Pittsburgh, Pa. – On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, the Hill District is busy with people waiting for buses, carrying groceries and picking up children from school bus stops. An older woman walks hand in hand with a small child who excitedly talks about his day at school. A group of teenagers walk down the street joking and laughing with one another.

About a block down the street a church sits abandoned with broken windows and boarded doors – visible signs of vandalism. A man is asleep on the front steps with his belongings packed in a plastic bag and a piece of cardboard propped up near a small paper coffee cup that reads “Homeless anything will help.”

The stigma surrounding Pittsburgh’s Hill District deems the area dangerous, violent and crime-ridden, but statistics show other areas of the city have higher crime rates.

Pittsburgh District 6 City Councilman R. Daniel Lavelle did not return calls to comment on the current conditions or revitalization efforts of the area.

In 2009, Pittsburgh was the 18^th safest city in America according to Forbes Magazine. That year the city reported only 17 violent crimes.

Numbers released by the Pittsburgh Police Department show that between 2010 and 2013 violent crime in Terrace Village, a Hill District neighborhood, dropped 65 percent and property crime dropped more than 57 percent.

In comparison, Mount Oliver’s crime rate was up 70 percent and the North Shore was up 57 percent. The South Side Flats had also recorded the highest crime rate levels in the entire city between the years of 2010 and 2013, according to police statistics.

The Pittsburgh Police Department did not return calls to comment on the statistics of the area.

Diamonte Walker, 34, is the program associate for the Hill District Community Development Corporation and a lifelong Hill resident. Her personal mission is to break the stigma of the Hill District and encourage people to take advantage of all that the area has to offer.

“The Hill is a vibrant and thriving community. Every area goes through rough patches, and this is ours,” Walker said. “We’re fighting against the ideas that others have of us, but also fighting with ourselves to break the mold that others, and to an extent, we put ourselves into.”

At the Hill District CDC, Walker is in charge of many area revitalization efforts including the Hill District 100 and BizU programs, both aimed to help those living in the Hill District have better opportunities.

“Our goal is to give the people living in the area that don’t think that they will ever be able to buy their own house or start their own business the opportunities to do just that.

“When you grow up in an area that doesn’t seem to give you the same opportunities as the ones available to people living in different areas, it’s easy to get discouraged. We want to show that there are opportunities here and everyone can better themselves, no matter what their background shows.”

Growing up in the area, Walker has seen it change a lot since she was a child but still remains positive that the area will eventually outgrow the stigma.

“We aren’t innocent in the creation of the environment we live in. The ideas that people on the outside have of us come from somewhere,” Walker said. “They don’t just make things up to make us look bad.

“We have control over what people think of us and the area we live in. Our voice might not be as loud as some of the others, but we do have a voice and eventually it will break through.”

According to a Google map of gang activity in Pittsburgh, the Hill District has eight locations where gang activity has been reported. All eight of the locations within the Hill District that have been reported as gang territories are located within housing projects.

Gang violence has also been reported in the South Side, as well as Mount Washington, Mount Oliver, and Pittsburgh’s North Side.

Walker sees the problems in the area as a local issue and not one that can be improved by outside help.

“Although outside forces do help, the real change can only come from within. We have the power to make a change and change the way that others view us,” Walker said. “Outside help is just putting a Band-Aid over the problem. It looks like it helps, but the problem underneath is still there.

“We have to – and can – heal ourselves. That’s what this is, a healing stage. We will heal and we will be better than ever. We can learn from our current struggles and use them to propel ourselves to be better than ever.”

According to the 2016 Official Allegheny County Crime Map, the Hill District area has seen its fair share of crime. The report cites “dozens of non-fatal shootings” happening in the area over the past year, as well as “18 mostly drug related, inner-personal disputes” since 2007.

The map lists 83 neighborhoods as high-moderate violence areas throughout Allegheny County. Homewood, Mount Oliver, Mount Washington, Pittsburgh’s North Side, the West End and Wilkinsburg are also included in the list of areas with high-moderate violence and crime in Allegheny County.

Despite the issues with crime and violence in the Hill District, companies including the Pittsburgh Penguins and Consol Energy Center continue to call the area home.

Neither the Pittsburgh Penguins nor a representative from Consol Energy Center commented about their contributions to the Hill District revitalization efforts.

The Hill District is not only home to families and businesses, but students from local universities are moving into the area as well.

Kara Snyder, 21, is a Duquesne University junior who decided to move into the Hill District while looking to move off campus despite hearing the stigma surrounding the area.

“I remember during freshman orientation being told never to go into the Hill [District] because it’s dangerous,” Snyder said. “It reminded me of the Lion King when Mufasa tells Simba not to go to the shadow lands. No one told me why I just knew it wasn’t a good area.

“I was nervous when we started looking [for houses] in the Hill, but I’m so happy I live here. Of course, I still hear stories and get campus alerts about crimes in the area. Our neighbor’s car got broken into right in front of our house. I still don’t feel unsafe in the area.”

Cory Robinson, 22, a Duquesne University senior, moved to the Hill District in 2014.

“Safety wasn’t as big of a concern for me as location,” Robinson said. “I wanted to move off campus to have less rules and restrictions, but I still wanted the convenience of still living on campus. Moving to this area gave me that option.

“It isn’t that I don’t care about my safety, but dangerous things can happen anywhere. I’m no safer here than I am in South Side, or the North Side, or even downtown. Anything can happen anywhere.”

During his time living in the Hill District, Robinson has enjoyed the rich culture that the Hill District has to offer.

“I’m not surrounded by people who are exactly like me like I was when I lived on campus,” Robinson said. “There are people in this area that are very different from me and I’ve enjoyed being able to become a part of their home as I make it my home, too.

“People, Duquesne students especially, need to learn to give other areas of the city a chance. Pittsburgh, actually the whole country, is in a revitalization phase. Every neighborhood could use a little improvement. The only way that can happen is if we improve ourselves first.”

Robinson plans to remain in the Hill District following graduation in May.

Walker, Snyder, and Robinson all agree that the people who like in the Hill District are, for the most part, friendly and willing to help others in the area.

“I’ve noticed it in other areas of Pittsburgh as well, but especially in the Hill District, most of the people I pass on the street make eye contact, smile and say ‘hello,’” Snyder said. “Before moving here I had an image that everyone in this area was a monster; that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

Like Snyder and Robinson, many Duquesne students look to move off campus during their junior year. While the Hill is closer to campus, many students choose to move to Pittsburgh’s South Side to feel safer.

Gab Perry, 21, is among those students who feels that South Side is a safer place

“We moved to South Side because of how dangerous we heard the Hill [District] can be,” Perry said. “Being that we were four young girls looking for a house together, we felt more comfortable living in the South Side and didn’t even consider living elsewhere.”

Despite feeling safer in the South Side, students living in both the South Side and the Hill District have experienced similar situations involving crime near their houses.

“When we came back from Easter break it was evident that someone tried to break into our house while we weren’t home,” Perry said. “It definitely shook us up a little and made us realize that crimes can happen anywhere.”

Following the attempted break-in, Perry and her roommates requested that their landlord install additional locks on their doors. Although she and her roommates feel safe in their house, the attempted break-in isn’t the only crime they have witnessed in the neighborhood.

“There’s a house down the street from ours that had bullet holes in the siding on the front of the house,” Perry said. “Before Christmas break, we heard gunshots that sounded really close, but we didn’t realize it was only a few houses from ours.

“We had just come home a few minutes before we heard the banging. We’re lucky we weren’t still outside when the shooting happened.”