BLIGHTERS CAUSE URBAN BLIGHT
NOT MAYOR JENNINGS- COREY



Blighted buildings and blighted neighborhoods

are the product of anti-social behavior by

blighters. It is a behavioral problem that is

aided and abetted by a social services system

that rewards blighter behavior.



Corey Ellis blames Mayor Jennings for the nearly

1,000 abandoned buildings, and many times

that number of substandard dwellings in the City

of Albany.



Mayor Jennings is not to blame. The blame lies

with the slumlords who profit from blight, the

blighter occupants and the social services/section

8 system that rewards them all.



The cure lies in behavioral/attitudinal adjustment

and real reform of the social services/section 8

programs.



This will require cooperation between the Mayor

The County Executive and County Legislature, the

Governor and State Legislature, the Members

of Congress and the President, to reform the social

services/section 8 housing programs to require

proper behaviors /standards on the parts of

landlords and tenant occupants of dwellings.



We can no longer tolerate or condone an urban

slash and burn occupance system where blighters

blight one neighborhood, then move on to destroy

another neighborhood.



Case example: The Park South Urban Renewal

Project is displacing blighters, criminals, drug

dealers and other anti-social malcontents who

are moving up the New Scotland Avenue corridor

to Forest Ave, Harris, the Weis Rd-Hackett-Picotte

absentee owned housing, the apartment buildings

along lower South Allen St and, now Winnie St.



Closing St Teresa's church/school will only hasten

the demise of that once fine neighborhood.



Time has come to draw the line and refocus

the approach to urban renewal in Albany.

Begin by improving the remaining few Uptown

neighborhoods. Stamp out incipent blight.

After the Uptown neighborhoods are secured

move mid and downtown, involving residents

of those neighborhoods in efforts to reclaim

those blighted neighborhoods.

This will end the slash and burn pattern of

migratory urban blight and make Albany once

more a place to live and enjoy.

Joe Sullivan