Articles for I'Jaz Ja'ciel

May 16

2025

I’Jaz Ja’ciel discusses food injustice on ‘What’s Next?’

Investigative Post reporter I’Jaz Ja’ciel this week hosted a segment of Buffalo Toronto Public Media NPR’s What’s Next dedicated to food injustice. She sat down with Nnennna Ferguson, chair of the Buffalo Food Equity Network Advisory Board, to discuss food inequities in the Black community and how community-based solutions may help meet the needs of residents. The episode originally aired Wednesday, May 14 to commemorate the third anniversary of the Tops Supermarket Massacre. Ja’ciel and Ferguson discussed how the definition of food injustice has changed since the tragedy that saw the closure of the Jefferson Avenue grocer for a month,[...]

Posted 4 days ago

May 15

2025

In legal hot water again

Brent Manor Apartments at 366 Elmwood Avenue, owned by APL Property Group. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel The state Attorney General last week filed a lawsuit accusing a former judge-turned-developer and his property management company of misappropriating tenants’ security deposits. Anthony LoRusso and employees of APL Property Group used security deposits to fund the company’s payroll and other operations, according to the company’s former director of accounting, Ann Morelli. LoRusso is a former Erie County Family Court judge who resigned in 1993 amid sexual harassment allegations from several female employees. “The cash deposit was recorded and credited to the tenant.[...]

Posted 5 days ago

May 9

2025

Local landlords, brokers accused of rejecting Section 8 tenants

A text message between a tester and a real estate agent used as evidence in a housing discrimination complaint. Screenshot provided by Housing Rights Initiative. A non-profit watchdog group Wednesday filed complaints accusing 103 real estate agents, brokerage firms and property owners across the state of discriminating against Section 8 voucher holders. Thirteen of the defendants named in the 52 complaints filed with the New York State Division of Human Rights are located in Buffalo. Some of the Buffalo defendants, contacted by Investigative Post for comment, are calling foul on the accusations. Housing Rights Initiative — an organization that aims[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

Apr 29

2025

Neighbors say site of Allentown murders was ‘unsafe’

Neighbors of Mickey Harmon and Jordan Celotto — the Allentown couple murdered in their home on March 4 — say the tragedy might have been averted if the building they lived in had been better maintained and secured. The couple’s landlord disputes that notion. Harmon and Celotto moved into the lower apartment at 5 St. Louis Place last September. Their upstairs neighbor, Jordan Bidwell, who lived in the property since 2021, was not was not home during the break-in, but she claimed the basement window that accused murderer Bryan Chiclana used to access the house was boarded up with a[...]

Posted 3 weeks ago

Apr 18

2025

Listen: I’Jaz Ja’ciel guest-hosts NPR’s What’s Next?

Investigative Post reporter I’Jaz Ja’ciel recently signed on as a new guest host for Buffalo Toronto Public Media NPR’s What’s Next? — a program that discusses topics pertaining to Buffalo’s marginalized communities. Donate to support our nonprofit newsroom Her first episode aired Thursday and featured Dr. Marcus Watson, an associate professor and program coordinator of Africana Studies at Buffalo State University, and two seniors from Buffalo State, Jay Phillips and Jadon Williams. The discussion included details about Black Buffalo Speaks: An Africana Studies Event, a conference the university will host Saturday, April 19 from 10:30 am to 4 pm. Ja’ciel[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Apr 10

2025

Notorious Buffalo slumlord Charles Dobucki arrested

2 St. Louis Place, owned by Dobucki. Photo courtesy of WKBW. Buffalo Police this morning arrested one of the city’s most infamous and elusive landlords, whose blighted properties have been the subject of community complaints, Housing Court cases and most recently a partial demolition order for a long-vacant Allentown building. Charles Dobucki was taken into custody at a Delaware Avenue auto shop in North Buffalo, according to Mike Read, spokesman for Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon. Dobucki was subject to three arrest warrants stemming from his failure to appear in Buffalo Housing Court or respond to citations and fines for code[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Apr 9

2025

Buffalo landlord settles housing discrimination lawsuit

The Mayflower, owned by Buffalo Management Group. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel A local real estate and property management company has settled a federal lawsuit accusing its employees and president of violating fair housing laws. Housing Opportunities Made Equal last November brought litigation against Buffalo Management Group after an investigation concluded that its president, Myron Robbins, established a company-wide policy that employees were not to rent apartments in the Medical Corridor to tenants with children. Discrimination based on familial status is a violation of state and federal fair housing laws. HOME and Buffalo Management Group last week reached a resolution that[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Mar 27

2025

A new approach to East Side development

Henry Louis Taylor of UB presents plans for Census Tract 166. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel Census Tract 166 — an economically devastated community situated in the heart of the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood — will be ground zero for a new approach to revitalizing the East Side. The census tract is peppered with 1,300 vacant lots, more than any other neighborhood in the city. Only 25 percent of its adult residents work, according to 2022 US census estimates. More than a quarter of its households live below the poverty level. Henry Taylor, director of the University at Buffalo’s Center for Urban Studies,[...]

Posted 2 months ago