgh podcast today, sharing some of the county's big achievements and challenges over the past year. Here's a snippet of our interview.

500 in 500 — your initiative to create 500 affordable housing units in 500 days — just celebrated its first birthday. That feels kind of momentous.

It really is. We still have until October, but we've housed over 300 people across hundreds of units. And these are units that wouldn't be available but for us bringing the table of people together to design this program. And it's gonna live on beyond day 500, which is really exciting.

A lot of what 500 in 500 was — yes, bringing units online that were offline in the Housing Authority's portfolio [and] working with developers to set aside units for people who were in our shelter system, but a lot of it was actually streamlining bureaucracy and making it work better for both property owners and for the people who were using our shelter system and we're in need of a safe, stable, and affordable home.

In the true spirit of Allegheny County, where we have 130 municipalities and hundreds of fire departments, police departments, and 43 school districts, we also have three housing authorities. So where it worked best was really just getting the city and the county to work together.

Now people who own property are having a better experience interacting with the housing authorities. We're putting people in units in a much quicker fashion, and it's ultimately not costing a whole lot of money.

For the full conversation, listen to the episode below.