March 1, 2016
BUFFALO, N.Y. – While Buffalo is on the rise downtown and elsewhere, current poverty numbers are evidence that the East Side is still far behind.
But there is hope, and in a new, monthly series that 2 On Your Side launched Tuesday night, we aim to show you some of the good going on that is helping East Side neighborhoods catch up.
Gerard Place is a safe haven in the Bailey-Delavan neighborhood. It’s a transitional housing program from women and children.
“Our main goal is that they never go back to a homeless shelter again,” explains executive director David Zapfel.
Gerard Place developed a plan that gives families a free apartment for two years while also training them for financially independent lives.
Valerie Cattling, who lives on her own with her daughter, is a Gerard Place success story.
“Before then, I really wasn't stable. Young, running from house to house, so forth and so on, so when the good lord blessed me with my child, I said it's time to buckle up and get something stable, and get a job, do what you need to do,” Cattling said, reflecting on her 20s.
Valerie entered the program, and by the time she moved out, she had an updated resume, a savings account, and good habits. She’s held the same job now for several years and received promotions from within, and that’s enabled her to be financially responsible and independent.
“Seven years strong,” she said. “I left Gerard Place when my daughter turned one...seven years strong, yes, because she's eight years old.”
According to Gerard Place, 250 families have come through its transitional housing program.
The non-profit boasts a 96 percent success rate into permanent housing compared to the national average of about 64 percent.
Now, Gerard Place is expanding.
The organization bought the building next door and has plans to open a daycare downstairs and job training upstairs.
That's in addition to the GED classes already offers, which has empowered dozens of women with better education qualifications.
Zapfel believes these services will help residents find better paying jobs.
He says the block club leaders he consults with on the East Side agree.
It’s not that there aren’t jobs, they say; it’s that residents without a high school degree often can’t find jobs that pay enough to support a family.
And when education opportunities and job training are not available right in their neighborhoods, you have to factor in the cost of getting to where the opportunities are.
“One of the reasons is that they can't afford public transportation to get to where the current job training is,” said Zapfel.
There's job training downtown, but for someone in the East Side without a car, to commute by bus with up to three transfers can cost up at $12 dollars a day. That's $12 dollars these folks simply don't have.
Instead, residents can walk to Gerard Place.
In the coming year, it will offer job training in nursing, home health aid, and eventually, culinary arts.
Daycare will follow, and Zapfel says that's key because this neighborhood lacks quality licensed childcare facilities. “She needs quality daycare to be able to put them in, to go get job training herself,” he said.
All this, Zapfel hopes, will be offered for free.
He hopes the funding to do so will come from state grants, which already support the non-profit.
According to public 990 forms, Gerard Place gets about $1 million a year. “We're looking at daycare subsidies obviously from the county, and really bringing in partners that often have their own grants that want to serve our population,” he said.
With additional public backing from Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes, Zapfel says he is confident they'll meet their fundraising requirements over time.
“I have seen women's lives restored as a result of the work that happens at Gerard Place,” Peoples-Stokes said in an interview with 2 On Your Side. “They are doing it right. People need that kind of help. People will end up staying in poverty if they never get the kind of support that's being provided at Gerard Place.”
The big message from people like Valerie and Peoples-Stokes is that this program is for people serious about turning their lives around.
That's why you can't just have free housing; you have to apply for it.
“Not a handout,” Cattling said. “[It is] to help. To aide you, to guide you…there are rules and stipulations everywhere you go. You can't just go there and think 'I’m just going to sit here and I'm going to get everything.' No, you've got to get up, get a job, and they’ve got the daycare service for you so somebody can watch your kid while you go to school.”
Not only did Gerard Place allow Valerie make a better life for herself, but also her daughter is learning valuable lessons, too.
“What's important, what's needed, and what you want...She's one of those 'I want, I want, I want.' And I say, ‘do you see this bill? Do you see this bill and this bill? When Mommy pays all three of these, and whatever change we have left, then you can have.’"
The projects went out to bid at the end of 2015 and renovation has already started.
Career training classes should start in September.
“I really do feel the East Side is up and coming,” said Zapfel. “Is it where the West Side or the Central is right now? No. But it's getting there. We will get there.”
Just a few blocks away will be the Northland project, Mayor Byron Brown's coveted comprehensive job-training center facility.
The hope is that Northland and Gerard Place will work together collaboratively because they will offer different kinds of job training nearby one another; at the same time, people attending job training at either location will be able to take advantage of the new daycare.