Friends of Friends – Michele’s Musings

In working with individuals struggling with homelessness and/or accessing affordable housing I began wondering if there may be a systemic problem in Buffalo related to affordable housing. The definition for affordable housing typically is the cost of housing would be no more than 30% of an individual’s income. So for Buffalo, the median income is estimated to be $30,502. If we take 30% of this amount, we come to an average monthly rental rate of about $763.

When quickly searching what the average rental amount is in Buffalo, I found it to be around $1189.The Department of Social Services does provide cash assistance of up to $350 per month however, this still leaves quite a bit of a difference and also quite a bit of a challenge for individuals to find affordable housing. Based on income housing, such as Section 8, would take into consideration the individual’s income and charge accordingly, however, in Buffalo Section 8 via Belmont and Rental Assistance Corporation are not taking new applicants and working off of waiting lists. As a matter of fact, currently, Belmont is notifying individuals who applied in the year 2007. I believe my suspicions were validated.

My concern is also directed towards our community’s future, although Buffalo is experiencing wonderful and exciting development we may be blindsided by the lack of implementing some solid affordable housing planning such as an 80/20 project. An 80/20 project would involve housing projects whereat least 20% of the units within a housing complex should be available for individuals or households with incomes at 50% or less of the area’s Median Income.

I am excited to have three passionate and dedicated individuals as interns for Friends of Night People. Alicia, Brittany and Dan will be with us, working with individuals through May. Please find their bios below. On top of their busy internship, school and work schedules they have each eagerly taken advantage of opportunities such as workshops, trainings and events in order to provide a higher level of services to the individuals we are assisting. They each pursue seeking as much information as they can to assist individuals in navigating the many systems that are in our community which provide services, particularly services addressing homelessness and housing. Their ability to quickly assess the multitude of barriers individuals regularly face, the services available combined with the various criterions which are employed to access these services has been impressive not to mention invaluable to the folks attempting to find or maintain housing.