People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH) has been organizing for the last three years on the west side of Buffalo, a neighborhood powerfully impacted by poverty and abandoned housing. Through the use of community assemblies and meetings they have developed an anti-poverty housing platform. This platform demands that the city begin to reinvest in its poorer neighborhoods using a variety of tools that can begin to address rampant and devastating poverty. The plan that the neighborhood developed includes:
- The city should provide funding to rehabilitate 100 houses, identified by community organizations, each year.
- The city should provide funding to weatherize 400 houses per year to help reduce often obscene heating costs and unsustainable energy use.
- The city should demolish the worst 100 abandoned houses per year. Again, these properties should be identified by community organizations.
- To help alleviate poverty in the city, at least 50% of the workforce on each project should live in the neighborhood they are helping to revitalize.
This platform has been in direct opposition to plan put forward by the mayor which puts funding towards demolishing over 5,000 properties in 5 years. This “5 in 5” plan had been the plan for redevelopment coming from city hall for over two years, until Wednesday October 8th, the same day as a planned march on City Hall demanding that the PUSH anti-poverty platform become city policy.
On that day, after two years of community organizing and struggle, the mayor gave in before the rally had even taken place. In the rain, 200 community members from the west side and throughout the city gathered to celebrate their victory against city hall and the mayor. At the last minute, the march plan changed to head to the state and federal buildings to announce the continuation of our community struggle. Community members spoke out against the $700 billion financial bailout and demanded that state and federal actors begin to address the needs of our neighborhoods rather than the needs of the rich.
As the rally came to a close, I left energized from a victory that helps to remind us of the power that an organized people can have. Victories like these are important not only for the positive nature of the gains won, but to help provide momentum for the much longer struggle for true social and economic justice.
This moment represents a critical point for anarchist ideals in the city as well. After months of organizational development and activity, Buffalo Class Action members acted as an important part of the rally planning and outreach. For the rally itself the group had committed to turning out a group of 25 and exceeded that number. Participation in this rally has provided an important step in showing the potential for specifically ideological and revolutionary organization as a part of building and strengthening our broader social movements.
I hope that we can continue to grow and gain legitimacy as a relevant and positive force in the 
social movements of our city. In doing so, the previous narratives of hopelessness can begin to be replaced by a radical narrative of using popular direct action to gain community control of the wealth that rightly belongs to all of us. Maybe then we can move from alleviating the impacts of poverty to destroying it all-together.
