Kernwatch

United Neighborhoods is high on glitz and short on substance. Generously funded by Wendt Foundation & United Way, it actively discourages education of homeowners in struggling low-income neighborhoods about reasons for plummeting housing values & deteriorating quality of life. Instead it concentrates on politically correct touchy-feelie approaches. And there is no real participation in the organization. Its board make-up & budget are top-secret. There has been a steady progression of executive directors whose ties are closer to political leaders than homeowners. Early board members resigned in disgust, frustrated that top United Way bureaucrat Stephanie Barber ran the organization in secret collaboration with board member Ruth Bryant & Wendt Foundation Trustee Tom Lunt (paid about $80,000 annually as part time Wendt Foundation trustee, Lunt lives in East Aurora).

The 7 staff listed on www.unitedneighborhood.org now include Stephanie Barber. Executive Dir. Shakoor Aljuwani boasts at length about his long activist history, most recently in Brooklyn. Currently he is more aptly called status quo seeker , unwilling to even discuss deep-seated problems destroying low-income neighborhoods city-wide.

The friendship of Barber with BMHA Executive Sharon West has resulted in Alijuwani’s close ties to costly, politically corrupt housing authority. BMHA gets over $30 million in routine HUD subsidies annually for about 7% of the city’s poor, in contrast to $21 to $23 million of block-grant funds for the entire city. BMHA is deeply corrupt, virtually double (Patronage) staffed, having an economic cost of over $1,500 monthly to house a family of two in permanent dependency. New census figures show dramatic loss of Buffalo population, & 22, 854 housing vacancies, as BMHA is spending more than ever in history building new units for the poor costing $150,000 to $1/4 million each.

People Make Neighborhoods Better? The group’s slogan says volumes. Anybody traveling low income neigh-borhoods is struck by boarded, abandoned housing everywhere. Indeed, a virtual black hole lines Broadway thru Fillmore District, where exodus is a major dynamic & demolition a major industry. Some “people” fueling that flight are drug dealers, block-busting Realtors, & speculators. The slogan “People Make Neighborhoods Better” reflects “dumbing-down” keeping BMHA tenants ignorant & powerless as pawns in a high stakes poverty industry. The recent ribbon cutting at BMHA’s $46 mil. Frederick Douglass Project carries the dynamic to obscene extremes. Politicians, bankers & developers hugged each other before the few chosen poor moved in to $150,000 carpeted town-houses, with washers & dryers. A final touch was naming 2 streets after women living 40+ yrs in BMHA, dying as poor as when they moved in.

Poverty Pimps, Poverty Whores It is a very corrosive exploitation of predominantly-black poverty by the powerful & the few “chosen poor” that CELEBRATES rather then REDUCES poverty. Students of history see a frightening similarity between exploitation of LABOR of blacks & current exploitation of their POVERTY. Too often, it also repeats “house slave” & “field slave” strategies that keep the poor of all races divided while advancing the fiction that black representatives of the establishment can be trusted as leaders because they “look like us”.

Neighborhood Watch The organization’s newsletter continues the ‘big lie’. My Housing Watch gets me prosecuted repeatedly for telling truth . . . UN’s Neighborhood Watch printed in Buffalo Gazette (Journal of Progress) should be named “keepin’ em barefoot n’ innerant’ in da’ hood”. Aljuwani betrays the “gospel” of activism: FOLLOW THE MONEY. He does the opposite. By keeping “block clubs” busy fighting crack houses, vacant houses, & trash-strewn lots in the neighborhoods, the powers-that-be can divide $10’s of millions, uninterrupted by informed citizens.

Robbin Da’ Hood The very news that neighborhood leaders should know & vigorously challenge is systematically withheld by UN. Their Neighborhood Watch will never mention that last week:

Buffalo’s worst ever blockbusting Realtor Frank Parlato Jr. had 3 former sales listed in Buffalo real estate transactions. But they have all been demolished, at taxpayer expense.
Buffalo has no plan to fight an epidemic of Parlato-style scams (Newest: $3 mil. Hutchinson-Upcher scam)
There were 58 transactions below $5,000, often to housing scammers, not published in Buffalo News
28 transactions were to Masiello-approved Scott Wizig, who sells slums to poor & takes profits to Houston
Wizig reduced new assessments on 250 properties, paying as little as $39 city/county tax (3 fam, 241 Sobieski)

United Neighborhoods is part of the problem in scores of struggling Buffalo neighborhoods, not part of the solution. It should be renamed . . . ROBBIN' DA’ HOOD.

