By David Heraty:
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 (Facebook), 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.
Photo: University at Buffalo - See Article
Great to see VOICE-Buffalo active in holding absentee landlords responsible for their properties by working with UB and the city's Inspections Department. While those efforts will paid dividends by removing exterior visual blight, they need to go further. Efforts need to also focus on the personal and property crimes that occur in University Heights. It seems that every fall, there are multiple stories in the Bflo News about UB students being robbed or assaulted. Over the past 30 years, crime and blight has spread from the Fillmore-Leroy and Kensington-Bailey neighborhoods toward University Heights. While there are definitely some examples of pride in the appearance of a particular residence, there are far too many counter examples.
We should really talk about why this isn't being brought up in an issue... Why is Mayor Urkel completely ignoring a neighborhood falling off the cliff? Yes, it started before his time in office but I've seen no real effort on his part to help out the neighborhood. Not to mention the MIA University District Council lackey Bonnie Russell, who doesn't even live where she supposedly represents...
You think the city would force BPD to work with UB security, rather than playing some stupid territory game that leaves residents at risk. You think they would step up patrols, work with UB to encourage integration and some sort of UB faculty and student homesteading. Crack down on housing violations proactively instead of waiting until they're boarded up or burned down. Instead, we just write off an entire neighborhood. 10 years ago it wasn't this bad, now I wouldn't be too certain walking alone past Minnesota.
Will someone tell me why we have money to go around to old Byron's pay-to-play buddies and barbershops, but not enough to save the working class neighborhoods? How many times does the same story have to play out before we wake up? I'd like to say we can bring it back, but the students have already left for shiny new Sweet Home complexes and new UB North housing. We can only try to slow the blight and decay that's going to follow.