Ch 17 Reports

He's on my side all right. Sounds like he's on the right side and all around town citizens are joining forces to fight landlords who let their properties fall in disrepair. The problem we found is a lot of landlords are practicing what we view as criminal activities. The way they deal with the crap is our community. And while the victimizing are communally they come back to their own homes in nice communities where they are respectable neighbors he takes beautiful care of his lawn his house doesn't have peeling paint here doesn't have broken windows. Yes I have piles of garbage in front of the how is he doesn't have people living in there selling drugs and mugging the neighbors. I mean he lives a respectable middle class existence over here. Now we're trying to do is close the gap. It's only two miles away where he's working to destroy a neighborhood but extracting what little wealth the neighborhood has. The Broadway film or Housing Coalition monthly pickets property owners they identify as slumlords 9 and says they want to let the landlords know if they're not responsible for their properties in that neighborhood. They may be embarrassed in

their own neighborhoods. Basically we're letting people know that this is not an easy you know community is not going to be an easy hit it's not an easy thing to make it's a very difficult business. What we're doing here is the other the other facet of the demonstration of this is an informational picket. Where I'm asking him in his own community. People can hide behind a veil of respectability for only so long. And basically we're here to leafleting his neighbors and we're demonstrating to the community over here that hey you have somebody over here who is destroying our community our communities not that far away from you. I mean we're all neighbors. Some landlords contribute to a serious decline in Buffalo's housing stock. And that means people like Anthony Marshall live in terrible apartments because they can't afford anything else. We had a problem. About three months after we moved in with the furnace. Wasn't working that was going to cause one of the kids has pretty bad asthma and nobody would come except for a couple of weeks. Finally they came and

then. From then on we had 100 degree temperatures in here during the winter I thought I was in Florida when I came that never got fixed until I turned the heat off the next spring. That's not the only problem. Once the water was turned off for three days for lack of payment the water company dropped a bill off here. For like twenty two hundred dollars. I called the management company advising. I listened. Twenty two hundred dollars. He's got to pay the bill or it's going to be off. What a company of course chemical water through the kindness of our neighbors we've got a couple holes was filled up with tubs and sinks. And that. Was about it. The upstairs toilet leaks for months when it was flushed. There was a shower in the downstairs bath and the only way things get done is if there's going to be some sort of hassle about it. You know. The landlord has an opportunity to tell you yes you know an apartment from the

beginning and he tells you yes and you pay around all you want to do is be able to live decently and be comfortable. If they don't you know if they don't fix things it's very it's hard to be comfortable. And why doesn't Anthony just move. It comes to a point where I've looked around. I've been over friends houses houses that are supposed to be for when people are charging astronomical prices for something that's in my estimation worse than the US. Why you know move somewhere worse. And I'm definitely not going to move anywhere we can afford it. Tenants and neighborhood groups are the only ones cracking down on slum lords. Buffalo City Housing Court is getting tough under the gavel. Judge Frank sativa our court was the City Court the housing section. It was becoming a joke because everybody was just walking out with helping the finder with nobody there. The dog would bark but there was no teeth.

There was no teeth at all involved like the court is biting now. Buffalo landlords are paid more than $25000 since January. To the extent that I can pleasure the help of the judicial system consistent. What the duties of a judge because you must remember the letters that I'm getting here are pleading with me for help. I can't make an inspection. I am not allowed to be a partisan. I have to stand in the middle of the here in the city. The landlord the tenant and then make a decision based on the facts in the law. So to the extent that the ethics of my office permit me I'll do what I can to be an advocate for good health and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. There are many community advocates for better housing. They would like to see the slumlords clean up their act or be forced out of business. Yeah we're at a crossroads and my crystal ball tells me it's going to be better. It's not going to be good. It's not going to be perfect it's not going to be what everybody wants but it's going to be better.

More on Buffalo housing in future reports.