Just yesterday I received the following cryptic email:
After three years of ‘squatting’ there, an environmentalist collective calling themselves the “Bird House” have acquired a deed to their property. We would like to raise public support for the resurgence of this communal living situation and community garden. If you’re interested, feel free to call 716-491-7474 and speak with me, Tim Robson, for more info. Thanks again.
I sat back and read over the email again. What house? An environmentalist collective? Squatting? The Bird House? I picked up the phone and dialed the number. It was Tim who answered, and he told me that he was busy at Home Depot picking up tools that he needed to repair the house… he would call back. An hour later the phone rang… he was ready to talk. It turns out that Tim has been fighting a battle to claim possession of a 100 year old Victorian mansion on the city’s West Side. Along the way, he and a group of friends (who inhabit the house) have dealt with an out-of-town landlord… and are now dealing with an out-of-town bank (and a lean on the property). Here’s Tim’s story:
“Three years ago myself and friends discovered the ideal place to live. The house was totally stripped and scrapped apart, but the structure was still sound. Five of us moved into the house… we lived there for three years. Over that time period we took multiple visits to Housing Court to attempt to get a hold of the ownership. We figured that if we were the owners, then we could fix it up instead of watching it deteriorate year after year. Finally we were evicted this past July (presumably for stirring up trouble for the out-of-town-landlord). Even after we were evicted we continued to follow up with housing court dates. Eventually Housing Court (Judge Nowak) went after the owner.
“As of November 20th 2007 I finally managed to secure ownership of the deed… and now we are rebuilding the house. There’s even an old in-ground pool in the backyard that we’ve converted into a garden. We’ve smashed out the concrete patio on the side and that is also going to be a garden. Many of the vegetables that we eat are grown in these gardens, and we all share responsibility for maintaining the plants and vegetables. We even have a communal van… it’s shared between six people who live in the city. We have a bike shop in the basement where we assemble and repair bikes… never anything too formal. We’ve also worked with the Blue Bike sharing program. And the house has a music practice space that is heated by a wood stove.
“We’re not an official cooperative… we’re more of an organic group… an informal cooperative. We share living responsibilities and we share rent… the remainder of the monthly fee goes toward the collective pot. Bills are all split up. After the eviction we thought that we were done for. We’re really excited to be here… come April we should have between six and ten people living here. We’re even trying to acquire a lot down the street to turn it into a community garden like Pat Cain did… we need more space where we can grow our food. Our group recently brought a screen-press into the house and we’re going to start a small operation where we make t-shirts and flyers for local bands.
“Hopefully those proceeds will help to grow some of the other self-sustaining projects. We even got the bank in Houston to drop the lean on the house from $60,000 to $15,000… we are working to get it to zero. We want to talk to Judge Nowak about this bank being a poor property owner since the owner finally gave up on the house. We want a clean slate to create a high-energy creative space that provides to make the world more beautiful. I’ve noticed a real pick-up in Buffalo over the last couple of years… it’s nice to be part of the movement.”
Tim wants people in Buffalo to know that if they want to get involved with this new kind of movement… if they believe in what he is doing, then they should feel free to call him 716-491-7474.