CITY HIGH COMMUNITY PARTNER

The URA is the City of Pittsburgh’s economic development enterprise that promotes housing affordability, economic mobility, entrepreneurship and neighborhood revitalization.

Many Pittsburghers may be familiar with the URA’s first-time homebuyer program, called OwnPGH, that offers incentives to make home ownership possible. The housing sector of the URA, which administers that program, is also where City Charter High School intern Dylan Lopata recently made a significant contribution, updating and automating databases and streamlining data operations. 

City High is fortunate to have the URA join our roster of internship partners, sharing a real-world work experience with our students and helping them explore their career ambitions.

Thanks to Tanika Harris, Director of Communication and Community Relations and Alicia Majors-Myrick (above), Homeownership Manager and mentor to Dylan, the URA will have four more City High interns, ranging from Consumer Lending to Housing to Finance.

According to Alicia Majors-Myrick, “The work Dylan did on developing spreadsheets is helping everyone else in the agency. I don’t even know how to express how helpful he was. He was involved in everything we were involved in. He was included in our meetings and all our fun employee events.”  

“We are obviously pleased that Dylan represented City High so well, presenting himself professionally, armed with the right attitude and technology tools to help make a difference at the URA,” reflects City High’s Internship Manager. “He was extremely personable and the whole office knew him. He certainly made many business networking connections and was even able to meet the Mayor as part of a presentation team.”

“It was like he belonged here,” according to Ms. Majors-Myrick, “He was so accepting and open to everybody, the work, and what needed to be done.  People gave him assignments that they thought would take days to do. That very day, he was done with it!”