10/17 March for Housing and Jobs

[annaf...@gmail.com]

Hello All,

On Wednesday October 17th at 3 p.m. the UB Lawyers Guild will be
joining PUSH (People United for Sustainable Housing) and other
community organizations on a march for better housing and jobs on
Buffalo's West Side. The march will begin on Niagara St. and Maryland
and end at City Hall. Please join us for this important event.

PUSH is a grassroots anti-poverty community organization based on the
West Side. The march is the kick-off for PUSH's "It's About Time"
campaign designed to increase public and private investment in the
West Side's ailing housing stock so that affordable housing
opportunities are expanded and the district's blighted houses are
addressed. More information about the campaign and PUSH can be found
below and on the website www.pushbuffalo.org.

If you will be on the law school campus on Wednesday, we will be
meeting in the law school lobby on at 2 p.m. so that we can all head
down together.

Hope to see you this Friday for our Social Justice Social - 89
Plymouth Ave. Buffalo, NY at 7 p.m.- and next week on the march!

-Anna

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WEST SIDE MARCH FOR HOUSING AND JOBS
Wednesday, October 17th
3 PM
Corner of Niagara and Maryland

Our march next Wednesday will kick off our campaign for reinvestment
in the West Side's housing stock and the creation of more jobs for
neighborhood residents. Please bring noisemakers! We'll meet at the
corner of Niagara and Maryland, right near Tops.

The West Side's housing stock has received minuscule investment from
the City and the State over the last twenty years, even compared with
other districts in Buffalo. PUSH interns found more than 180 abandoned
properties in a relatively small section of the Niagara District. Yet,
this year there were only one or two publicly funded housing
rehabilitation in the district.

The "It's About Time" campaign is designed to increase public and
private investment in our ailing housing stock so that affordable
housing opportunities are expanded and the district's blighted houses
are addressed. In the process, the investment should expand job
opportunities for low-income residents living in the district. The
campaign will have three basic demands:

1. Ensure that the City and the State allocate enough resources to
rehabilitate 20 properties per year on the West Side, in partnership
with community non-profits. The funds are there, but they're not
hitting our streets.

2. Ensure that the West Side's 20 worst properties are demolished or
deconstructed immediately. PUSH interns identified 20 properties that
have been arsoned, flooded and/or neglected to the point that they
lack roofs and windows. We cannot wait for them to be set on fire
again.

3. Expand access to living wage jobs by mandating that priority in
employment on these demolition, deconstruction and rehabilitation
projects be given to low-income city residents.