This project is a waste of time and energy, and it does nothing to improve the neighborhoods. I would much rather see the aforementioned community and government interests use their influence to put these houses in the hands of owners. Why not produce a list of pre-approved and pre-qualified homeowners and investors? Why doesn't Buffalo Reuse set up a partnership with these homeowners to provide essential materials and appliances for free or at a very significant discount? The City could offer incentives or tax breaks for people who take over these properties, similar to the incentives offered to businesses. Maybe a one-year amnesty from code violations and an express line to inspectors. The houses would become owner-occupied dwellings or investment properties for prospective section 8 landlords, this could be a stipulation for this program. Any other ideas on how we could bring people to these houses instead of making pretty boards a la Genessee and Oak?

Why would you complain about volunteers doing a little something to hide the blight in their neighborhood? Sure this is only covering up a major issue, but at least tax money isn't going to it. Its free. Volunteers by definition don't get paid. Not only that but you overlook the fact this program helps kids do something productive with their time instead of getting into trouble. I'll agree we need to get responsible homeowners or investors into these homes, but I won't discourage volunteers from doing what they can to improve their neighborhoods or give their children something constructive to do.

I have to agree with LeadBuffalo. This is like putting lipstick on a pig. I think it will look silly. Ever seen an empty lot that a neighborhood has taken over and planted flowers in old tires turned inside out? Yep....still looks like a tire with a flower growing out of it. Ends up looking worse than just clearing the lot and having a nice lawn. I think this summer someone was planting flowers in old shoes in one of these gardens. Same thing. Their hearts our in the right place...but it just doesn't really help anything.

PS..don't think this is a dig on buffaloresue. I think it is a great outfit and great idea.

I would rather see my tax dollars going towards redevelopment than warehousing the poor in the Projects. This is by no means a dig on Buffalo ReUSE, I really like the service that they are doing to the community. I am just suggesting that this may be a more productive use of time and resources and maybe a good way to use the material that they salvage from deconstructed houses.

The City should just take some of that surplus money, buy a Caterpillar bulldozer, hire two competent and certified drivers, work them in two shifts, and drive around the City bulldozing lot after lot after lot. They could start on the East Side and move West eventually dumping all the remains into Lake Erie. Hopefully they get some of the residents as well. This might take a couple years but it will magically transform the City, especially if they include Allentown.

There's a reason why mom and dad keep the kiddie's paintings hanging on the refrigerator door. It's because little Billy's scribbly 'works of art' are actually very poorly done. . . in the grand scheme. If you don't let your children draw on the walls inside your house, what makes you think your neighbors will appreciate them slapping up some tempura paint clouds and stick figures on the outside of your house?

. . .Ok, so they're courting high school kids, I doubt the effect will be much different, though.

Everyone's saying "fix up the homes,", "fix the facades", "fix the interior and exterior," etc. Can I ask you people what planet you live on?

I really don't want my taxes going towards fixing every abandoned home in the City. Sorry.

As far as painting the plywood goes - it's a good idea. Years ago, in the South Bronx, right by Yankee Stadium - there were some abandoned apartment buildings just off the Major Deegan Expressway. Everyone going to Yankee Stadium, or getting on the GWB would see them. They were incredible eyesores. Eventually, someone (the City, I suppose) painted all of the boarded up windows, with flower boxes, curtains, little sunshines, little kittie cats, etc.

It was goofy, but it worked.

Prior to that, you would pass by and think "what a hell hole." After that, you would pass and think "Looks like this may be a hell hole, but at least someone's trying." If someone wants to paint the damn plywood, let them do it! Let's just move on, and stop sweating the small stuff.

Yeah and why are all you negative pessimistic haters so against Sam Hoyt's plan to promote peace? What do you want instead? Violence? War? Or if you want peace then what's your plan to promote it if not something as effective as murals on vacant houses? Lawn signs? Bumper stickers? Yeah right - as if those would accomplish anything!

To bring more peace to Buffalo the murals must be painted. Maybe it shouldn't be just for vacant houses. Buffalo Rising's landlord can cover their buildings with these peace murals too. The Cobblestone Peace District! Yeah! Hey has anybody called the Toronto media about this yet?

The effort is being called the Neighborhood Peace Mural Project... Buffalo ReUse will help to provide the boards that will eventually end up covering the facades of vacant houses. Then the students will get the go-ahead to paint peace-related murals on the boards.

Utica NY had a similar problem with vacant houses, dwindling population and a lot of arson...sound familiar. Their response was and still is pretty simple - if it's vacant & derelict it gets torn down quickly. And you know what popped up in place of the vacant houses? Miniparks, nice grassy lots, giving more green space and removing some of the blight. Utica is of course a LOT smaller than Buffalo, and we have 10,000 vacant houses in the city with a value of $1 each - translation - no tax income. But Utica also ahs a growing immigrant population. Many of them are Bosnian or Eastern European and they are buying some of the worn and vacant homes and making them look fantastic, nearly new. They’re opening new stores, restaurants and bars that serve the foods of their culture. We’ve got a huge untapped resource in our immigrant and international community that I don’t think we embrace or support enough. I’m sure many would love to be able to buy ahome and restore it if they had the right incentives to help them. We're not going to fix this overnight, especially if there's no fire lit under our government "leaders" to fix it. So let's give a hand to the organizations that are trying to do something with limited resources to make our neighborhoods more livable. Sure not every house is worth saving, especially if no one has taken care of it. But, there are a lot of homes that are worth saving, with great woodwork, and excellent old craftsmanship. If we chip away at a few of the unattractive things in our neighborhoods, eventually property owners will fix the houses worth fixing and renting or selling, because they’re driven by profit. Just painting derelict houses is indeed putting a band-aid on a bullet-hole - but if no one is going to fix the bullet holes now, let's at least make them look brighter, and give the people still living in our neighborhoods something less depressing to look at. And there’s nothing wrong with teaching school aged kids about taking ownership of their neighborhood and community. Maybe property owners / "investors" would tear down old derelict homes if they were given a break on housing fines in lieu of agreeing to pay to tear-down the homes at their cost, within 30 days. Another option, is to look to local developers (Paladino, Ciminelli, construction trade unions, etc) to volunteer some resources to take down some of the homes for the city and accelerate the process. I'm not saying developers are all altruistic people, but they're not the devil, they want the community to thrive because that means more development opportunities for them, and well these folks live and work here and their employees live and work here, so they must not hate the community right? Let's keep the creative ideas flowing, and not get down on others that are trying to help. Nothing will be perfect, but has anyone been to a community where things are done perfectly? I didn't think so. I'll still take B-lo over most other places in the U.S. though.

