Jeff Russo | July 11, 2024

Community organizations and residents came together on Thursday to announce that they are suing the City of Buffalo for failure to provide safe rental housing.

The petition filed in Erie County Supreme Court claims The City of Buffalo, Mayor Byron Brown, and Catherine Amdur, Commissioner of Permit and Inspections Services, are dragging their feet when it comes to fully implementing the Proactive Rental Inspections Law or PRI.

"We are asking for an order that compels the respondents, city, and officials, to comply with the legal duties that they have not been complying with," said Matt Parham, Director of Litigation and Advocacy, at the WNY Law Center.

The PRI law protects people living in rental housing from lead paint and other health and safety hazards. The Buffalo Common Council unanimously adopted the law in 2020.

"The purpose of the law is to achieve the complete remediation of lead-based paint hazards and to correct and prevent many other unsafe and unhealthy housing conditions," said Andrea Ó Súilleabháin, Executive Director of The Partnership for Public Good.

The law also requires inspections of 36,000 rental properties and restricts landlords from renting properties if violations are found until they've received a certificate of compliance.

However, according to the plaintiffs, less than 5,000 properties have been inspected nearly four years after adopting the PRI law. The plaintiffs believe this is putting families and children in unsafe conditions.

"In this lawsuit, tenants describe living with leaking roofs, collapsing ceilings, mold, broken and rotting windows, and exterior doors that don't lock," said Ó Súilleabháin. "Their children and grandchildren have lead poisoning and asthma, persistent headaches, daily nosebleeds and more,"

"We are here this morning not because we wanted to be, we are here because we needed to be," said Dawn Well-Clyburn, Executive Director of PUSH Buffalo. "We have joined this lawsuit because we have lost full faith and confidence in the Brown administration's ability to implement a critical tool in the fight for housing justice in our city,"

7 News contacted the City of Buffalo for comment on the lawsuit Thursday. A spokesperson would only say "The City of Buffalo does not comment on pending litigation."

Last week Cathy Amdur, Buffalo's Commissioner of Permit and Inspections told 7 News that the city was hiring seven new housing inspectors to help speed up the inspection process.

In the past, the city has also argued that the prevention and follow-up of lead poisoning is a county issue, not just the city's. It's a claim the plaintiffs believe is incorrect.

"We need to start proactively making sure the home is OK before children test positive for lead. The county's job is to deal with it after. We need the city to deal with it before," said Sarah Wooton, Director of Community Research, at the Partnership for Public Good.

"You can't let the city off the hook," said John Lipsitz of Lipsitz, Ponterio & Comerford, LLC. "To say let's go after the county, fine, let the city go after the county. If the city wants to lay off some of the responsibility bring them in."

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of four community organizations (Partnership for the Public Good, PUSH Buffalo, Housing Opportunities Made Equal, and the Center for Elder Law and Justice), along with four city residents (Dorothy Oatmeyer, Victoria Ring, Krystal Cruz and Denita Adams) by the law firm Lipsitz, Ponterio & Comerford LLC, the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, and the WNY Law Center.