Articles for I'Jaz Ja'ciel

Mar 22

2024

Downtown hostel gets a reprieve

The Hostel Buffalo-Niagara downtown Buffalo. The city has backed off its insistence that Hostel Buffalo-Niagara vacate its downtown location on Monday, allowing it to host visitors for the April 8 solar eclipse. Work to stabilize an adjacent structure to the rear is scheduled to start soon and the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency, owner of the two buildings, said it would be unsafe for the hostel to remain open during the work. Hostel managers lobbied for an extension to accommodate the visitors who have booked for the eclipse. “So as to not inconvenience the out-of-town visitors for this historic event, BURA[...]

Posted 12 months ago

Mar 15

2024

Solutions to Buffalo’s lagging mortgage lending to Black residents

Second in a series on the impact of lending practices on homeownership by Black residents in Erie and Niagara counties. The first story is here. Analysts and community leaders suggest a series of banking reforms aimed at increasing Black homeownership in Erie and Niagara counties. Ideas include expanding outreach efforts to underserved communities and retooling mortgage lending options by lowering interest rates for low-to-moderate income buyers and considering rent and bill payment history in lieu of credit history. “Potentially having those rates lowered and providing more ability for families that may not have higher income streams to have some subsidies[...]

Posted 12 months ago

Mar 14

2024

Mortgage lending lags to Black applicants in Buffalo

This is the first of two stories on the impact of lending practices on homeownership by Black residents in Erie and Niagara counties. The second story, outlining possible solutions, is here. Black applicants are twice as likely to be denied a home mortgage as the overall population in Erie and Niagara counties, an Investigative Post analysis has found. What’s more, the region’s 18 percent rejection rate for Black applicants in 2022 was higher than in all but a handful of other major metro areas nationally. The gap between the denial rate for Black applicants and the overall mortgage denial rate[...]

Posted 12 months ago

Mar 1

2024

Demolition threatened for Buffalo’s ‘house from hell’

Over a year after two dead bodies were found in a boarded-up Arkansas Street house, a city court judge is once again calling for demolition of the property. Meanwhile, the owner is now facing similar issues with a burned-out house he owns in a different West Side neighborhood. His attorney says Kwayo Ithe Bonkuka could afford to fix the problem properties if he gets back $80,000 he paid for a city-owned house, but never received ownership of. “If we enter into an agreement, money will be transferred back for properties,” attorney Daniel Tarantino said in a recent Housing Court appearance.[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Feb 23

2024

Downtown Buffalo hostel facing quick eviction

Hostel Buffalo-Niagara at 667 Main Street in downtown Buffalo. Buffalo’s downtown hostel was notified this week that it must evacuate the Main Street building its occupied for nearly 30 years so stabilization work can begin on the hostel and an adjacent structure Initially, the hostel was given until March 1 to vacate. But by the end of Friday, in response to concerns raised by the hostel, the city extended the deadline until March 25 – although representatives for the hostel are saying it’s still not enough time. “We feel heard for right now, but we need more and we want[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Feb 22

2024

Attorney General investigating Buffalo landlords

A state Attorney General’s probe into lead poisoning is focused on a group believed to own or manage more than 200 Buffalo properties – at least 25 of which were cited for lead-related violations, and at least 11 of which were homes to children who have tested positive for high lead levels, according to court papers. The nearly year-long investigation was disclosed in court papers filed Friday by Attorney General Letitia James’ office. The filings describe the landlord/management group as “a tangled web of limited liability companies, corporations, and individuals,” who appear to operate out of a boarded-up building on[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Feb 13

2024

Community groups question Buffalo’s lead program

Andrea Ó Súilleabháin, executive director of Partnership for the Public Good, speaks at a press conference Tuesday, Feb. 13 about the low number of home inspections Buffalo has completed to survey for lead. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel. Nearly 40 local community organizations are questioning whether City Hall is fully complying with a more than 3-year-old program that was designed, in part, to help combat lead poisoning in city housing. They’re giving the city a month to prove that inspectors have been fully implementing the program. Partnership for the Public Good addressed a letter to Mayor Byron Brown and Catherine[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Dec 29

2023

I’Jaz Ja’ciel’s reporting on Buffalo housing

While I’m proud of the work I did for Investigative Post in the early part of 2023, including my myth-busting story about lootings during the Christmas Blizzard of 2022 and the launch of ‘East Side Stories’, I feel that my most impactful work came at the end of the year, when I started looking into Black homeownership in Buffalo and Erie County. Buffalo has a history of inequities in housing, from segregation to redlining. They have resulted in barriers to homeownership for the city’s Black residents. In fact, the number of African-Americans who own their homes in the city has[...]

Posted 1 year ago