Mass Equals Momentum For PUSH
If you're not familiar with PUSH (People United For Sustainable Housing), then maybe this is the time to get to know the group (here's a little background). PUSH is the grassroots organization that has brought events like the Anti-Poverty Summit and the West Side March for Jobs and Housing to Buffalo. It's a group that believes sustainable housing is a right, not a privilege. Recently, PUSH has been formulating a grassroots campaign to build momentum within its organization. And a group like this equates momentum with mass. That means that, more than anything else, PUSH is looking to drive up its membership. (See first project)
It is a goal of PUSH to be able to influence (through numbers) the increase of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) moneys. PUSH is opening the public's eye to the fact that there are millions of dollars that the group can influence if a proactive approach is taken. In an upcoming meeting (open to the public and new members), PUSH will be outlining its goals for 2008, which include:
- Rehabilitation of at least 20 homes on the West Side in 2008. This number should increase by 10 in each successive year.
- Contractors on publicly funded revitalization projects citywide should hire and train low-income residents for at least 50% of construction jobs. This requirement should be built into RFPs for neighborhood-based revitalization projects.
- Weatherizing at least 100 homes on the West Side in 2008.
This is a proactive approach to reclaim sections of the city that are in need of stepped-up revitalization efforts. The hiring and training of the low-income construction workers can be offset with local collegiate programs and/or established training programs throughout the city (so as not to rely 100% on the developer).
If you are looking to get involved with a no-nonsense, all action group that is determined to affect change for low-income residents, consider joining PUSH's efforts by calling 716-796-5008. Coming up:
*Member Meeting Saturday, January 19th @ 3pm 271 Grant Street (The PUSH office). February 7th - goal is to bring 100 people down to the public comment hearing on housing funds. PUSH's efforts have paid off as thirty new members were recently added. Get involved and you can carol for justice, or party with PUSH... after all, what's the point of fighting for justice if you're not having some fun while doing it?
What Others Have To Say
What Do You Think?
Related Articles
-
The Wait is Almost Over - BR's New Site
As we mentioned in our previous post, we’re in the process of changing the Buffalo Rising site. We’re almost there as we expect to launch the new site on Friday, December 19th.
In the meantime, posting will be light as we log new stories in the new publishing system which will only be viewable when we launch on Friday.
As always, we appreciate our users’ patience as we make this transition but we promise it will be well worth it. With faster load times, a comment view … - Dec 18th 2008, 11:32am
- Continue Reading
- 5 Comments
-
A Kennedy Visits Buffalo
Caroline Kennedy was in town for a visit with our mayor yesterday. A possible choice to succeed US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Kennedy's name has been mentioned along with that of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (son of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo) and our own Byron Brown, among others.
Certainly, Kennedy has "been around politics" all of her life, which is to say she was born into a family of politicos and lived in the White House--neither of which would necessarily f … - Dec 18th 2008, 7:55am
- Continue Reading
- 32 Comments
-
Downtown Free Fare Zone May be Axed
Free light rail rides on downtown's above ground section could be derailed thanks to the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority's budget mess. That is the news coming out of a Buffalo Place meeting this morning. Facing a budget shortfall and reduced State operating assistance, the NFTA is scrambling for new revenue sources and is contemplating charging for rides along the lengthy downtown pedestrian mall.- Dec 17th 2008, 4:40pm
- Continue Reading
- 48 Comments
-
The NFTA Santa Ride
Well it is Christmas time in the city and the NFTA helped put people and especially children into the mood in a very festive and fun way. One of my favorite memories of childhood was taking the train downtown with my grandfather. I would gaze out the windows and watch the tunnel speed by. It always felt like we were going a million miles an hour.
Then there was the ability to stand up and walk around during the ride without the need to be strapped down. It was always a fun time … - Dec 17th 2008, 4:34pm
- Continue Reading
- Join the conversation
Comment Options
MikeInWNY
Sustainable housing is neither a right nor a privilege. The sooner the government stops nurturing and sustaining poverty with out of control social welfare programs, the sooner everyone will have the opportunity to work for good housing and a better life.
Report this
Keith
And who pays for this "right" to sustainable housing? Oh the taxpayers, of course. As a taxpayer, I am telling you there is no such right. Work like everyone else, and buy what you can afford.
Report this
ketchum_gnome
PUSH is a great organization and as a resident of the West Side, I've seen lots of positive results from their involvement. Compared to other housing agencies in the area, they do WAY more with WAY less (and that includes less taxpayer money).
