Agency gives refugees more time to adapt

By Craig Learn and Taylor Steinberg
Bengal News Reporters
 The West Side is known for the amount of refugees that it receives. There are specific organizations, called resettlement agencies, which take care of the refugees. However, due to funding issues, these agencies can only help them for six months.
 This is where Jericho Road Ministries takes over.
 According to Suzy Derksen, program support coordinator of Jericho Road Ministries, this is not enough time to integrate into communities.
 “Things like learning English, getting their kids registered for school, getting all those things takes more than six months,” Derksen said. “Jericho Road is the only post-resettlement organization. We are walking with refugees in the two- to three-year period after their resettlement. Doing more than relief work in terms of giving them things, but empowering them, trying to empower leaders into the refugee community.”
 Due to the lack of money, Jericho Road Ministries and Jericho Road Family Practice are in the application process to become one federally qualified health center.
 “The family practice and ministry will merge together to be a 501(c)(3) status,” Derksen said.
 The 501(c)(3) status means the organization is not-for-profit.
 “It allows us to get a $600,000 federal grant,” she said.
 The application process takes a year to 18 months to come through, Derksen said, and they are hoping to have the grant by 2012.
 Located at 301 14th St., there is a facility that holds an after school

program for refugee students to help develop their skills. The program is called Hope Refugee Focused Learning for Youth (F.L.Y.), which is run through Jericho Road Ministries. This year the program holds 32 middle school students.
 This program is strictly funded by grants. With only two working computers, F.L.Y. is in need of funds that can only be received if the government thinks they need the funds.
 Erika Grande is the program coordinator for F.L.Y. and is always looking for grant opportunities.
 “You might know that after school programs that serve students age 12 and under must get licensed by New York State and monitored regularly so it was a really long eight month process,” Grande said. “We finally just got licensed Dec. 23. Now we’re a licensed program and we are hoping this will open up some grants opportunities.”
  According to Grande there is one cost this year that they did not have last year.
 “Right now we need to pay rent, and it is big strain on our budget, and we have to constantly apply for grants,” Grande said. “It’s something that we are trying to make part of our minds set, every day thinking about options.”
 Not all of the $600,000 grant money would go to the F.L.Y. program.

Erika Grande talks about how to use a possible grant:


 AmeriCorps, a national funding and community service agency, also provided four student teachers for the F.L.Y. program.
 One of the student teachers, Nathan Forschler, sees the progress the students make.
 “There is a change that takes place,” he said. “It’s kind of hard to notice because you’re working every day, but the most obvious way is their willingness to do work and figure stuff out, which is exciting to see.”

Edited by Mike Meiler and Samantha Murphy

Collaborative polishes up West Side to fight crime

By Ashley Brown and Brittany Sherman
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

Housing project makes old homes new again

By Amanda O’Leary and Sametra Polkah-Toe

Bengal News reporters

 Across the West Side are many old homes that once gave families shelter. Now those same homes wait for the day when the city comes to knock them down. Some of those buildings  are getting a second chance to house families once again.

 As part of a $3 million project, PUSH Buffalo and HomeFront Inc. are taking broken down homes and giving them a face-lift by providing them with new roofs, landscaping and complete exterior rehabilitation making them more energy efficient and, at the same time, making them more safe to live in.
 One of the houses at 10 Winter St. is becoming more energy efficient by making its own energy through geothermal heat, and solar power for electric and solar thermal power for the hot water.  The houses at 398, 397 and 460 Massachusetts Ave. are also being made energy efficient but also more affordable.
 PUSH’s goal is simple: it wants to make bright neighborhoods to help bring in employment    opportunities for Buffalo. To create strong neighborhoods, people need good and affordable housing.
 On 19th Street there is a home that is not just getting a complete rehabilitation, but also a structural repair.

A HomeFront spokesman talks about progress on 19th Street:


