National Homeless Remembrance Day

Personal Crisis and Affordable Housing

Affordable, secure, housing is a basic necessity for any individual to survive. It becomes especially important for people who are going through or have experienced trauma. As one can imagine, and as thousands in Buffalo can attest to, homelessness is not only a massive issue itself but it also complicates almost every aspect of daily life and greatly exacerbates the effects of any other issue a person may be experiencing.

The following articles demonstrate just how much of an impact affordable housing can have on the lives of people and families in crisis:

Fraud, Cancer, House Collapse: Adversity Inspires Philly Mom To Pay It Forward
, ‘Machias Makeover’ Aids Family in Need, PUSH Activists Step Into ‘Makeover’ Spotlight, New Shelter Prepares to Open Doors in Buffalo

Terrible things happen to everyone, regardless of how much money one makes. There is little any individual, community, or government agency can do to anticipate or prevent this; it’s one of those facts of life. Fortunately, many of us have decent paying jobs and have been able to save up some money which can be used to get us through the rough patches. Unfortunately, many individuals are paid very little (see previous post “Paychecks and Poverty”) and cannot save up money for emergencies. When tragedy hits low-income, low-wealth people they have little to fall back on and often times are unable to afford basic necessities such as housing.
Communities and governments can play a part here. Providing affordable housing helps stabilize people in crisis and helps keep them from having to rely on much more costly emergency services. It literally provides a firm home base from which a person can work through the issues they are facing. These stories and the stories of thousands of people who have been affected by the work of organizations like Project H.O.M.E., the entire Machias community, PUSH, and Lake Shore Behavioral Health attest to the value and importance of ensuring that affordable housing is available for all people.

Paychecks and Poverty

In “What 537 different jobs pay in WNY”, Buffalo Business First reports on the Bureau of Labor’s occupation-income statistics for the Buffalo Metro Area, the third poorest city in the country. While their reporting focused on the highest paid professions in the area, we dug further into the numbers…

Over 221,000 of the 581,800 workers in the Buffalo-Niagara Falls Metro Area earn less than $28,912 a year, the amount required to afford* a two-bedroom apartment plus utilities. In fact six out of the top ten most common occupations in the area do not pay enough for the worker to afford a two-bedroom apartment.

The most common occupation in the area, retail salesperson, paid $24,000 a year, barely enough to afford a one-bedroom apartment plus utilities.

The Food Stamp Income Eligibility Limit for a three person household is $23,808 a year. Over 100,000 people in the area work jobs that could qualify them for food stamps if they were the sole earner in a three person household.

What does this mean? It means that there are tens of thousands of working people in the Buffalo-Niagara Falls area who are being paid so little that they cannot afford basic housing and could probably qualify for food stamps.

And this says nothing for the nearly 9% of workers in the area who are unemployed.

What relationship do these numbers have with the fact that Buffalo is one of the poorest cities in the country?

It’s tempting to say that Buffalo is an extremely cheap place to live but for the person making less than $25,000 a year, is it really that cheap?

The connection between low-wages and poverty needs to be made much clearer. There will always be people living in poverty so long as the wages offered by employers are not enough for people to afford basic housing and food.

*Housing is generally accepted to be affordable when a household spends 30% of its income on housing. The Fair Market Rent (rent plus utilities) for a two-bedroom in the Buffalo-Niagara Falls Metro Area is $723/month.

The Homeless Veteran

Yesterday was Veterans Day. Traditionally it is a day when people are encouraged to think about the sacrifices veterans have made in their service to their country and about the outstanding courage and moral character the men and women in the military demonstrate.

Unfortunately for the past several decades, Veterans Day has also been a day filled with stories about the issue of the very high numbers of low-income and homeless veterans.

Several local media outlets covered these types of stories:

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wbfo/news.newsmain/article/0/0/1576841/WBFO.News/Legislation.Proposed.to.Help.Unemployed.and.Homeless.Veterans.

http://www.wivb.com/dpp/news/local/Homeless_veterans_stay_at_City_Mission_20091112

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wned/news.newsmain/article/1/0/1576776/WNED-AM.970.NEWS/Remembering.the.Needs.of.Veterans

The national media outlets did too:

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/25078/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/opinion/11wed4.html

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/11/13-of-homeless-today-are-veterans.html

This issue, low-income and homeless veterans, should challenge the way we think about poverty. On a day like Veterans Day we celebrate and honor our veterans; praise them for their values and hard work. How do we make sense of the fact that so many veterans are homeless?

