Lincoln Avenue’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Win the battle, lose the war?

At least 5 Common Councilors (out of 9 voting members) spoke up about how poorly Syracuse Behavioral Healthcare (SBH) treated the neighbors of Lincoln Avenue when they opened a temporary homeless shelter in April of 2009. The facts were not in dispute. Facility residents ran wild with no oversight. The neighborhood was subjected to months of public drunkenness, drug sales, prostitution, abusive noise and trash/debris.

Many councilors also singled out SBH’s president for poor community relations, citing his inability to work with area neighbors and his offensive lobbying campaign that sought to defame area residents as opponents of housing for people in recovery.

Yet only one councilor, Bill Ryan, had the courage to vote in support of the neighbors. The Syracuse Common Council voted 8-1 to support SBH, an non-profit that they had just finished painting as incompetent and disrespectful to the neighborhood, and issued them a special permit so that they can transform the facility into a drug treatment center.

The compromise is that the permit is allegedly conditional–that if the same problems occur within six months the permit will be revoked. We’re in new territory here and we are skeptical of the Council’s ability to truly revoke the special permit, regardless of the good faith they exude.

What we did win was another six months of meetings with SBH, who has promised to form a Neighborhood Advisory committee. No good deed goes unpunished–but stubbornness and incompetence is apparently rewarded.

SUN’s Position On 168 Lincoln Ave.

Why SUN opposes the establishment of a drug
treatment facility at 168 Lincoln Avenue.

1) Syracuse Behavioral Healthcare (SBH) is incapable of running a facility respectful of the neighborhood.

Beginning in April of 2009, SBH ran a shelter for homeless people at 168 Lincoln Ave. This was done on a temporary contract for Onondaga County. The facility was poorly run, allowing facility residents to defile the neighborhood–open drug use and sales, public drunkenness, loitering, prostitution, trash, unauthorized parking, loud music and other noise complaints.

2) SBH does not respect the neighborhood residents.

No prior notice was given to area residents that the highly respected Lincoln Elms facility was going to change into a homeless center. At subsequent meetings, SBH’s attitude was one of “accept us, or face a vacant building.” not a desire to work with the neighbors.

3) This is not an instance of NIMBY-ism (not in my backyard).

This is an example of our backyard being full. Within a several block radius of the 168 Lincoln property there are 7 similar facilities ministering to the needs of the homeless and the substance abuser.

4) How much more are you going to dump on this neighborhood?

The Lincoln/Bellevue/Midland neighborhood is home to the Midland Ave. Sewage Treatment plant, The Oxford Inn–the city’s homeless shelter of last resort and the aforementioned treatment facilities. Could this be because our neighborhood is overwhelmingly poor and African-American? When will the wishes of the residents of our neighborhood be respected by the powers-that-be?

Common Council, February 8, 2010

SUN Victory–$1 Million More For Neighborhood Housing

What a difference a year makes. A new year, a new administration, a new approach to the Community Development Block Grant. Oh, if you didn’t see the news today, here’s the headline: Syracuse mayor says she’ll shift $1 million in aid from city salaries to housing programs

SUN has been working for this day for the entire 8 and 1/2 years of the prior administration. To the old regime, the Community Development Block Grant was a giant slush fund that they could use to plug the holes in their city hall staff budget. The result? Money that should have been going to help families repair their homes or start a strategy to rehabilitate the 1,500 vacant homes in our city went to pay for a bloated staff–a staff known for being a patronage dumping ground.

Here’s SUN’s comments at last year’s CDBG hearing:

$2.8 million out of the $6 million of CDBG entitlement funds given to the city by HUD is going right into the pockets of City Hall bean-counters. Why should homeowners give up the chance at a home improvement loan to fund a Department of Economic Development that does nothing while the only grocery store on the Southside disappears? Why should neighbors give up hope of dangerous vacant houses being demolished because the city wants to create a slush fund called Special Housing programs that it refuses to describe in any detail whatsoever? Why should low-income neighborhoods plan for rehabilitation of vacant houses for new owner-occupants? The money will instead go to the administrative costs that eat up 46% of the CDBG budget–despite the fact that these costs are supposed to be capped at 20%.

Congratulations to SUN’s Housing Leadership Team, the group of SUN leaders that have focused on this issue for several years. It feels good when people actually listen to you, doesn’t it?

SUN’s Sweetest Fundraiser

How do organizations make money? Banks charge excessive fees and accept federal bailouts, Politicians sell access and votes for campaign contributions–SUN sells World's Finest Chocolate bars!

Each chocolate bar is one dollar. We have cases of 50 bars that you can sell to family and friends–at school, at work at church at the bowling alley! Each case has chocolate with milk chocolate (15), almonds (10), caramel (10) dark chocolate with almonds (10) and crisp (5). 

We also have half cases of 25 bars of both milk chocolate and caramel. 

Help keep SUN's independent voice strong in 2010. 

Call SUN at 476-7475 and we'll hook you up!

Posted via email from Syracuse United Neighbors

Sneakers On The Wires

Sneakers On The Wires

SUN has taken on some really big issues in our day: city-wide reassessment of property taxes, bank redlining and others.

However, issues that don’t seem that large are also important. They sometimes say a lot about our community and how it responds to challenges.

Such is the case of sneakers dangling from utility wires in our neighborhoods. The whispered rumors have always said that the sneakers are code, a way to direct buyers to drug dealers. Some think it’s just a way for tougher kids to intimidate younger kids. Everyone agrees that the sneakers look like hell and they encourage people to consider our neighborhoods to be unsafe and declining.

While the current administration came in on a mission nine years ago to clean up the city and not tolerate abuses of residents’ quality of life, their enthusiasm dried up a few years ago. When we called about the sneakers, the mayor’s neighborhood services office blamed the utilities. The utilities blamed the city. Nothing got done.

At community meetings of the Southside Coalition and the Skunk City Neighborhood Assn., SUN attempted to light a fire under the city by pointing out that the city of Utica actually has a team of workers that responds to complaints and takes the sneakers off the wires. As a result, the city has started to push the utility companies a little harder. But the problem continues.

SUN conducted a survey of our neighborhoods in late November/early December and documented 220 pairs of sneakers up on the wires–123 on the Southside alone. We have shared this information with the city, hoping we can take advantage of the natural enthusiasm that new administrations possess when they first come into office.

Everything starts again January 1.

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