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The
same year which has seen some of the more significant accomplishments in
the remarkable history of Housing Opportunities Made Equal-- and
back-to-back national honors-- has been followed by unprecedented
challenges which threaten HOME’s ability to deliver core fair housing
services. It has been both the best of times, and among the worst.
Despite a
smaller staff and external changes which reduced the volume of clients
coming through the Greater Buffalo Community Housing Center, HOME served
the second greatest number of individuals in the agency’s history:
5,458. In addition, we conducted 169 educational presentations for 4,702
participants and brought our fair housing message to tens of thousands
more through 65 media appearances.
Through
federal court action (undertaken with the assistance of the Western New
York Law Center) and tenacious public advocacy, HOME concluded a
decade-long investigation by persuading the City of Buffalo not to renew
the lease with the long criticized operators of the Marine Drive
Apartments. As a result, the 616-unit publicly assisted complex will
finally be operated on an equal opportunity basis.
HOME
continued to play a significant role in the Inclusion Task Force, a
coalition of service providers organized four years ago to battle local
laws, policies and procedures which erect barriers to those serving
persons with disabilities, the poor and people of color. In the year
following the Attorney General’s finding that Buffalo’s Restricted Use
Permit Ordinance was applied in an arbitrary and capricious manner, the
ITF wrote a better law and entered into discussions with both the Law
Department and Common Council.
Following
passage of the long-awaited Sexual Orientation Non-discrimination Act (SONDA),
HOME undertook targeted outreach to the population that had previously
been unprotected by civil rights laws. HOME continued to conduct fair
housing workshops during Pride, and, for the first time, 25 volunteers
marched behind HOME’s banner in the GLBT Pride Parade. Opponents of civil
rights hurled raw eggs at HOME’s contingent—assuring we would return the
following June.
HOME also
produced three new brochures (including one in both English and Arabic),
reprinted a fourth, and distributed thousands of copies throughout Western
New York. In addition to their regular duties, members of the staff
undertook an analysis of impediments to fair housing study for the Town of
Hamburg and began a similar study for the City of Buffalo.
Months
after receiving a second HUD Best Practices Award, HOME learned that it
would receive the federal government’s second annual Pioneer of Fair
Housing Award, recognizing “long-term commitment and dedication to civil
rights.” This honor was made all the more significant when the nation’s
chief fair housing official, HUD Assistant Secretary Carolyn Y. Peoples,
flew to Buffalo to address the 41st Annual Meeting and was able
to present the award in person.
Challenges ahead
Despite
accomplishments and national accolades, HOME’s determined advocacy has
resulted in new threats to the organization.
The consent
decree resolving the Comer lawsuit reconfigured the delivery of government
assisted housing services in Erie County and provided for the creation of
the Greater Buffalo Community Housing Center (CHC). It also required the
City to provide financial support for mobility counseling through the CHC.
Less than a month after being advised that the City of Buffalo had failed
to comply with this critical provision of the Comer consent degree,
the City announced it would belatedly comply—but that HOME would no longer
receive a contract for fair housing.
After 29 years at the center of the
Buffalo’s federally mandated fair housing effort and, after last year
serving nearly four times the number of persons required by its contract,
HOME has been left with a funding shortfall of $128,000. Twenty-five
percent of our professional staff has already been eliminated.
On this
Memorial Day, it is unclear what is in store for us. Will the looming
deficit result in the loss of additional positions and further reduction
of HOME’s capacity to do its essential work? Can the Campaign for HOME
announced at the 41st Annual Meeting close the budget gap?
Will the contempt proceeding begun by Comer counsel against the
City be successful?
Amid so
many unknowns, there remains one certainty: that somehow HOME will
survive and—in some form—continue our uncompleted struggle for civil
rights. |