Richard Kern, MSW, July 7, 2001
354 Baynes St. Buffalo, NY (716) 882-2388 Kernwatch@AOL.com
www.Kernwatch.com




				City Hall Watch July7 United Neighborhood SCAM United Neighborhoods is high on glitz and short on substance. Generously funded by Wendt Foundation & United Way, it actively discourages education of homeowners in struggling low-income neighborhoods about reasons for plummeting housing values & deteriorating quality of life. Instead it concentrates on politically correct touchy-feelie approaches. And there is no real participation in the organization. Its board make-up & budget are top-secret. There has been a steady progression of executive directors whose ties are closer to political leaders than homeowners. Early board members resigned in disgust, frustrated that top United Way bureaucrat Stephanie Barber ran the organization in secret collaboration with board member Ruth Bryant & Wendt Foundation Trustee Tom Lunt (paid about $80,000 annually as part time Wendt Foundation trustee, Lunt lives in East Aurora). The 7 staff listed on www.unitedneighborhood.org now include Stephanie Barber. Executive Dir. Shakoor Aljuwani boasts at length about his long activist history, most recently in Brooklyn. Currently he is more aptly called status quo seeker , unwilling to even discuss deep-seated problems destroying low-income neighborhoods city-wide. The friendship of Barber with BMHA Executive Sharon West has resulted in Alijuwani’s close ties to costly, politically corrupt housing authority. BMHA gets over $30 million in routine HUD subsidies annually for about 7% of the city’s poor, in contrast to $21 to $23 million of block-grant funds for the entire city. BMHA is deeply corrupt, virtually double (Patronage) staffed, having an economic cost of over $1,500 monthly to house a family of two in permanent dependency. New census figures show dramatic loss of Buffalo population, & 22, 854 housing vacancies, as BMHA is spending more than ever in history building new units for the poor costing $150,000 to $1/4 million each. People Make Neighborhoods Better? The group’s slogan says volumes. Anybody traveling low income neigh-borhoods is struck by boarded, abandoned housing everywhere. Indeed, a virtual black hole lines Broadway thru Fillmore District, where exodus is a major dynamic & demolition a major industry. Some “people” fueling that flight are drug dealers, block-busting Realtors, & speculators. The slogan “People Make Neighborhoods Better” reflects “dumbing-down” keeping BMHA tenants ignorant & powerless as pawns in a high stakes poverty industry. The recent ribbon cutting at BMHA’s $46 mil. Frederick Douglass Project carries the dynamic to obscene extremes. Politicians, bankers & developers hugged each other before the few chosen poor moved in to $150,000 carpeted town-houses, with washers & dryers. A final touch was naming 2 streets after women living 40+ yrs in BMHA, dying as poor as when they moved in. Poverty Pimps, Poverty Whores It is a very corrosive exploitation of predominantly-black poverty by the powerful & the few “chosen poor” that CELEBRATES rather then REDUCES poverty. Students of history see a frightening similarity between exploitation of LABOR of blacks & current exploitation of their POVERTY. Too often, it also repeats “house slave” & “field slave” strategies that keep the poor of all races divided while advancing the fiction that black representatives of the establishment can be trusted as leaders because they “look like us”. Neighborhood Watch The organization’s newsletter continues the ‘big lie’. My Housing Watch gets me prosecuted repeatedly for telling truth . . . UN’s Neighborhood Watch printed in Buffalo Gazette (Journal of Progress) should be named “keepin’ em barefoot n’ innerant’ in da’ hood”. Aljuwani betrays the “gospel” of activism: FOLLOW THE MONEY. He does the opposite. By keeping “block clubs” busy fighting crack houses, vacant houses, & trash-strewn lots in the neighborhoods, the powers-that-be can divide $10’s of millions, uninterrupted by informed citizens. Robbin Da’ Hood The very news that neighborhood leaders should know & vigorously challenge is systematically withheld by UN. Their Neighborhood Watch will never mention that last week: Buffalo’s worst ever blockbusting Realtor Frank Parlato Jr. had 3 former sales listed in Buffalo real estate transactions. But they have all been demolished, at taxpayer expense. Buffalo has no plan to fight an epidemic of Parlato-style scams (Newest: $3 mil. Hutchinson-Upcher scam) There were 58 transactions below $5,000, often to housing scammers, not published in Buffalo News 28 transactions were to Masiello-approved Scott Wizig, who sells slums to poor & takes profits to Houston Wizig reduced new assessments on 250 properties, paying as little as $39 city/county tax (3 fam, 241 Sobieski) United Neighborhoods is part of the problem in scores of struggling Buffalo neighborhoods, not part of the solution. It should be renamed . . . ROBBIN' DA’ HOOD. Richard Kern, MSW, July 7, 2001 354 Baynes St. Buffalo, NY (716) 882-2388 Kernwatch@AOL.com www.Kernwatch.com