Racial Discrimination and Eviction Policies and Enforcement in New York

New York Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights — Mar 1, 2022

This report focuses on the disproportionate impact of eviction on people of color, including in the administration of justice, in three major New York cities: Albany, Buffalo and NYC.

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Photobank: Arts and Culture Social Justice and the Arts at Ujima - Pt I

Buffalo Commons Photobank — Jan 14, 2020

Guidelines for using photos from the Buffalo Commons Photobank The Buffalo Commons Photobank is an issue-based Photobank for use by our partners and the general public. The purpose of making these photos publicly available is to enhance the work of the social sector in Buffalo-Niagara. We believe that our partners’ work will be more effective when it features high-quality and artistic images for any number of occasions: an event, a fundraiser, a report, etc.

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Photobank: Arts and Culture Social Justice and the Arts at Ujima - Pt II

Buffalo Commons Photobank — Jan 14, 2020

Guidelines for using photos from the Buffalo Commons Photobank The Buffalo Commons Photobank is an issue-based Photobank for use by our partners and the general public. The purpose of making these photos publicly available is to enhance the work of the social sector in Buffalo-Niagara. We believe that our partners’ work will be more effective when it features high-quality and artistic images for any number of occasions: an event, a fundraiser, a report, etc.

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Photobank: Arts and Culture Social Justice and the Arts at Ujima - Pt III

Buffalo Commons Photobank — Jan 14, 2020

Guidelines for using photos from the Buffalo Commons Photobank The Buffalo Commons Photobank is an issue-based Photobank for use by our partners and the general public. The purpose of making these photos publicly available is to enhance the work of the social sector in Buffalo-Niagara. We believe that our partners’ work will be more effective when it features high-quality and artistic images for any number of occasions: an event, a fundraiser, a report, etc.

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Photobank: Arts and Culture Social Justice and the Arts at Ujima - Pt IV

Buffalo Commons Photobank — Jan 14, 2020

Guidelines for using photos from the Buffalo Commons Photobank The Buffalo Commons Photobank is an issue-based Photobank for use by our partners and the general public. The purpose of making these photos publicly available is to enhance the work of the social sector in Buffalo-Niagara. We believe that our partners’ work will be more effective when it features high-quality and artistic images for any number of occasions: an event, a fundraiser, a report, etc.

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Restorative Practices in Buffalo: Building and Rebuilding Community

Kathryn Franco — Apr 21, 2018

Restorative practices/restorative justice (RP or RJ)  is an alternative approach to our current punitive system of addressing conflict and crime. It is an age-old practice with origins in many indigenous cultures and has become increasingly popular in schools, communities and court systems in recent years. Here in Buffalo, individuals began advocating for restorative justice nearly two decades ago. Since then, many organizations, community groups, and schools have been using the practice …

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Advancing Racial Equity and Public Health: Smarter Marijuana Laws in Western New York

Andrea Ó Súilleabháin — Nov 14, 2017

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Working Toward Equality, Updated: Race, Employment, and Public Transportation in Erie County

Sam Magavern, Aaron Krolikowski — Jul 5, 2017

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"Locked in Buffalo's Socioeconomic Basement": An examination of Political and Institutional Racial Discrimination and its Effects on the local African American Community

Shanleigh Corrallo — Feb 14, 2017

This paper addresses the African American community in Buffalo, New York, and critically examines how local politics, interest groups and financial institutions negatively impacted the socioeconomic development of the city’s East Side.

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Working Toward Equality

Sam Magavern — Jan 1, 2016

For all of the progress that our nation and our community have made toward equality, we remain plagued by severe racial disparities in many aspects of life.  Perhaps none is more troubling or more important than inequality in employment.  Access to a good job is, for most people, the key to a good life.  Something is sorely amiss when the black and Hispanic unemployment rates in Erie County are more than twice those of whites, and when people of color are earning just over 70 …

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Better Choices for Buffalo's Students: Expanding & Reforming the Criteria Schools System

Jongyeon Ee, Erica Frankenberg, Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, Natasha Amlani, Jennifer Ayscue, Gary Orfield, Brian Woodward — May 1, 2015

Today, the Buffalo Public Schools, which were national leaders in combining school choice and academic excellence in the l980s, retain only limited and very stratified public school choice. In the l980s, a very high level of diversity and academic excellence was achieved in the city. In the early l990s, the state department of education and national experts recognized the district’s high performance.  The report concludes that the city’s choice system has declined. After the …

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Alarming Disparities: The Disproportionate Number of African American and Hispanic People in Erie County Criminal Justice System

Open Buffalo — Nov 1, 2013

This study on the disproportionate number of African-American and Hispanic people in the Erie County criminal justice system reveals four findings for further analysis.  Representation of the African-American and Hispanic populations is disproportionately high in each stage of the criminal justice process, from arrest through sentencing.  The disparities grow worse at each stage of the process.  Violent felonies and drug felonies yield the greatest racial disparities.  The …

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Housing Segregation, Inequality, and Poverty in Buffalo-Niagara

Gabriella Agostinelli Apr 17, 2013

The Buffalo-Niagara metropolitan area is slowly losing population and growing more diverse.  From 2000 to 2010, the metro population fell from 1,170,111 to 1,135,509, a loss of 34,602.  During those ten years, the Hispanic population rose 36.7%, multi-racial rose 38.1%, and Asian rose 68.7%, while white population fell 6.4%, black fell 0.2%, and American Indian fell 0.2%.  In 2010, the metropolitan area was 79.5% white, 11.8% black, 4.1% Hispanic, and 2.3% Asian.  As of …

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Buffalo, Amherst, and Erie County: Worlds Apart

Jonathan Baird Aug 31, 2011

Examines demographic, population, and economic markers between Buffalo, Amherst, and Erie County.

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Local and Minority Hiring Practices

Kasia McDonald — Apr 28, 2010

This brief discusses various strategies to ensure a diverse and local workforce at the Canal Side project on Buffalo’s waterfront.  To make the project as advantageous to the community as possible requires the use of exact language in contracts governing the development, active participation of local neighborhoods, a monitoring system to track efforts made by developers and jobseekers and then distribute the results to the community, and civic oversight to hold the businesses …

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Racial Disparities in Buffalo

Carrie Weremblewski — Apr 23, 2009

This fact sheet examines data on racial disparities in Buffalo and, where possible, compares it with data from four other medium-sized cities with similar racial composition.  Buffalo is the 8th most segregated metropolitan area in the nation. Segregation is prominent not only in the region, but also within the city, with South Buffalo consisting of 96% whites and 1% African Americans and Masten Community consisting of 87% African Americans.

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Beyond Food Deserts: Measuring and Mapping Racial Disparities in Neighborhood Food Environments

Changxing Ma, Pavan Yadav, Samina Raja — Jan 1, 2008

Given the emerging focus on improving food environments and food systems through planning, this article investigates racial disparities in neighborhood food environments.  An empirical case of Erie County, New York tests the hypothesis that people belonging to different racial groups have access to different neighborhood food destinations.  Using multiple methods—Gini coefficients and Poisson regression—we show that contrary to studies elsewhere in the country there are no …

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The Persistence of Segregation in Buffalo, New York

Daniel Trudeau — Jan 1, 2006

Debates about the causes of segregation continue to consider the role that own-race preferences have in understanding the persistence of racial residential segregation in American cities.  In this paper, I offer an alternative to the own-race preference model.  I argue that segregation of low-income Black households from Whites persists in Buffalo, New York, because the spatial rootedness of Blacks’ survival strategies leads households to choose housing in the central city, …

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