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BMHA responds to chronic property problems

For the first time since it was called on the carpet by Rep. Brian Higgins, Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority speaks on chronic problems at its properties and a HUD audit showing deficiencies in upkeep.

BUFFALO, NY - For the first time since they were called on the carpet Tuesday by Congressman Brian Higgins, we were able to speak to management of the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority on Thursday about chronic problems at their properties, and a Department of Housing and Urban Development audit showing numerous deficiencies in their upkeep.

Higgins wrote a letter a letter to HUD’s Inspector General asking for an “immediate investigation” into what he called incompetence and gross negligence on the part of the BMHA.

“I can only hope he wasn't talking about me personally…I just started six weeks ago," said Gillian Brown, who was appointed as the acting Executive Director of the agency after its longtime leader Dawn Sanders stepped down earlier this year.

Higgins met with reporters Tuesday to describe squalid conditions around some of the abandoned buildings at the Commodore Perry Projects, where high weeds mixed with heaps of trash.

“It’s disgusting,” Higgins said. “There are still residents living adjacent to these buildings who should not have to live with this next door to them.”

By Thursday the BMHA had trimmed the overgrowth and removed the garbage around the buildings at Perry, which it claimed had been dumped there by interlopers. “It wasn't our garbage,” said Brown, who added that they are working on possible solutions to dissuade such activity, including but not limited to installing fencing if it doesn't interfere with firefighters and other emergency personnel should their presence be needed.

New Sheriff in Town

Despite his short time in running the agency Brown spent several minutes Thursday, gamely answering questions about the numerous problems Two On Your Side has been reporting on at BMHA properties for several years, ranging from pest infestations, to lack of heat and hot water, to broken elevators and other mechanical problems.

He also refused to throw Sanders under the bus, while saying he couldn’t speak to the decisions made during her tenure.

“I’m not going to indict prior administrations and second guess decisions before I was working here. I don’t think that’s productive,” Brown said.

However, he acknowledged that the BMHA has difficulty in maintaining its aging properties, due largely to a “systemic lack of funding for public housing” which he says has only gotten worse in recent years, while suggesting it may have impaired the efforts of prior leadership to turn things around.

A lack of funding, Brown said, was particularly detrimental to keeping a sufficient maintenance staff to tend to the BMHA’s more than 4,000 housing units at 27 properties. He noted employment numbers at the BMHA are roughly half of what they were more than a decade ago.

“We used to have mechanics, glaziers, carpenters…but we are living in a different time and we have to deal with a different reality, Brown said. “We’re doing our best….and for the moment, that’s all I can do.”

A Promise of Changes Coming.

“There is planning going on, there is strategizing going on, and we are trying to deal with the things that need to be dealt with,” Brown told WGRZ-TV.

“We are going to be hiring new maintenance staff,” said Brown, although he could not say how many new staff members might be hired or when. “We're still planning that," he said. “That’s an analysis that needs to be undertaken with top staff."

Hizzoner Weighs In.

“We have a new interim Executive Director and we have new board members at BMHA,” said Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, who appoints the members of the BMHA board. “We have been working very diligently and now the pace of change is accelerated.”

When asked several times why changes weren’t made earlier, however, the Mayor repeatedly made reference to his having appointed “a new executive director and new board members," without directly answering.

Mayor Brown agreed with the BMHA Executive Director that funding for public housing has led to problems for the BMHA.

And he inferred that if Higgins was so concerned about the conditions of BMHA properties (which are primarily funded by federal dollars) then, as a member of Congress, he might do better than to complain.

“People who are in elected positions who are concerned about change might think about how they could bring more to this agency and housing authorities across the country,” the Mayor said.

Future of Perry

Mayor Brown was also lukewarm to a Higgins’ yearlong call for vacant Perry Project buildings to be turned over to a private developer, who might –if the BMHA does not- have the ambition and funding needed to develop them into a mix of market rate and affordable housing.

Higgins noted the strategic location of the Perry Projects, halfway between Canalside and Larkinville (and within walking distance of both) is key to the city’s future economic development efforts.

“There is a growing demand for housing in this area,” Higgins said.

“His proposal came with no discussion with the tenants,” said the Mayor. “He showed up out there a year ago with his proposal and the tenants were quite unhappy with him for just showing up without talking to them, feeling it was a way to gentrify them out of the Perry Projects and take a development that could be an asset for low income individuals and displace them.”

Added Gillian Brown: “My personal opinion is that nothing is going be solved by issuing an RFP and giving control of the site to a developer. BMHA doesn’t operate in a vacuum…it needs to be planned carefully, it needs to be planned in cooperation with the city of Buffalo and all the other stakeholders in this area, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

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