Sen. Charles Schumer was in the area Monday, taking aim at the federal agency which exists to maintain affordable and safe city housing.
Standing in a formerly abandoned home in Buffalo’s West Side, Schumer said the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s online sale of houses leads to house-flipping homeowners who have no stake in a community.
Referring to neighborhood revitalization, Schumer called vacant houses “a huge stumbling block that is in the way.”
Schumer was flanked by Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown and Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster. Falls Fire Chief William MacKay, Falls City Councilman Charles Walker and several local block club leaders were also on hand.
Vacant housing leads to drugs, crime, poverty-stricken neighborhoods and significant fire hazards, Schumer said. The Falls has 3,700 vacant units in over 1,100 homes, he said.
As a beginning to the problem’s solution, Schumer demanded HUD crack down on online house-flipping. He and fellow Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., also plan on requesting an extra $3 billion in Community Development Block Grant money from the federal government to combat urban blight.
“We have to ensure vibrant neighborhoods,” Schumer said. “(Vacant houses) provide a refuge-net for drugs and crime.”
Dyster called the ownership of large blocks of city property by out-of-town or out-of-country owners “terrifying.”
“They have almost no accountability whatsoever,” Dyster said.
He said extra block grant money and an end to the easy flipping of vacant houses were necessary starting points in trying to solve the problem. HUD only offers a house for 15 days before anybody can buy it without proving they have an interest in living there.
“We’ve got to give (potential homebuyers) more time to see what’s available,” Dyster said.
Over 50 percent of fires took place in abandoned structures in the Falls in 2007, Schumer said.
After the press conference, MacKay documented a fire which began in a vacant house and then spread to nine occupied ones. The city was built for a much larger population which no longer exists, he said.
“They didn’t strap those houses to their back when left,” MacKay said. “(Vacant houses) are a multi-faceted threat to our neighborhoods.”
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