Of 'Trees' Vs 'Forests'

ReUse is trying to creativley address ever-spreading blight in poor neighborhoods.

Those attacking ReUse for not rehabbling deteriorated houses must remember the overarching challenge of addressing a massive surplus of housing in Bflo. There are at least 25,000 vacant housing units in Bflo, as the city steadily shrinks further, so rehabbing must be very selective.

Pouring more into rehabbing a house than its repaired market value would support is especailly risky. WSNHS (Neigh Housing Service) has long done costly 'scattershot' rehabs that have placed low income 1st-time homeowners with huge mortgages in declining neighborhoods, with disastrous consequences. For example, the $85 K rehab by WSNHS of 134 16th just resold in foreclosure to a NYC investor-speculator for $19.2K . . . after the new homeowner lost everything.

Instead of attacking ReUse it is important to challenge broken "low income" housing systems that squander $10's of millions annually. For example, BMHA (Municipal Housing Auth) plans to sell 200 LBJ Apartments to Medaille College for $3.5 million, then rebuild 200 apartmest anew (using a "connected" developer) for $36.5 million ($180K per one-person elderly apartment).

BMHA is massively funded every year to the tune of about $30 million, while competing with the poor in dying neighborhoods.

BfloReUse is part of the solution. HUD & BMHA are a large part of the problem.

ReUse is driven by volunteers. BMHA & HUD workers are very well paid.

Aim carefully!

Of 'Trees' Vs 'Forests'

ReUse is trying to creativley address ever-spreading blight in poor neighborhoods.

Those attacking ReUse for not rehabbling deteriorated houses must remember the overarching challenge of addressing a massive surplus of housing in Bflo. There are at least 25,000 vacant housing units in Bflo, as the city steadily shrinks further, so rehabbing must be very selective.

Pouring more into rehabbing a house than its repaired market value would support is especailly risky. WSNHS (Neigh Housing Service) has long done costly 'scattershot' rehabs that have placed low income 1st-time homeowners with huge mortgages in declining neighborhoods, with disastrous consequences. For example, the $85 K rehab by WSNHS of 134 16th just resold in foreclosure to a NYC investor-speculator for $19.2K . . . after the new homeowner lost everything.

Instead of attacking ReUse it is important to challenge broken "low income" housing systems that squander $10's of millions annually. For example, BMHA (Municipal Housing Auth) plans to sell 200 LBJ Apartments to Medaille College for $3.5 million, then rebuild 200 apartmest anew (using a "connected" developer) for $36.5 million ($180K per one-person elderly apartment).

BMHA is massively funded every year to the tune of about $30 million, while competing with the poor in dying neighborhoods.

BfloReUse is part of the solution. HUD & BMHA are a large part of the problem.

ReUse is driven by volunteers. BMHA & HUD workers are very well paid.

Aim carefully!

Dick - I do not believe that anyone is attacking Buffalo ReUSE, instead they are challenging the validity of the joint proposal with Sam Hoyt. There are quite a few phenomenal volunteer organizations and an army of volunteers who are looking to make a difference for Buffalo, I agree that they are part of the solution. The BHMA and other government entities have failed at their attempts in the past and have little hope of improving the condition in the future. There is no doubt that the system is broken, but I am in the same camp as many of the respondents to this thread, this is not doing much to address the root causes or to repair the fractured neighborhoods, especially around our schools. I have a lot of faith in Michael Gainer and the other community leaders who are stepping up in Buffalo. Best of luck to all of them!

- bhorvath makes a lot of sense on the way out the door.

- Joshua and others should never feel they have to present volunteerism credentials in order to justify a right to freely comment about anything. He's perfectly entitled to express any criticism he wants. For one thing, tax money is involved in this so it's everybody's business including his. For another thing, the article about this was posted on a public web site that seeks public comment. If they ever want to restrict comments about any article, there'd be very easy ways for them to apply comment moderation. But they don't, so that clearly shows they want all viewpoints expressed here.

- Beyond having the right to do so, his criticism was valid. Comparison of putting murals on these vacant houses to lipstick on a pig is perfectly apt. If anything, it's insulting to pigs.

- It should be obvious that criticizing the particular idea discussed in the article is not necessarily criticizing the ReUse organization or its core mission. In fact, this idea seems very little to do with its mission of deconstructing houses and reusing their materials.

- Suggestions from him and others of alternative things for the ReUse organization to do instead of this are just informal suggestions, and are of course open to being critiqued themselves. In that vein, Mr. Kern makes very good points about Buffalo’s housing surplus and the lack of demand for rehabbed houses here relative to their potential supply.

1776:

Great hair and I love the shades. Is the tan real, I hope?

Marketing 101: "You can't polish a turd..." (But, in Buffalo you can spray it with city-issued Febreeze!)