The winds of change have been blowing throughout Western New York in recent months. HOME, most especially its program the Greater Buffalo Community Housing Center, has not been immune to the change.
The CHC was established in 1999 as part of the resolution of the historic Comer lawsuit which alleged discrimination in publicly funded housing. The original purpose of the CHC was to undo the discriminatory effect of past public housing policies and practices by expanding the housing options o of primarily minority first- time Section 8 recipients.
The program gave low income families new opportunities by giving them the tools and information to make an informed choice about where they would live. And if they chose to move to an area which had a lower concentration of poverty than the one they had been living in, security deposit and moving expenses assistance and follow up services were offered to make the transition a successful one.
The success of the program cannot be debated: Over a six year span, the CHC assisted over 2,200 families find housing in the neighborhoods of their choice. Seventy percent of CHC clients moved to areas of lower poverty.
At the end of six years of activity, the CHC faced a crisis. Federal budget cuts severely limited the number of Section 8 vouchers being distributed. Compounding this problem was a cut in HOME’s funding, which resulted in cuts in the mobility staff and a scaling back of financial assistance for clients. As a result, the number of clients eligible for CHC services dwindled. Of those eligible, once word spread that financial assistance had been scaled back, even fewer clients sought the CHC’s assistance.
As a result of this situation, some adjustments have been made to expand the services of the Community Housing Center. Anyone who is looking for rental housing is now eligible for mobility services. And, along with these services now offered by the CHC, limited financial assistance with either a security deposit or moving expenses has been reinstated.
These changes ensure that in spite of all the changes, the Community Housing Center will continue as a viable portion of Home’s services while continuing to expand housing options for all of our clients.
