It's your turn to ask for change...

While I agree with you that this block needs to be cleaned up, I can't get past the tone of your arguement about "the crazies." Mentally unstable people are frequently shuffled through the system and do not receive the type of treatment they deserve and up in this situation. Police presence will just push them into a new neighborhood where they'd do the exact same thing. Instead of asking why a parole office was opened in the neighborhood, I'd ask why the department doesn't have the right resources to help these people so they wouldn't end up there.

This article would hold so much weight if you weren't referring to them as "the crazies." Just sayin'.

I really take exception to the tone of your article and the words you chose to describe your fellow man. The men and women who find themselves homeless are very often the victims of an unjust society where economic viability counts more than the human condition.

There was a time when the homeless, the mentally ill, the substance dependent, and others used to walk along Elmwood Avenue seeking a kindhearted soul to give them a donation to help them get through the day. The EVA had the homeless moved like cattle to other parts of the city in an effort to make the Elmwood Village more attractive to the residents who would prefer that the problems of mental illness and poverty just go away.

I understand the point of your article. You would like to have the homeless moved somewhere else instead of addressing the underlying causes, just like they did on Elmwood. Out of sight and out of mind.

Worst article ever on BRO. You're attitude and tone are downright reprehensible and ignorant. It's one thing to argue that the block is a mess but pointing the finger at so called "crazies" on exemplifies a misguided, self-righteous, and pretentious belief that only you, with a job and a place to live, have a right to public space and that anyone not looking, acting or functioning like you should vacate the public space you like and be removed to areas you never go to.

The spread of gentrification continues, as does the attack on unwanted land uses and demographies.

while "crazies" might not have been the right word choice. There is no reason why homeless people should be sitting on Main st. harassing people. And to most people these unfortunate people are called "crazy".

I, too, find your tone somewhat troublesome. "If we would just clean up these bums, downtown gentrification could take hold on this section of Main Street." I lived under Druiliani's clean up in NYC, and I can tell you it was not pretty-he was brutul, souless and downright unswerving. I would not wish the same treatment on Buffalo's homeless, mentally unstable, addicts.

Is it a problem? Absolutely. Would I like to see a better solution so that panhandling, etc. is kept to a minimum? Of course. But, just wiping it clean so as to improve the aesthetics of downtown is not the answer-it's a shallow solution. We can do better than that.

Also is there any other info about the National Fuel Building being converted to a Hilton?

The mentally ill come from all walks of life and from all over WNY. They tend to end up in the city due to the concentration of mental health services here. They also are not welcome in communities outside the city and are harassed and prosecuted, even if they have roots in those communities.

The mentally ill are the forgotten cause, there are no fundraisers, no charity balls, or pins to show support for them. They lack a lobby, have few advocates, and rarely get the resources to address their needs. The problem belongs to all of us, we need to shift attitudes, not shift people around just to avoid facing the issue.

I must agree that this really is the worst BRO posting I've ever read.

Also, the pictures are not appropriate, these men are somebody's son, brother, or possibly someone's father. They shouldn't be used as props in an article.

The author makes a good point that a parole office does not belong in a retail district. Many people objected to this use at the time, but the parole office went in anyway.

Looks like the PC police or a lot of bleeding hearts are reading BRO today. I wonder how many people speaking out against this author's comments were upset that the Casey Anthony verdict was not guilty. Would you all support her if she wanted to live on your block the same way you support these mentally ill or homeless people on Main St?

We can have a debate about how best to address the root causes of the problem of homelessness and mental illness, but doing that and cleaning up main st are not mutually exclusive. The author is rightly bringing awareness to a problem, and the discussion should be limited to how best to address that. What is your solution to the problem on Main St, or do you think there isn't a problem? Disparaging the author for being insensitive takes the conversation in the wrong direction. There is no doubt in my mind that if some riff raff started taking over your neighborhood and interacting with your children or the children on your block you'd want something done about it. You wouldn't be talking about solving the root cause of the problem then.

Horribly written article. As someone who states they have worked downtown for 10 years I would think you might have some sympathy for the "crazies", as you like to call them.

The main problem here is the location chosen for the Parole Office, Drug Addiction Office etc. These are services that are in great need by many in Buffalo but placing it in the middle of downtown Main St. was a bad idea.

While the tone could express more compassion, I applaud this article's subject matter. This is a serious quality of life issue. Don't believe for a moment that all vagabonds are helpless victims. There is a lot of support for homeless people nearby. Yet a small hard core group downtown harass passersby continually and need to be made to stop.

