For decades, the crash of the wrecking ball and the whirr of excavators were common sounds in Buffalo’s neighborhoods as thousands of vacant properties were demolished.
But nowadays, there’s a housing shortage in the city in which most residents rent and housing affordability remains a problem.
Almost half of renters in Buffalo are “rent burdened,” meaning they spend 35% of their household income or more on rent, according to the latest available data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Attentions have turned to rehabbing and repairing existing vacant properties to meet the city’s housing needs.
Ayat Nieves is one of those working to get vacant units back on the market. He’s a real estate agent and small-scale landlord who owns fewer than 10 properties, all of which are in the city.
He is in the middle of rehabbing a previously abandoned property that will be a two-unit rental once complete. Nieves says he is in the property business to secure a stable financial future.
“It’s a supplement to my income,” Nieves said. “It’s my retirement, it’s generational wealth. It’s something for me to leave to my wife and children when I eventually pass.”
And the project is a family affair. Nieves has spent the best part of his summer working on the property along with his father, Khalil.
But fixing up houses eats up a budget, and fast. Nieves estimates the entire project will cost around $120,000. So far, he’s fitted a new roof and new plumbing complete with a new water line. But his funds have dried up, and in its current state, Nieves describes the place as “unfinished and uninhabitable.”
That means these units will sit empty for a while longer in a city that needs more housing.
“For nearly 30 years, the really only consistent housing policy in the city of Buffalo was to demolish anything that they could,” said State Senator Sean Ryan (D). “At that time, everyone thought Buffalo was going to substantially shrink. But what happened was we had big demolitions over a generation, combined with just a modest population growth of 10,000 and now we don't have enough apartments. We knocked down all our extra units.”
“For nearly 30 years, the really only consistent housing policy in the city of Buffalo was to demolish anything that they could,” - Sen. Sean Ryan (D)
According to Ryan's office, there are approximately 4000 rental units in Buffalo that are vacant because they’re in need of repair - an approximation WBFO has independently verified.
“We got to get these 4000 units back online,” Ryan said
In an effort to do just that, Ryan has secured $90 million in this year’s state budget for pilot programs to address housing needs in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany and Binghamton. $40 million of that cash will be distributed in the form of grants for small-scale landlords to fund repairs that get units up to code and back on the market.
It is thought that approximately $15 million is headed to landlords in Buffalo.
The funding will be administered by local nonprofits who successfully apply to New York State Homes and Community Renewal by Oct. 3. According to the program information page, only vacant units are eligible for assistance and grant recipients must rent assisted units at affordable levels for 10 years.
Stephanie Simeon is the Executive Director of Heart of the City Neighborhoods, a Buffalo nonprofit well-placed to apply to hand out the grants. But she says her organization will not be doing so.
Although Simeon agrees there is a need for more affordable rental units in Buffalo, it’s that 10-year affordable rent period that is the sticking point, raising questions over how landlord compliance will be enforced.
“That's a long time. You're going to get a lot of pushback,” Simeon said. “10 years of maintenance to check in every year on all of those units? Who's paying for the paper, the printing, the follow up? Because a lot of times when people get that injection, they're very responsive in the first six months because they're getting this product, you're doing the construction, everybody's great. A year later, you can't get the compliance back.”
"You're going to get a lot of pushback," - Stephanie Simeon, Executive Director, Heart of the City Neighborhoods.
She adds that there needs to be some sort of education for those who have owned a vacant unit for decades and will become a landlord for the first time in years - or perhaps ever - thanks to the state dollars.
“What are we going to do to make sure that the landlord doesn’t just say just say, ‘You know what? I tried it. It didn't work out.’ And now we no longer have that amount of units available for affordable housing?”
But these questions are surmountable for Executive Director of Broadway Fillmore Neighborhood Housing Services, Stephen Karnath. He plans to apply to administer the money and even hopes to collaborate with Simeon’s organization to source suitable local landlords to receive it.
“Because it's a new program, you got to sort of make sure that you have agencies that can actually implement it and deal with all the various issues that go into successful implementation of a program like this” Karnath said.
“What remains to be seen is how the program will keep units affordable as they're added to the market, " - Heather Abraham, Clinical Professor, UB School of Law
Outside experts also have their eye on the 10-year affordable rent period. Heather Abraham is a clinical Professor at University at Buffalo’s School of Law and a practicing attorney with a background in housing. Her research shows there is an upward trend in vacant rental units in need of repair in Buffalo, so she says Ryan’s pilot program is “well worth trying”.
“What remains to be seen is how the program will keep units affordable as they're added to the market. My question is - is there a plan to monitor the rents and to keep them low?” Abraham said.
“I will be watching for those details as they emerge,” she added.
As for the timeline of the program, Ryan told WBFO that the money will be “back out in the street by January,” a prospect Karnath says is “not even close to possible” due to the number of detailed administrative plans that are yet to be worked out and submitted for approval.
“The application deadline is October 3. It will take the state several months to make funding decisions. I doubt that [nonprofits] will be under contract by January,” Karnath said.
Though the details of the program are still being ironed out, that 10-year compliance period doesn’t deter Nieves.
“I like free money, and I will go above and beyond to get it. And I look at it like this. If they give you, let's say $100,000 up front, that's money that you don't have to come up with. That's money you don't have to borrow, and that's potentially a summer that you don't have to give up doing a lot of the work yourself, like I did.”
