Articles for I'Jaz Ja'ciel

Jun 3

2025

Protesting city inaction on lead poisoning

Andrea Ó Súilleabháin, executive director of the Partnership for the Public Good (center) joined by community advocates and state elected officials Jon Rivera (left) and April Baskin (right). Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel Local housing advocates and elected officials are condemning Buffalo’s failure to spend over three-quarters of a $2 million federal grant dedicated to removing toxic lead paint from city homes. Meanwhile, proposed state legislation aims to pressure landlords to clean their property of lead when identified by housing inspectors. Investigative Post reported last week that the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency to date has only spent $479,481 of the $2[...]

Posted 6 days ago

May 27

2025

City inaction on lead endangers federal funding

The City of Buffalo has spent only a quarter of the $2 million in federal funds it has received to abate lead hazards in houses and apartments. Now, the program is coming to an end with less than two months to commit the remaining money before it has to be returned to the federal government. The Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency, which administers the grant, set a goal of remediating 110 residences when it received the funds in 2021. Four years later, only 18 units have been abated. The city last year received a one-year extension for the program from the[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

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 3 weeks 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 4 weeks 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 1 month 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 1 month 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 2 months 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 2 months ago