Bengal News reporters
Man shot and robbed of $400 on Fargo St.
Bandit escapes with $400 in discount store holdup.
Man taken to ECMC after stabbing on West Side.
Three arrested after police seize assault weapons, cocaine.
These are just four headlines that made their way into the Buffalo News in the last month concerning the West Side. It’s no wonder that this particular Buffalo community has built up the reputation of being filled with crime, violence and drugs.
However, community organizations like the West Side Community Collaborative work hard to revitalize their neighborhood and extract the crime happening on its streets. “The work that we have done has significantly reduced crime,” said Harvey Garrett, director of the West Side Community Collaborative.
Harvey Garrett addresses the effort to fight crime:
This community organization aims to clean up the crime-ridden streets by doing the small things that most wouldn’t believe have such an overall impact.
“When the neighborhood doesn’t look so great, it’s more inviting to crime and blight,” Garrett said.
Doing things like landscaping, removing graffiti and increasing homeownership can play a significant role in deterring crime and drugs in the area, according to Garrett. West Side Community Collaborative does all of this, moving block-to-block until all of the West West Side's streets have been cleaned up.
It may seem like a heavy load to bear for just one group, but the group receives considerable help from other concerned and active members within the community.
Take 17th Street resident Becky Powell for example.
Shortly after moving into her home, Powell noticed that police were consistently showing up at particular houses on her street, and the same houses had questionable traffic constantly coming and going.
Instead of taking the passive route of doing nothing or simply moving, Powell took action.
Last March, Powell bought one of the “problem houses” on her street, and about a month ago she bought her fourth property on 17th Street.
Once she takes ownership of the property, Powell evicts the residents, renovates the property and looks for new tenants to occupy the home.
“If you’re going to own a property in a neighborhood that is transitional, you’ve got to just fix them up and find good tenants,” Powell said. “I have the luxury of being able to buy these houses, and taking care of getting people out of the neighborhood that aren’t good for it. I have the luxury of being able to secure my block, so that my property values go up, and my safety is better, and so is my neighbor’s.”
Active community members like Powell and organizations like Garrett’s joined together to strengthen the efforts of the transition happening on the West Side.
“The block club that I’m a member of, the Vermont Triangle Block Club, we go to the West Side Community Collaborative meetings because we want to have a say in what’s going on in the larger community, not only our own,” Powell said.
It’s that type of joining together that created the West Side Community Collaborative in 2001.
“There were a number of non-profit organizations some years ago working in the area that had some success individually, but they were not really making improvements across the whole neighborhood,” Garrett said. “So a housing neighborhood might see some improvement in housing, or a community center might do great within the community center walls, but the neighborhood around them was crumbling.”
Funders had come forward and threatened to stop funding if these separate entities wouldn’t join forces and collaborate their efforts.
That’s when Garrett’s organization was born.
Since efforts have collaborated to focus on the bigger picture, success has been seen and maintained in the community.
“We can count several dozen formerly vacant houses, dozens of them were on the demo list that we stopped the demo, and put families into,” Garrett said. “Blocks of houses were going for a couple thousand dollars and now they’re going for $150,000 or more. And we can directly attribute that to what we’ve done.”
One of those success stories can be seen in the the five points area where Urban Roots, 428 Rhode Island St., and Five Point Bakery, 426 Rhode Island St., are located. The location was once an abandoned lot and beat up building, but after an intervention by West Side Community Collaborative, the beat-up building now houses two thriving community businesses. The empty lot holds a growing community garden.
After visiting the five points area, you can take a walk down 17th Street and hear the growing satisfaction of Powell and her neighbors.
“Shortly after these tenants leave I see huge changes in my neighborhood,” Powell said. “It’s all ready just changing for the better, every day just gets better.”
Edited by Melissa Kania and Paul Kasprzak