 Before anything can be done,  PUSH and its partners need funding.
Stimulus funds from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program are being used to purchase and stabilize vacant houses. They also received New York State funding to perform major upgrades on three structures as part of the Massachusetts Avenue Development Plan.  Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency, New York State Housing and Community Renewal have played a role in this project.
 How did PUSH choose what houses to work on?
 Many of these homes were once abandoned by the State Bonding Agency after it was learned that the houses’ liens were greater than the value of the homes.
 “Our advocacy forced the State to give the ownership rights to the houses back to the City of Buffalo,” PUSH member Sean Ryan said.
 Ryan gives examples why the area by Massachusetts Avenue and 19th Street is the main focus of their work instead of renewing homes around the whole city.
 “This zone, as it builds off the strength of Richmond Avenue and its attempt to take scarce housing rehab dollars,” Ryan said. “To concentrate them in a single area is an attempt to bring back a neighborhood and not scatter the funds around which could lead to a dilution of the funds.”
 Richmond Avenue recently underwent a renaissance and the goal is to move that renaissance to the nearby neighborhoods.  
PUSH isn’t doing this project by itself.
 It partners up with groups like Habitat for Humanity; they are putting on a new roof at 60 Lawrence Place.
 It biggest partnership however, is with HomeFront Inc.
 “Everything is made so much easier because we have a capable partner in PUSH,” Program Director Jean Berry said. “They, like us, have a vested interest in the betterment of the community, which shows through all their hard work.”
While PUSH receives the homes for the project, HomeFront’s job is to turn those fresh newly rebuilt homes into just that, homes. They place families into these homes.
 Like PUSH, HomeFront believes to help the local economy you need to make the area around a business more desirable to help make the businesses successful.
 “You can build a Taj Mahal anywhere, but if people don’t want to locate in that particular area, they aren’t going to buy it,” Bryan Cacciotti, executive director at HomeFront, said.
 Not just anyone can move into these homes. Before offering someone the opportunity to purchase one of their homes, there is a comprehensive counseling and education process.
 If all goes well, what once were deserted family homes could once again be opened up to families.
 “This is going to be one of the most successful housing development projects because we’re using a neighborhood approach rather than just doing one rehab here and another on a different street,” Cacciotti said. “By doing this, we aren’t just beautifying our communities but sustaining them as well.”

Edited by Kevin Hoffman and Craig Learn

PUSHing the limits of energy efficiency

PUSH's Clarke Gocker and architect Kevin Connors in front of 10 Winter St.

By Jeffrey Heras and Kevin Hoffman
Bengal News reporters

 Even with the current economic downturn there is an apparent trend in the rehabilitation of the West Side with the latest PUSH project bringing a new optimism for going green with a self-sufficient energy home.

 The long-vacant home was originally obtained from an elderly man who moved away, said Clarke Gocker, project manager for the Net-Zero home. People United for Sustainable Housing saw a great opportunity to develop a “green” home at the vacant site because of the lot next to it.

 

At approximately 1,198 square feet, with two bathrooms and three bedrooms, the Net-Zero single family home located on 10 Winter St. stands as a model of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies, showcasing the ability to sustain itself year round. To make the project possible PUSH solicited the help and donations of many local construction agencies and labor unions.

 The nearly $185,000 rehabilitated home features several concepts that most modern homes do not, like solar electricity, geothermal heat and solar powered hot water.

 “The Net-Zero concept is, at the end of construction we will have created a space that produces as much energy as it consumes on the annual basis,” said Gocker.
Instead of using natural gas to heat the home, a geothermal system will deliver heat throughout the house with a floor heating system. The heating system will be installed in a vacant lot adjacent to the home and cost approximately $30,000.

 

“The heating will be supplied by the geothermal system, which in this case the house sits adjacent to a vacant lot that is about 150 feet deep, and in that vacant lot we’ll dig a trench about 6 feet deep, 6 feet wide, and 100 feet long,” said Gocker. “The bottom of the trench will run a series of piping, polyethylene piping, that will cycle through an antifreeze-water mixture that comes back into the house.”

 

Along with the geothermal system, PUSH has also installed a solar electric system to power the “green” home. 

“We had to factor in some cutting-edge renewable energy resources into the renovation of the building and those have included a solar electric system that will be mounted on the roof, 22 solar panels, 4.5 kilowatts and that will provide most of the electric load on the property,” said Gocker.

 

According to Gocker, whoever ends up living in the house will pay anywhere from zero to $100 a year in utility costs.



 The halfway-completed project is the first of its kind on the West Side, thus giving PUSH the opportunity to get the rest of the West Side community involved in the development of the home.

 Gocker said that project will involve using people from the local community to help with construction.

 
“We see a community benefit…during the renovation phase in which the house is served as an on-the-job training site for about 20 young people down right from the neighborhood, many who left high school without a diploma or graduated from high school but were not quite ready for college,” said Gocker.

 
Working with Western New York AmeriCorps, PUSH has received funding from the U.S. Department of Labor to run a YouthBuild Program that combines High School Equivalency classes with on-the-job training in the construction trades. Many of the program participants are black and Hispanic, emulating the ethnic diversity and gender composition of the West Side community.

Gocker speaks about community involvement in the Net Zero home:



 According to Gocker, PUSH has also deemed the area in which the Net Zero home is being constructed as a Green Development Zone, due to the density of proposed energy efficient and sustainable energy design elements.The Green Development Zone is a section of Massachusetts Avenue devoted energy-efficient housing projects.

 

“The next step after completing this project is to figure out how to do it to scale, meaning that we could replicate it and that we could do it in a relatively affordable manner,” said Gocker.

