People

 

The Planning Framework

The planning team will use a conceptual framework for the Perry Choice Neighborhood that is based on the interplay of people, housing and neighborhood to inform and guide the planning process. 

The Mini-Education Pipeline System—Where developing strategies that begin building children's educational sucess from early childhood through high school and on to college are essential to building a community of opprutunity where people will have a cance to realize their full human potential. However, this is no easy task, especially when persistently low achieving schools dominate the inner-city landscape. To strengthen the available public education and bolster the life chances of young people, the planning team is developing an early childhood education center at the Perry housing complex that will be based upon creating a continuum of progressive services, porgrams and activities that will facilitate the movement of children through sucessful early childhood education experiences to elementary, middle, high school and on to college and/or a career. A collaborative partnership involving parents, the Community Action Organization, the Buffalo public schools system and University at Buffalo, is being established to develop the mini-educational system.

The Neighborhood-based Service Delivery System—The location and delivery of health, human and social services in the Perry neighborhood matters. The decline of welfare and other types of cash assistance has meant that recipients must travel to government offices and/or non-profit organizations to receive help from a social service program.  Often residents must make repeated visits to several different agencies each month, increasing the expense and complications of difficult commutes among home, work, and child care facilities, often without access to reliable automobile or public transportation.  

The Perry Choice neighborhood cannot be re-created and redeveloped without being a safe and secure place to live and work.   The planning team will develop a community-based strategy for making the Perry Choice neighborhood a safe place without increasing police presence.  This will be done by developing a neighborhood-based strategy that centers on  violence intervention, creating opportunities for young people, resident street patrols and working closely with law enforcement agencies.

The Section 3 Business and Employee Development Center will be a joint venture with the University at Buffalo School of Management and the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority. The rebuilding of the Perry Choice neighborhood requires the development of a strategy that makes it possible to turn the neighborhood redevelopment process into jobs and opportunities for business ownership among the people living in the neighborhood.   This strategy will involve the implementation of an innovative Section 3 program designed to train business owners and to produce workers capable of taking advantage of the emerging opportunities.   The program will be anchored with a supportive service system that will help workers and owners deal with health, human and social issues.