I worked for 18 years in the Rand building. I would see the same faces, over and over and over, panhandling for money each and every single day. There is never an offer to perform any (legal) task to earn any money, just a demand to be given money. There is no need, nor excuse, for such badgering. Meals and shelter are available at missions and pantries. The library is available (and is literacy instruction) for betterment of one's situation. If some of these guys put half the effort into finding productive employment that they do into panhandling, they'd find a solid minimum wage job. One particular guy always irks me: bald headed black middle age guy, short, able bodied. He is out there a good six hours every single day badgering every single passerby for money. You don't give him anything and he gets indignant, as though he deserves your money.

It's not only downtown. Elsewhere on Main (near the methadone clinic, for example) there are panhandlers. Who else is familiar with the woman who constantly badgers people at Delta Sonic and McD's for money? She is kicked off the property by those business owners ten times a day, yet comes back not five minutes later, trying to score bucks for drugs (white, skinny, 40 something, longish brunette, a few teeth left in her head). She is a constant fixture because there are no consequences for her harassing, despite business owners' exasperation with her.

There is no excuse for tolerance of this behavior. It inhibits pedestrian activity on the street. It dissuades legitimate business from taking root. It turns people away. That is why Giuliani fought it in NY. Good for him. Manhattan is better for it.

Why would BRO even post this article?? Very poor posting.

Shouldn't we be asking about what we need to do to help these people rather than what we need to do to get them out of our sights? I guess you can't be at fault for thinking the way you do..dehumanizing the poor is something many of us do because we're too afraid to consider how quickly or easily a few bad life choices or uncontrolled mental illness can make any "normal” person end up in this situation.

The tone of 'crazies' is realistic. Just wait if and when one of those 'crazies' attack's someone downtown (stabbing, shotting, etc.) and then you'll all wake up and say 'Damn, it's time to clean up this area'.

there is always going to be mentally ill people around hte same way there will always be poor people around. there isnt a city in the world without a poor/bad neighborhood.

advocate all you want for a solution but there will always be people that either cant or wont provide for themselves.

to be honest, in a metro of over 1 million Im pretty happy with only having 10 or so visable bums around. Seems like a pretty good ratio to me...

This post was not meant to be derogatory, im just trying to look at the human condition in an objective way

There are places to address the issues these people have, not on main street. Tourists will tell stories of how bad downtown buffalo is.

Yes, crazies is the right word. Sorry if it disturbs your tender sensibilities people.

Buffalo should pass a sit/lie law like the laws passed in Portland (OR) and San Francisco. They should enforce it too, unlike what is happening in San Francisco.

This will prevent people harassing and intimidating others on public property.

First of all, if you call yourself a journalist, you should be ashamed. I've seen better writing in a high school newspaper. Sitting in on a class or two may help you learn something about English, grammar and how to write an article that makes sense and can be backed up by...something. The term "crazies" is absoluetly terrible. As a mental health clinician who regularly sees individuals who likely fit the so-called bill you have so callously and ignorantly defined in this fine piece, I am deeply offended. Men, women, and children who are mentally ill do not have a choice. A person who has schizophrenia did not choose this often diagnosis, which is often more frightening for the client than for the public (if you don't believe me, look up some articles online and gain some perspective). No one chooses to be depressed, or have bipolar disorder. Individuals do not choose to live on the streets with nothing. Would you choose to be sitting on the sidewalk and have others like yourself judging you all day? I would wager a significant portion of the population is about 1-2 paychecks away from the poverty line. That might include you, Mr. Centurione. What happens if you lose your next few paychecks. Might we see you sitting down there trying to get a cup of coffee?

Perhaps instead of writing such an uninformed article, you could do some research, or even try to make a change. Talk to your local leaders, Mr. Centurione. Ask that they do more to help the mentally ill. Ask for more funding so that the inpatient facilities stop being shut down. Perhaps you could go on for a degree in business or law and help clinicians like us write grants to obtain funds to open up housing to help these people so that they have a place to live.

Bottom line: before you complain, come up with a way to solve the problem that doesn't hurt people.

It's true that, since the Parole Office was opened in Paladino's building a year or two ago, this block has suddenly become menacing and dangerous. Lafayette Square has never been an uncomfortable place for pedestrians and now it is.

It isn't good public policy to concentrate a city's social problems into a small area. In this case, that area is Buffalo's most prominent public space.

I wonder if all those who oppose this article actually work downtown? I worked in that area for over 20 years and everyday I was harrassed by various panhandlers asking for money etc. As soon as the police or Buffalo Place employees came near, they scattered.