 

To architect Kevin Connors, this project resonates with hope for the future of the West Side, especially with its distinctive diverse population and the willingness of many in the community to help rehabilitate the West Side. 

The project is scheduled to be completed by late winter 2011 or early spring.

Edited by Heidi Friend and Kristine Starkey

War-torn family finds place to HEAL

Hassan Farah opened HEAL-International Inc. to help immigrants get acclimated

By Mike Gambini
and Ken Obstarczyk
Bengal News reporters

 Rewind your memory back to the fall of 2001. It’s been 10 days since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Hassan Farah, 13, and his family have just arrived in Buffalo.

 Civil war broke out in Farah’s birthplace, Somalia, in 1990 and after living in the war-torn city of Mogadishu, he and his family fled Somalia for Kenya then Uganda before deciding enough was enough.

 Now, nine years later, Farah, 24, has something special on the West Side at 233 West Ferry St.

 HEAL-International Inc., which stands for Helping Everyone Achieve Livelihood, was founded by Farah in September of 2007. It is a center that helps refugees from all over the world with education, employment and social services.

 HEAL’s basic functions are to help refugees get accustomed to their surroundings and to teach them to become viable members of the community. It has five divisions it focuses on accomplishing Women’s Empowerment, Youth Services, Education and Training, Community Services and Conflict Resolution.

 HEAL also offers a Summer Enrichment Program in which students, from the ages of 14-21 years old, are taught skills in leadership, communication, Finance, law enforcement and Buffalo’s history.

 Students attend workshops and complete community service, receiving pay for their work. Compensation is possible because HEAL received a grant from City Hall.

 The fact that Farah and his family were fortunate enough to come to America and given the chance to succeed was a big part of his motivation for starting HEAL, he said.

 “The opportunity to give back,” Farah said. “There were so many people who helped us get to where we are today, it is only fair that we pay them back by continuing to help others.”

 It seems like a simple story about refugees helping refugees, but it goes much farther than that.

 Farah’s father, Awil Karshe, and his mother, Hawa Hersi, always stressed the importance of education to their children.

 “We had the parents to put us in place and say, listen, this is it, you guys are the future and you have to do it,” said Farah.

 Farah stayed true to his parent’s advice, earning a bachelor’s degree from the University at Buffalo in economics and international studies. He was also very active in student government and his strong educational foundation allowed him to start a refugee center at just 22 years old he said.

 Hassan Farah’s sister, Fadumo, a junior bio-chemistry major at Buffalo State College, volunteers at HEAL filling out welfare forms, providing job opportunities and playing a major role in the Summer Enrichment Program.

 Farah said two specific factors led to the creation of HEAL.

 “It was because for one, the need was there, and for two, I was developing the leadership skills and the social skills to do the work,” said Farah.

 Students that participated in the Summer Enrichment Program said it was a great experience and helped them get a better understanding of life in the U.S.

 Mariam Abdo, a junior bio-chemistry major at Buffalo State, said the program really helped her with communication skills and she was “really thankful for them.”

 Faduma Muhammad, a freshman at Erie Community College taking up general studies, came to Buffalo in 2007 from Syria. She said it was great working for the summer program because it was a great opportunity helping people and cleaning up streets on the West Side, which is now a place she calls home.

 Besides expanding its workforce, which is a non-paid staff consisting of 11 officers and countless volunteers, HEAL hopes a bigger, better facility will improve operations, Hassan Farah said.

 The new building in the works is located right across the street from their current office at 240-244 West Ferry St.

Farah surveys the potential new office for HEAL

 On June 3, HEAL held a fundraiser at Buffalo State to buy the property for the price of $20,000. The fundraiser generated $26,000. Renovations will take about four to six months and will cost between $55,000 and $85,000 depending on the amount of volunteers.

 “The project started in early July and for the past three months, we’ve been working on interior demolitions,” said Hassan Farah.

 Hassan Farah hopes the new building will be open soon and for that to happen, he knows money still needs to be raised.
“Besides our banquet at the end of the year, we will continue working with the city of Buffalo for funding,” said Hassan Farah.

Edited by Heidi Friend and Kristine Starkey

Community gardeners springing into action

By Marc Lucarelli, Tiffany Monde and Kori Sciandra
BengalNews Reporters

Now that spring is here, West Side residents will begin to see more volunteers and organizations pushing to beautify with the implementation of community gardens.

“People want to do things. It’s empowering, we just give them the tools to start,” said Susannah Barton, director of Grassroots of Buffalo.

The push to beautify the West Side is coming from within the community: residents are taking pride in how their neighborhood looks and are taking action to create and achieve the change they want.