Report this
viking
Pride of ownership more often than not nurtures responsibility, the same oversight that monitors the selection of individuals for acquisition assistance could monitor compliance with maintenance and neighborhood standards.
A home gives people a secure base from which to function, people who feel secure are less likely to be socially problematic. Nomadic people infringe on stable populations as they wandering about, stable populations become domesticated and figure out ways to coexist.
Read history, this program helps address the root cause of social unrest, investing in someone's security may enhance your own.
Report this
viking
Wasn't this site used twice to take pictures, are we economizing.
Report this
bfloBR
i concur with others that PUSH has a great mission, strong leadership and a knowledge of the problems facing the community they serve. However, I think that through the activist side of their efforts (i.e. carolling outside City Hall about problem properties) hurts them in their ability to build political capital. I would venture to guess that their adversarial position towards City Hall has and will continue to hurt them in securing scarce CDBG funds and other assistance from the powers that be within City Hall.
Report this
MikeInWNY
Just to clarify my previous comment, it was not a slam on PUSH. The organization has its heart in the right place and is doing good work. The problem is the work that PUSH does is a symptomatic approach to a larger problem. Many people lack the incentive and/or opportunity to take care of themselves. The root cause is our Social Welfare State which drains private capital that could be used for private investment and job creation. The amount of people in our country relying on government support is detrimental to the health of our society, both economically and morally.
Report this
1776
MikeInWNY-you're right. Government is inherently evil and does whatever it can to keep people dependent and spend your money. If left to their own devices without the incredible lure of having to go to government offices and go through a mind-numbing process to sign up to be part of the "Social Welfare State" I am sure everybody would be able to succeed regardless of societal, emotional, economical, or geographical barriers if they just tried hard enough. Yep, not enough trying going on, just a bunch of losers with their hands in your pockets taking your tax dollars. Get over yourself. Some people need assistance, and the government is the structure to provide it.
Keep up the good work, PUSH. You are going great work on Buffalo's Wesy Side.
Report this
MikeInWNY
1776 - The flaw in your argument is that the government is the best way to help people. By providing real opportunities that will lower the number of people receiving government assistance, people who are truly needy would be helped by private charities. The increase in disposable income would result in more than enough donations to fund charities. Private charities are much more efficient when it comes to helping people because they don't have an endless supply of money that can be increased by taxation. Because of that, they evaluate a person's situation and need for help to minimize the number of people who are just trying to milk the system.
Report this
1776
MikeInWNY-The answer is to not simply do away with the programs completely and switch to wholly private enterprise. That would be a cumbersome transition, and a number of people would fall through the cracks. Private charities can turn people away based on guidelines that would not be acceptable in a publicly funded program, and could in fact amount to discrimination (for example, Salvation Army said they didn't want to participate in President Bush's proposed faith-based programs because then under Federal regulations they would have to provide services to homosexuals, and they didn't want to do that).
The best way to help is actually to work to eliminate the societal, emotional, economical, geographical, etc barriers that set people up for failure before they even have a chance to try, and that is what PUSH is doing. And, yes, I do believe the government provides an important safety net that serves more people in need than private companies would.
Report this
skarnath
Homeownership in America went from under 35% before the Great Depression to almost 70% today because the government made mortgage interest and property taxes deductible on federal income tax returns. The policy was developed because it was determined that homeownership is an important national goal. It is also the single most effective way to build wealth and achieve "the American Dream." The wealthiest among us even get to deduct these expenses on expensive vacation homes. The cost to the federal government - well over $100 billion per year. This single federal "handout" is the largest housing program in the country and is more than 3 times the entire HUD budget, which includes Section 8 rental assistance and CDBG. Does anyone want to suggest that our parents and grandparents have been "milking the system" for the past 80 years?
Report this
viking
Another reality needs to set in, we're fighting multiple wars, utilizing our tax dollars trying to set up unified government control of people in different parts of todays world, under the banner of , it's good for ours and the world's future. You can't have both it ways, government control is either good or not. If it's not, t why are we fighting for it somewhere else.
Report this
Denizen
Right on, Skarnath. The so-called "American Dream" has largely subsized by the federal government. Big gubment' shapes our everyday lives a lot more than people realize.
Also consider, this so-called dream isn't all that it's cracked up to be judging by the ongoing subprime catastrophe unfolding before our eyes. A lot of people aren't/weren't/won't be ready nor responsible enough to be homeowners, especially in "boom" metro areas where speculative real estate costs are grossly out of proportion with wages.