As for the woman at Delta Sonic & McDonalds....she is forceful, she lies and begs. Where is her family or the families of those on Main St?

Perhaps these social service agencies can set up shop in Kenmore or Amherst or West Seneca? (Those towns/cities are still in Erie County)

These people lie for money. Have you ever heard of the guy with a child who has a broken car key and needs gas money, the woman who needs diapers for her baby, the person who needs to get home and needs bus fair. These people spin the same lies day after day.

If some of these readers are so concerned with these people why not spend the day on Main Street helping them or bring them to your home to eat, clean up and sleep?

The true shame is the number of panhandlers who are military veterans.

So the pictures are a little much...but it shouldn't take light away from the fact that this is the top quality of life issue in the City of Buffalo. Anyone who has (any) experience dealing with the homeless knows there are ways to get the basics and avoid panhandling on the street..its uncalled for and not necessary..you're not going to starve in NYS..period.

I've wondered about panhandlers some times...how they seem fairly well dressed (for being homeless??)..ever see someone wearing new shoes pushing a shopping cart? I know I have..multiple times. I've seen the toothless brunette on Main Street at midnight NUMEROUS times...she has approched my vechicle and inevitablity I have run red lights..I think "crazy" is a perfectly acceptable term.

Peter Parkdale wants to villify the Elmwood Village toy store owner for NOT WANTING HOMELESS INFRONT OF HIS STORE??? People who are always out aggressively asking for your money..don't need your assistenece (its already available) they've got something else on their minds...as Lego states above..what is it going to take for us to wake up? A downtown daylight murder? A missing child?

Sympathy is not whats needed...arrests and detox should send the appropriate message. These people should not be free to roam as they please.

What are Buffalos current "anti" panhandling laws anyways? Pardon my ignorance..but I have never seen any of them enforced.

I am from Buffalo and was there last year. I now live in Anchorage. A friend and I were walking down Main Street and wondered why there was so much gum on the sidewalk. That is more disgusting than the few people we saw on Main Street. The City of Buffalo needs to power wash the sidewalks.

We give a central location with easy transit access to the ex-convicts and substance abusers, and force the person who wants to get ahead in life to take three buses to get to ECC's North Campus. What a country!

This is becoming a serious issue. Somebody had to speak up about this as too many are ignoring the reality of just how bad our downtown is becoming. As someone who has lived in both this city and in NYC during the pre-clean up era. I remember watching WABC News regarding 'mentally ill' people killing people in the subways (remember the woman from Buffalo, pushed in front of moving train in Midt-town around 1998 by a 'crazy'????) and the woman who was killed after a mentally ill man picked up a brick and threw it a woman near Grand Central.....IS THIS WHAT WE ARE WAITING FOR HERE??????? For someone to get hurt before we open our eyes to the reality that we have a serious issue here?
I would love to find out if the ones who are more focused on my word 'crazy' than the actual issue ever come downtown? work here? or are you the ones that give in and donate money to them in the streets?
Thier are services near by to help people with mental issues and/or homeless. I find it hard to believe that someone in a wheelchair (many of them downtown) say they are homeless and have no services to help them. If your disabled, their is help for you!
I may be considered mean and heartless, but, hey, let's wait till it's YOU who is walking by and gets harrased on your way to the office or what ever, or you invite out of town guests and they suddenly want to get out of the area because they feel unsafe and annoyed by the panhandlers, or try to sit down in Lafayette Square, Mohawk Park or along Main Street and CANT because your quickly attacked by beggers and people screaming at you because they have mental issues. IS THIS the downtown you all accept?????? I don't.

The point is...downtown is filled with panhandlers - it looks bad for both visitors and downtown workers - it's a problem - something needs to be done about it. I agree!

I have no problem with the premise of the article. To answer someone's question, I too work downtown and walk past this very area a lot on my way to Sue's veggie deli for lunch.

That block is awful. Yes. I fully agree. But getting spat on? Never happened to me. In fact, I've never been asked by money from anyone either. I walk through there at least once a week during the lunch hour.

What I was disagreeing with was calling mentally unstable people "crazies." It's not good journalism, and as you can see by what's happened to this discussion, it leads people away from the point. It's not the level of quality I expect to read in BRO.

Back to the topic - when you have a bunch of social services lumped into one area of downtown and a lot of people going there have no other transportation, where exactly do you expect them to go? Food stamps is one block over, the HEAP office is nearby and the labor office for the unemployed is over there too.

Would you rather all of those offices be removed from the downtown corridor and be placed into a residential area?

