I'Jaz Ja'ciel | August 29, 2024

For the past 30 years, state court officials have ignored a law mandating independent oversight of Buffalo’s oft-criticized Housing Court.

After the state Legislature in 1978 passed a law establishing an advisory council to monitor the court and recommend changes, the panel met for more than a decade. But it’s been inactive since the early to mid 1990s.

Since then, at least three different administrative judges in the Buffalo-based Eighth Judicial District failed to appoint members to the advisory council. 

Meanwhile, criticism of the Housing Court has grown, particularly under the current judge, Patrick Carney, who has served since 2011. Some neighborhood advocates say Carney has been slow to act and reluctant to impose meaningful penalties on landlords who allow dilapidated properties to languish.

“If we had an effective Housing Court judge, I wouldn’t be looking at blight from my front porch. It’s as simple as that,” said Patty Macdonald, president of the Allentown Association. 

The current district administrative judge, Kevin Carter, is poised to reactivate the advisory council amid calls from several quarters for him to do so. 

“We are basically in the process of working with the city to try to get this council up and running,” Carter told Investigative Post.

The council’s reinstatement has broad support among the city’s housing activists.

“Hopefully, it will be a really valuable space to discuss Housing Court processes and bigger systems issues like the need for emergency housing or the need to prioritize lead prevention,” said Andrea Ó Súilleabháin, executive director for the community-based think tank Partnership for the Public Good. 

A 16-member panel
The state law establishing Buffalo Housing Court in 1978 included the creation of an advisory council, whose members would attend court sessions, hold quarterly meetings, compose annual reports and make recommendations.

By law, the administrative judge of the city courts — identified by the state courts as the Eighth Judicial District administrative judge — is responsible for appointing most of the advisory council’s 16 members. Those appointments include two each from the real estate industry, tenants’ organizations, civic groups, and unspecified bar associations, as well as four members of the public. 

The statute also calls for two members from the Buffalo Common Council’s Housing Committee, which is no longer active.

In addition, the mayor of Buffalo and the city’s top housing official — presumably the executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Strategic Planning — would each appoint a member.

Most members serve for renewable two- or three-year terms.

Former Common Council President James Pitts, who was involved with creation of Buffalo Housing Court when he was district councilmember, said the court and the advisory council came into existence at a time when housing was a key issue in Buffalo. 

“It was during that period that you had the most active participation of the community, the [Common] Council and others addressing many of those housing issues,” Pitts said.

No one interviewed by Investigative Post knew why the advisory council was disbanded. Pitts speculated it reflected changing neighborhoods, leading to less cohesive community organizations and less effective activism for housing. Even a housing committee the Common Council established fell dormant, he said.

Others speculated the Housing Court judges felt the advisory council was unnecessary. 

The late judge James Kane was Eighth District administrative judge from 1984 through the end of 1994. Pitts and several other court observers said the advisory committee ceased to exist in the early to mid 1990s. 

Over the next 30 years, three different administrative judges served in the position before Carter. It appears none of the three — the late Vincent Doyle, Sharon Townsend or Paula Feroleto — appointed advisory council members.

Townsend could not be reached, and Feroleto did not respond to a request for comment. 

Carney, the current Housing Court judge, declined comment.

Partnership met with judges
The quality of city housing has been a concern for decades. With 60 percent of homes built before 1940, according to Census data, Buffalo has one of the oldest housing stocks among the nation’s larger cities. Many of these houses were built using lead paint, which continues to poison large numbers of young children.

The Brown administration has demolished more than 7,500 run-down houses since 2006, resulting in thousands of vacant lots dotting the city, most on the East Side. The poor condition of many houses has also suppressed East Side real estate values, opening the door to out-of-town speculators.

“Many of the rental properties are just in deplorable conditions,” said Henry Taylor, director of the University at Buffalo’s Center for Urban Studies.

“The bottom line is that these houses are killing people,” he said, referring to lead paint and pipes as well as rodent infestations and asbestos.

Interest in reestablishing the advisory council began five years ago when the Allentown Association felt Housing Court was dragging its feet on neglected historic buildings that the association wanted saved.

After doing research, the organization learned the law that created Housing Court also created an advisory council.

It seemed like a good place for the association to bring its concerns. But the association soon learned the council didn’t exist.

The Partnership for the Public Good included a recommendation to resurrect the advisory council in a 2020 report that analyzed housing-related issues and key contributors to evictions in Buffalo. 

More recently, the Partnership met with court officials last fall to talk about reinstating the advisory council, in part to address code violations involving lead paint. 

The Partnership’s meeting with Carter and Chief City Court Judge Jaharr Pridgen ended with an agreement to create a new court to address lead paint issues. The advisory council discussion was put on hold pending establishment of the lead court, according to the Partnership.

“We have the folks that we think would serve,” Carter told Investigative Post.  “We definitely need to help our citizens. There’s no question about that, and Housing Court is a place to do that.”

Carter noted many houses in the neighborhood he grew up in on Winslow Avenue, including his childhood home, have been demolished.

“It was a hundred houses and now it’s twenty-five so. I’m saddened by that, to be very honest with you,” he said.

Niagara District Council Member David Rivera, who also supports reviving the advisory council, agreed.

“If we don’t take care of these properties, it’s going to be demo time,” he told Investigative Post. 

“You don’t want it to get to that point where we had an opportunity to salvage a house, to restore a house, put it back into the neighborhood, and now we got empty lots because we weren’t aggressive with our code enforcement.”

Carter didn’t have a timeline on when the advisory council will be active again. While he is “ready, willing and able” to appoint his designees, Carter said he’s waiting for city officials to make their appointments.

Mayor Byron Brown’s office did not respond to a request for comment from Investigative Post.

Brendan Mehaffy, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Strategic Planning, told Investigative Post he supports reinstatement of the advisory council. 

“I think something like that is always probably beneficial in terms of being able to look at the housing challenges we face from a larger perspective,” he said.

Pitts also supports revival of the advisory council.

“Hopefully in putting together and reinstituting it, there will be people from the community who have a passion, who are involved in community-based organizations and who have an understanding of what the housing needs of the neighborhoods are within the city,” he said.

“I think that there needs to be permanency with it. There needs to be no lapses in the operations.”