The following article was composed by David Heraty of VOICE and posted to Buffalo Rising on June 21st. The article does a great job highlighting the efforts of many dedicated individuals who are committed to improving housing conditions in the University Heights neighborhood.
The city's troubled University
Heights neighborhood has been seeing positive change at the grassroots level.
At the hands of negligent absentee landlords, crumbling housing stock has
hollowed out the core of the neighborhood. From Englewood and Merrimac on
the west to Lisbon and Minnesota on the east, the first few blocks in from Main
Street were in pretty rough shape. A student housing unit was taken down
by a fire. Tragedies have resulted from student party violence. The
problems remain, but in 2011, the downward spiral began to reverse its course.
Working through VOICE-Buffalo, a
faith-based social justice organization, a handful of committed citizens
decided to confront the problem head-on. They identified the problem,
crafted a solution, and went to work - and ended up being the catalyst for a
change in housing conditions. A trip through the neighborhood revealed
dozens of houses which were in a state of disrepair. These properties
were evaluated from a public vantage point for housing violations such as
peeling paint, broken windows, and unsafe porch balconies, among others.
A list of problem properties was compiled and, along with a detailed list
of violations, was submitted to City Hall's 311 complaint system.
The results were seen even more
quickly than expected. As the neighborhood's most problematic landlords
were issued letters of violation, many of them went to work making the necessary
repairs. The landlords who failed to fix the violations found themselves
in Buffalo City Housing Court. The inspector's efforts to work with the
landlords paid dividends, and within a few months, substantial exterior
improvement was noticeable. However, there was still the question of
interior violations such as faulty wiring and unsafe living quarters.
Working with UB, the city's
Inspections Department developed a pilot program called Operation Student
Safety. Its purpose is to obtain access to rental housing units and
conduct interior inspections. For the past three semesters, sweeps of the
neighborhood have covered every street that is plagued by problem properties.
Several of the property owners have found themselves in Housing Court.
The most egregious example was a property on Lisbon, which had to be
condemned due to the magnitude of the violations. The organizers from
VOICE-Buffalo still play a part in the process, submitting fifteen problem
properties to City Hall each semester for special attention. Once a safe
haven for negligent landlords, University Heights has become a model for
effective enforcement of the housing code.
The success in University Heights
has been a joint achievement of the university, city inspectors and VOICE-Buffalo.
There's much more work to be done to rebuild the neighborhood, but an
improvement in the inspection process - and by extension, the housing
conditions - was an important first step. It's also an example of how
ordinary citizens can achieve social change by acting locally.