Grassroots of Buffalo is affiliated with Buffalo Growing, an umbrella organization that encompasses community gardening organizations including Buffalo Reuse, Urban Roots, The Massachusetts Avenue Project, the Community Action Organization and the New York Sustainable Agricultural Working Group.

Dan Ash, a member of Buffalo Growing routinely participates in the distribution of seeds on both the West and East Sides.

“More and more we will try and have workshops to help fulfill the needs of the community,” Ash said.

These workshops are intended to teach and assist residents who want to enrich their community by planting either a community or backyard garden.

The refugee population on the West Side is growing rapidly, which is increasing the demand for gardens, farms and fresh food. Barton said that many of these immigrants coming into the West Side had farms back home, they lived off the land, and so the need for organizations like these is growing.

Urban Roots, a consumer cooperative with more than 500 members, is giving the city a place to shop for hard-to-find plants and gardening materials. The cooperative is working with members of the community by running workshops and offering advice to anyone with gardening needs.

“We want to change the look of the community. You look around and you see people really working on their homes, “ said Patti Jablonski-Dopkin, general manager of Urban Roots. “They might not have a lot of money but they’re keeping it clean, planting. They’re putting a few pots of flowers on their porches.”

Funding for community and backyard gardening is provided to Grassroots of Buffalo, a non-profit organization, primarily through grants, donations and financial contributions by local foundations such as, the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo.

Barton referred to the open grant period as a way to "tell your story." When a member of the community wants to request funding to plant a garden they submit a grant application explaining their new project, or program they want to do for the year. Other factors are how many seeds needed for the project, or a new marketing campaign and why they deserve this and how much it’s going to cost.

Grants that are approved by the state are reviewed annually. After review the state then decides whether to completely or partially approve the grant or deny the request.

 Support from Niagara District Councilmember David Rivera, allows for a fair amount of funding.



"He sees the positive impact on beautifying the community. It gets people talking, engaging and working on projects together," Barton said.

Housing service lifeline for homeowners

By Jeff Buchman and Mario Burks
BengalNews Reporters

After about six months, Jolene Baller finally completed the home buying process that the West Side Neighborhood Housing Services set up for her.

The former radio DJ’s experiences with the Neighborhood Housing Service included undergoing full cycle lending, home buyer education classes, as well as foreclosure counseling.


Jolene Baller speaks about Neighborhood Housing's programs:


For Baller, the organization pushed her into a direction that was easy enough for her avoid the negative aspects of home purchasing and to stay focused on finalizing the deed to her new home on 17th Street.

“So many people get caught up in predatory lending. For any questions I had, I was lucky to have someone guide me through,” Baller said.

Baller initially got involved with West Side Neighborhood Housing Services when a friend recommended that the organization could aid in her home ownership process. She is one of an estimated 50 to 75 people helped yearly by Neighborhood Housing Services.

“My rent is lower than any rent I’d paid for 15 years before buying this house,” said Baller of the house they helped her obtain.

According to Baller, $50 million was given to New York State to assist people who were looking for grants to buy a house. That grant money was divided amongst several organizations including West Side Neighborhood Housing Services, and from there re-distributed to perspective first-time homeowners.

West Side Neighborhood Housing Services has been located on Connecticut Street and have been helping individuals like Baller in the home-buying process for the past 30 years extending its operations specifically to anywhere west of Main Street. As a non-for-profit organization, Neighborhood Housing Services is able to help people all over the West Side by supplying grants funded by Neighbor Works America through Congress.

Linda Chiarenza is executive director at West Side Neighborhood Housing Services. One of Chiarenza’s many responsibilities is writing grants for homes that need adaptations done accommodate its owners and to help coordinate rehabilitation to existing buildings. Baller worked with Chiarenza and received grants to close the deal on her 17th Street home. But for Chiarenza, working for organization is more than just a job, she does it because she said she “believes in the potential” of the West Side.

“In the past year we’ve done about 100 to 125 full home rehabilitations. We’ve also completed many partial rehabs including porches, or even fixing a chimney,” said Chiarenza.

Chiarenza also touched on how the organization has made efforts to cater to their clientele above and beyond cultural boundaries. A few patrons of the organizations were of the Muslim faith and a mandated rule in the religion states that followers are not allowed to pay interest. Chiarenza has looked into finding a loan that could cater to working around this rule ensuring potential future Muslim clientele can benefit in the same way.

For individuals like Baller, Neighborhood Housing Services was more than just a catalyst in obtaining a house; it was a gateway to understanding home ownership. Baller is quite satisfied with her current home and the knowledge she has retained through the organization’s homebuyer education classes. Baller elaborates on what she feels is important when individuals are considering the home buying process.

“My mortgage is lower than any rent I’d paid for 15 years before buying this house. I feel what changes a neighborhood is having people who have an invested interest in their homes, their streets, their neighborhoods,” Baller said