You can't shuffle them under a rug. They're a symptom of our society and deserve the same dignity and respect that you do.

Personally, the location and design of that god awful parole office is far more offensive than the occasional person who asks me for spare change. I've always felt Buffalo does not have a great amount of panhandlers in comparison to many other cities I've been too. But maybe that's just a matter of different focus between being a visitor someplace else and just going about my daily life here.

Nonetheless, it points to some wider societal issues that we have that so many people, whether by their own doing or not, have no place to go and too little to eat. Though we're mired in financial crises locally, state-wide and nationally, I wish that there were more policy decisions made to answer the question "what kind of society do we want to be?"

i was running errands at grant & ferry this morning and i heard harmonica music drifting in from the street. there was a guy sitting in the shade against the rent-a-center with a cap out, doing his best to make music. this is the first busker i ever saw in the many years that i've been shopping there so i went over to toss some change in his cap and chat him up. i was pleased to see that other people had been tossing money, too.

turns out he used to panhandle, which wasn't surprising; he looked pretty wrung out by life. then someone gave him a harmonica. now he is teaching himself to play tunes. i complimented him on his efforts and encouraged him to stick with it. i wish i had gotten his name.

is it possible that music is one of the cheapest cures for panhandling? i am picturing a partnership between the community music school or similar entity and the city shelter or soup kitchens. could be really appealing for grant funders.

Again, for the levelheaded amongst us, the problem is not the point the writer was making it is the way he tried to make it. Everyone realizes there is a problem downtown with homeless people and panhandlers but there is no need to call them crazies and demean them. That doesn't solve anything. If BRO wants to have an article adressing the issue of homelessness and how it's affecting life downtown that's great but they should have been a little more careful about how the article was written.

Although not written in the most pleasant voice this article raises several planning issues.

How does having a concentration of social services affect an area? Would that portion of Main Street be different without the overly large train station obscuring the view? How will the reintroduction of traffic onto Main Street change this, in particular on weekends? Will the renovation of the Baker Shoe Building (which seems to be underway at least on the Pearl Street side) change the activity of the area and therefore, add more "eyes on the street".

Yes, homelessness is a social problem that should be addressed with social services and charity. However, the way we treat our Main Street should be addressed with planning and some redevelopment.

In case you wonder, I work downtown and very rarely get approached by panhandlers and when I do a direct "No" is all it takes for me to go on my way without further problems.

The tone of this article is incredibly irresponsible and the reason we continue to face such serious mental health issues in America. They aren't crazies, they are mothers, fathers and children who have real problems that we largely ignore as a society. Instead, we continue to give incredible amounts of money to posh charities, breast cancer and the like. I'm not saying they aren't important charities, but the sheer amount of exposure these issues receive is well over represented compared to those who suffer from mental health problems. If mental health causes received the same support as others in Buffalo, we may not see so many people on the street.

Wow, nothing like a poorly written article to stir the pot and divide a city.

The gum on the sidewalks is pretty disgusting. Nasty.

"Is it just me, or is one particular block of Main Street in downtown Buffalo looking more like 1980s NYC?"

Many people actual attribute those "bad" years of the 1980's NYC as being responsible for the city's heyday.

If you lived in, or had a base in NYC you wouldn't make such a ridiculous claim.

It also isn't even comparable.

Giovanni - I refer you to the set a guard over your mouth, keep watch over the doors of your lips Bible verse.

Even Toronto has misfortunate individuals in some of its popular areas slumped in doorways. That doesn't stop the flow of people.

As an aside, the calm looking man in the first photo appears to be wearing clean clothing and clean sneakers. His beard is trimmed. His presence there seems mysterious.

I'm in shock and awe at Buffalo Rising for displaying an article of this type. BR is usually noted for their progressive attitudes and taking the high road.

As Executive Director of the Homeless Alliance of WNY I can assure everyone that there is a very simple answer to this problem....join a community wide effort to support a coalition of homeless service providers to find decent housing for these people.

There is a solution to homelessness in this community but there must be the political and social will to do something about it.

I truly cannot even believe that this article ran on BRO. You realize you took pictures of real, living humans and used them to prove a neighborhood is gone to sod? I can't help but look at these pictures and think, "What a sad story." This is someone's brother, son, uncle...

Are pedestrian police officers truly "helping" or are they just making a bunch of white dudes in suites more comfortable? It seems to me that the real issue is not the discomfort of classist bigots.

If you have an issue with zoning, why not begin that discussion without dehumanizing an at-risk segment of humanity?

This story got ua all talking though did'nt it?