A lot of newer metro areas praised for their "can do" mega sprawl growth in recent decades are starting to see their economies crumble under the weight of mass foreclosures. So many false hopes and false dreams thanks to banks creating endless amounts of fictional money in the form of mortgages which will never be repaid.
Look at this map: http://www.realtytrac.com/states/index.html Go to a much-praised "boom"town like Charlotte, zoom in on a typical suburban area and see all the red blips indicating foreclosed, bank-owned homes. What you will see is quite sobering. What was though of as being prosperous neighborhoods now have foreclosure rates that rival that of Buffalo's East Side. ditto Silicon Valley, ditto Atlanta, ditto newer exurbs of SoCal, ditto Denver, ect. Next, move the map to a typical middle-class suburban part of the Buffalo area and observe the comparable calm in our waters.
I guess there are some positives to metro Buffalo missing the mid-late-20th century boom boat.
Report this
sbrof
Those subsidies also not only spurred suburbanization, because they didn't offer that kind of money for housing renovations, just new construction, but they also more importantly changing housing from being your home. That place you lived in for generations to an investment undermining many solid urban neighborhoods and their social networks for the prospects of making a return on investment. Since no one was getting government money to invest in the cities the only place that was seeing large scale residential investments were those pesky burbs. All of this was not some natural progression of humanity but a federal policy driven system.
Also the money that was spent in cities for housing was largely Urban renewal. Let those bulldozers run for block after block. Those that stayed just wondered how long until they reached their neighborhoods. The poeple and crime that they pushed out and around only made matters worse.
Take that into account with the illegal but rampant practice of red lining and you set the stage for the segregated and sprawled America we all call home. An America that relies so much on subsidized oil, roads and cheap available lands to develop.
Report this
Keith
Skarnath, I wouldn't say anyone was milking the system, but it is a weird thing for the government to be doing. There are a lot of problems with this government policy: -The private sector is better able to handle this stuff. Now when the country has mortgage problems the taxpayer ends up getting screwed even more. If this was all in the private sector, those sloppy companies lending to people that can't pay would go under without hurting the economy too. -It subsidizes sprawl. Why not buy two or three homes? -If you don't want to own a home, you lose. -It creates huge quasi-governmental organizations like Fannie Mae that are corrupt money-holes. -It isn't necessary for healthy cities. Cities with high percentages of people that rent are usually at the top of a list of thriving cities: New York City, San Francisco, Seattle etc.
And honestly, in the 1930's a lot of people didn't have washers, cars, refrigerators etc either but they have them now, so your comparison between the two eras is suspect. I think if the government didn't get involved, people would still have a high home-ownership rate today. At least, the people that wanted homes would have them, without the skewing effects of government subsidies. It would have happene in a much more efficient way, and wouldn't be hurting our economy in the way it is now.
Report this
1776
For anyone who legitimately thinks turning mortgage subsidies over to private companies would really be a better situation for all involved (because we've got to get those dirty government hands out of everything--they can't do anything right, and it is always worse than private industry), take a look at the incredibly bad situation with student loans. When they were federally subsidized and interest rates were capped, it was much more manageable for people to take out and repay student loans to actually go out and get a decent education that would allow for obtaining high-wage, skilled jobs. Now that the interest rates are no longer capped monthly payments have increased sharply and private loan companies are basically throwing money at students to get them to max out and then charging ridiculous interest rates. Yeah, that's MUCH better. Usury over usefulness, sounds good to me.
Report this
skarnath
Keith - just a few points for you to ponder: 1) government exists to promote health, safety and welfare - it's called the "police power" but it's much bigger than law enforcement, 2) deciding what to tax and what not to tax is an essential part of public-policy making, 3) the deduction for property taxes & mortgage interest is in the Internal Revenue Code because Congress put it there to promote homeownership - it has had the effect of more than doubling the homeownership rates in this country, 4) most homeowners do not believe they are receiving a federal subsidy on their homes - but they are mistaken, 5) the sub-prime mortgage mess in this country is a direct result of a private sector banking industry that got away from traditional underwriting in its pursuit of profits. Even more of the blame belongs to the federal regulatory agencies (FDIC, Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Reserve System, etc.) who abdicated their responsibilities and allowed lenders to originate loans that included concepts like "stated income" and adjustable rate mortgages with "teaser" introductory rates, & loans that are not fully amortized, along with a host of other improper practices, and finally, 6) we could still probably bail ourselves out of this fiasco if we weren't spending over a trillion dollars on a misguided war.
A final caution - many of the loudest critics of public subsidies don't understand how they work, or how they are intertwined into nearly every aspect of our lives.
Report this