He was named Regional Administrator in 1964,[3] at a time when it was so unusual for a black person to achieve such high rank that the local newspaper used the headline West Housing--Negro Chief?

[5] Pitts was HHFA Regional Administrator at the time when California's Proposition 14 amended the state constitution to nullify the Rumford Fair Housing Act.

Although this action put his office into unprecedented turmoil, Pitts said that the act was not all bad, since it brought the undercurrent of opposition to fair housing out into the open.

[8] In retirement, Pitts continued to work as a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Business Administration and also served as CEO of his own firm, Urban Consultants, Inc.

He was a member of the board of Twin Pines Federal Savings & Loan in Berkeley and served on the Marin County Redevelopment Agency.

[2] Pitts met his future wife, Mattalyn Coleman, in 1941, when he was employed as an instructor in economics at LeMoyne College in Memphis, Tennessee.