Usually when people discuss those living below the poverty threshold, it is a discussion focusing on how lazy and irresponsible those people are. How their poor judgment and poor moral character are the reason they are poor. How it is prudent and just for our society to stop trying to assist them. How they’re a burden on the respectable taxpayers. How it would be appropriate to sterilize, imprison, or otherwise remove those people who are incapable and non-productive elements of society.

Is this how we talk about our veterans who are living in poverty? Would we dare say these kinds of things about homeless veterans on Veterans Day?

There seems to be some disconnect. What makes the homeless veteran different from the person struggling to get by? Are there some veterans who deserve our praise and others who don’t? Certainly there are few people who would be willing to make those kinds of distinctions, especially just a couple days away from Veterans Day.

Veterans, individuals that we generally agree have solid moral character, can be impoverished and become homeless just as easily as any other person. The market economy does not care how “good” or “bad” a person you may be.

The homeless veteran should remind us that income in no way dictates moral character. To believe that it does would mean having a confusing and bitter view of the world.

 

 

Thanksgiving Dining Room Schedule

Friends,

A number of local organizations are hosting free Thanksgiving dinners this year.  Below is a link to a full listing of dinners in Erie County.  Please spread the word!

2009 Thanksgiving Dining Room Schedule

-HAWNY

What HUD Should Hear About Buffalo’s Housing Crisis

“Mr. Donovan, tear down this house. And this one. And this one. And that one over there. That’s the message federal Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan should take with him from his visit to Buffalo last week.”

So begins a recent Buffalo News editorial on HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan’s visit to Buffalo. Demolishing vacant housing seems to be the preferred policy for resolving Buffalo’s housing crisis.

However, vacant housing isn’t Buffalo’s only housing crisis. Nearly 2,000 individuals and families in Buffalo cannot afford housing and as a result are currently homeless. This number does not reflect the many more that may be doubled and tripled up with friends and family or who are otherwise precariously housed and may be in danger of losing their homes.

It is a paradoxical situation: increasing housing vacancy rates along with increasing numbers of homeless individuals. How did Buffalo get here?

This graph from the Western Regional Advocacy Project’s report Without Housing tells part of the story:

Beginning with the Reagan Administration and continuing to the present, HUD’s subsidized housing budget has been slashed yearly. Thousands of units of affordable housing have been lost.

These cuts correspond to the dramatic increase in the number of homeless individuals in the 1980’s and the steady increases in homelessness since then.

Mr. Donovan must hear about both sides of Buffalo’s housing crisis: the vacancy as well as the homelessness.

He must hear that plans to revitalize or restore Buffalo’s housing stock must make the development and preservation of affordable housing a central priority. Otherwise this twisted paradox of a housing crisis will continue to hinder any attempt to revitalize this city.

Hotels for the wealthy, expensive jails for the rest of us.

Developer Mark Croce will be receiving a $1.35 million hand-out from New York State tax payers to turn a vacant downtown building into an “upscale boutique hotel at Franklin and West Huron streets.” Croce is “convinced there’s a market for an upscale boutique hotel that offers larger rooms with some unique amenities.”

This handout is coming in the form of a Restore NY grant which is intended to “stabilize neighborhoods and revitalize urban areas.”

Which neighborhood is being stabilized here?

Who will benefit from this kind of urban revitalization? The “upscale” market Croce is convinced is out there–we’ll say those households making more than $150,000/year–accounts for about 3% of households in Buffalo.

In other words, $1.35 million of public money will be used to provide a tiny part of the community with presidential suites, pent-houses, and “unique amenities.”

This is money that could be used to stabilize or revitalize the neighborhoods of the 30.3% of people living in poverty in Buffalo, still the third poorest city in the country. This money could even be used to provide basic housing to the hundreds of individuals and families that are homeless on any given day in Buffalo.

Instead this public money will be used to help a wealthy developer provide upscale hotel suites for wealthy travelers and community members.

The County is also looking to tear down buildings in downtown Buffalo. In an effort to avoid being held responsible to Constitutional standards for jails and prisons, the county wants to build a new multimillion dollar county lockup downtown.

Hotels for the wealthy, expensive jails for the rest of us.

Is this how the people of Buffalo and Erie County want their money spent?

Does this benefit the whole or even very much of the community?

Or does it continue to subsidize wealthy developers and their clients while a third of the city lives in poverty?

U.S. Census Bureau Releases Metropolitan Poverty Data (click to zoom in)

The Green Jobs Movement: An Answer to Buffalo’s Poverty Crisis?

“Do You See What I’m Saying?” Ujima Theatre and HAWNY Team Up