Articles for I'Jaz Ja'ciel

Feb 22

2024

Attorney General investigating Buffalo landlords

A state Attorney General’s probe into lead poisoning is focused on a group believed to own or manage more than 200 Buffalo properties – at least 25 of which were cited for lead-related violations, and at least 11 of which were homes to children who have tested positive for high lead levels, according to court papers. The nearly year-long investigation was disclosed in court papers filed Friday by Attorney General Letitia James’ office. The filings describe the landlord/management group as “a tangled web of limited liability companies, corporations, and individuals,” who appear to operate out of a boarded-up building on[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Feb 13

2024

Community groups question Buffalo’s lead program

Andrea Ó Súilleabháin, executive director of Partnership for the Public Good, speaks at a press conference Tuesday, Feb. 13 about the low number of home inspections Buffalo has completed to survey for lead. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel. Nearly 40 local community organizations are questioning whether City Hall is fully complying with a more than 3-year-old program that was designed, in part, to help combat lead poisoning in city housing. They’re giving the city a month to prove that inspectors have been fully implementing the program. Partnership for the Public Good addressed a letter to Mayor Byron Brown and Catherine[...]

Posted 3 months ago

Dec 29

2023

I’Jaz Ja’ciel’s reporting on Buffalo housing

While I’m proud of the work I did for Investigative Post in the early part of 2023, including my myth-busting story about lootings during the Christmas Blizzard of 2022 and the launch of ‘East Side Stories’, I feel that my most impactful work came at the end of the year, when I started looking into Black homeownership in Buffalo and Erie County. Buffalo has a history of inequities in housing, from segregation to redlining. They have resulted in barriers to homeownership for the city’s Black residents. In fact, the number of African-Americans who own their homes in the city has[...]

Posted 4 months ago

Dec 6

2023

Working to boost homeownership on the East Side

If anyone knows Buffalo’s real estate market, it’s East Side native Keith Barnes, who has been helping residents find their dream homes for more than three decades. He’s part of a small demographic: 7.5 percent. That’s the portion of America’s 1.2 million real estate brokers and sales agents who are Black, according to Census estimates. The job gives Barnes, 53, whose Barnes Real Estate Group is located off Genesee Street, a firsthand look at how Buffalo’s housing market has changed, why its Black homeownership rate has stagnated, and what can be done. “Coming from the neighborhood, how can I make[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Nov 30

2023

City will repair building, won’t evict hostel — yet

Hostel Buffalo-Niagara lives on. For now. Over two dozen board members and supporters of the institution attended an emergency meeting held by the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency Thursday morning to determine the future of the hostel at its current location. The BURA board voted unanimously to approve renovations to 664 Washington St. — a building attached to the rear of the hostel, which faces Main Street — not to exceed $2 million in cost. The structure, owned by BURA since 2002, was cited earlier this year by both the city and an engineering report for posing extreme safety hazards to[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Nov 17

2023

Neglected building threatens Theater District hostel

The city’s only hostel, which hosts some 6,000 travelers a year in the Theater District, is facing the prospect of eviction because an adjacent city-owned building is in danger of collapse after years of neglect. Recent inspections by the city and an engineering consultant found the vacant, rear section of the hostel building has deteriorated to the point that it could jeopardize the structural integrity of the hostel. The rear building, which faces Washington Street, is separate but attached to the hostel building at 667 Main St. Hostel Buffalo-Niagara is across the street from Shea’s Performing Arts Center, two doors[...]

Posted 5 months ago

Nov 8

2023

Home ownership by Blacks in Buffalo has flatlined

Despite a plethora of programs encouraging Blacks to purchase their own homes, the ownership rate for African-Americans in Buffalo has barely budged over the past four decades. Where there has been growth lately, it’s come in the suburbs, according to Census data and federal mortgage loan reports. Concerns about redlining in the city persist, but Black incomes in Buffalo — pegged at about three-fifths that of whites — are largely blamed for the stagnation. “Overall, we can attribute the lower Black homeownership rate to the racial wealth gap,” said Buffalo State University associate professor Jason Knight, coordinator of the school’s[...]

Posted 6 months ago

Aug 2

2023

An oasis near a book desert

Editor’s note: This is the second installment of an occasional series we’re calling “East Side Stories.” We examine issues that affect the residents of the East Side, told through the lens of people working to address the problem. Companion stories will air on Channel 2. Today, we focus on literacy and a Jefferson Avenue bookstore serving the community. In a small storefront on Jefferson Avenue, Sharon and Kenneth Holley have turned their love of books into a neighborhood literary center. Zawadi Books is the only general interest bookstore on the city’s East Side. There you’ll find find both rare and[...]

Posted 9 months ago

Articles for I'Jaz Ja'ciel

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