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UB planners develop new model for affordable housing
By PATRICIA DONOVAN
Contributing Editor
A report produced by UB researchers recommends the best methods for the development of affordable housing in Buffalo through public, nonprofit and private-sector collaborations.
"The Housing Service Agency Structural Definition Report" is the outcome of a study conducted by Robert M. Silverman, associate professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, School of Architecture and Planning, and Kelly Patterson, visiting assistant professor in the department. Both work in the school's Center for Urban Studies.
The report makes specific recommendations for "capacity building" in the development of affordable housing in the city. Capacity building is a long-term, continuing process in which all stakeholders create an enabling environment—in this case for affordable housing—with appropriate policy and legal frameworks, and institutional development, including community participation, human-resource development and the strengthening of managerial systems.
The study was funded by a $48,966 grant from Buffalo Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, working in partnership with the Margaret L. Wendt Foundation and the City of Buffalo Office of Strategic Planning.
It is being used by the Office of Strategic Planning to guide the development of a new housing fund and a nonprofit capacity-building model for the city.
Silverman and Patterson will present a paper on the project at the American Society for Public Administration conference in Denver in April.
The 203-page report employs in-depth, case-study analysis to examine the financial success and performance of Neighborhood Housing Programs (NHP) in Rochester, Cleveland and Syracuse, Silverman says.
"The NHP model is recognized nationally as a best-practices model for housing development through collaborations by public, nonprofit and private organizations," Silverman says, "so we identified best practices used in Buffalo's peer cities and analyzed the organizational capacity of CBHOs (community-based housing organizations) in Buffalo," Silverman says.
The report makes recommendations for the establishment of a city housing fund and the development and management of a local mediating structure that would manage the fund, oversee CBHO certification and monitoring, and be responsible for CBHO training and capacity building in the city.
"Our recommendations," Silverman adds, "are directed to foundations, intermediaries, financial institutions and the city itself. In addition, they will be made available to CBHOs themselves so they can be considered as they engage in strategic-planning activities."
Silverman's research and publications focus on the organization and structure of urban institutions, the role of community-based organizations in urban neighborhoods and inequality in inner-city housing markets.
In addition to the research described above, he is a guest editor for a special issue on "Public Participation in Community-Based Organizations and Local Government" for the journal Community Development: Journal of the Community Development Society.
In addition to the project describe above, Patterson's research and publications focus on subsidized housing and the control of neighborhood blight. She is evaluating Section 8 housing policy in the context of its effectiveness in alleviating concentrations of poverty in Buffalo.
Patterson consults with neighborhood groups on the transformation of their inner-city neighborhoods by examining community-based organizations and active citizen-participation models. She is part of a team at the Center for Urban Studies that is proposing a North End Regeneration Plan and Implementation Strategy for the Highland area, a poor neighborhood in Niagara Falls.