McCarley Gardens Under Threat!

If you were to go to McCarley Gardens today, you would find an atmosphere of fear and insecurity. Why are the tenants of this historical affordable housing complex worried? The complex, on Michigan Avenue, separating Roswell Park and Allentown from the East Side, was the vision of late Rev. Burnie McCarley to provide affordable housing for low-income, single parents. That vision has been successfully maintained for thirty years.
 

Unfortunately today the complex faces a couple of different visions. SUNY at Buffalo sees the area as the future of their downtown medical campus and the new pastor of St. John Baptist Church, Rev. Michael Chapman, seems to see a serious profit in selling this land to the university. At a meeting with tenants on December 5th, Chapman made it clear that he plans to sell the land where McCarley Gardens is located. The 150 units, with nearly 500 residents, would be spread out throughout 22 different housing sites on the east side, effectively destroying their community. According to residents, Chapman also threatened the tenants with allowing the property to deteriorate if they refused to leave.

The Tenants Association at the Gardens is planning to resist being evicted from their homes. Will they succeed in keeping a strong, affordable community intact? Or will another set of tenants be forced from their homes to make way for “development”? The answer is the same as always. We will get what we are willing to fight for. Tenants of the city need to stand behind the residents of McCarley Gardens and demand their right to stay. Only in standing together will any of us find true housing justice.