Aaron Bartley

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2005

Aaron Bartley

PUSH Buffalo

http://www.pushbuffalo.org

Buffalo, New York, United States

Community Improvement & Economic Development

The Bold Idea:

Organizing Buffalo residents to reform housing policy by working with landlords, government agencies, and housing providers in order to better serve low-income populations.

PUSH organizes residents of Buffalo’s West Side to achieve greater community control. Through action oriented campaigns, PUSH mobilizes residents for direct engagement with irresponsible absentee landlords, government agencies and major corporations. PUSH also advocates for comprehensive reform of housing policy and redevelops West Side housing for occupancy by low-income Buffalonians through the PUSH Community Housing Co-op. PUSH is rooted in the needs and aspirations of low-income people of all backgrounds living on the West Side. PUSH celebrates the incredible diversity of peoples in the neighborhood and encourages broad, democratic participation in its direct action campaigns.

Biography:

This Harvard Law School graduate returned to his native Buffalo after leading the Harvard Living Wage Campaign, which won $10 million annual wage and benefits gains for 2,000 low-income service workers at Harvard, and the Boston Justice for Janitors strike in 2002 as an Attorney and Organizer for SEIU Local 615.

Moment of Obligation: When and why did you decide to start your organization?
My decision to come home. After several years of organizing in Boston, I returned to Buffalo last summer with the intention of starting a social justice organization. The widespread poverty caused by de-industrialization and factory closings shaped my consciousness as a high school student in Buffalo and led me to a career in social justice organizing. I wanted to apply what I'd learned to the chronic problem back home. My idea took shape as I evaluated Buffalo's assets and the obstacles facing its low-income neighborhoods. As I reflected on my previous experiences as a community organizer, it became apparent that a movement towards gaining community control of Buffalo's unrivaled stock of 19th century homes would be viable. Absentee speculators and landlords have drained housing equity from many of the city's most diverse and dynamic neighborhoods, including my own neighborhood on the West Side. The objective of PUSH Buffalo is to retain that equity for low-income residents. The specific model I chose, which combines Alinksy-esque community organizing with co-op housing development, came from analyzing the ways in which community power can be transferred into actual, productive assets for low-income communities.

Who do you look up to and why?
My mother and father, who, in different ways, have always exemplified hard work, compassion, open-mindedness, curiosity, and commitment to community. Fellow organizers who've been in the fight for social justice far longer than I have. Two organizing colleagues at SEIU - Dan Nicolai and Roosevelt Felix - come to mind because they've managed to remain humble and thoughtful while committing many years to exhausting social justice organizing. Historical figures who've influenced me include Cesar Chavez, Emma Goldman, A. Philip Randolph, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King.

A snapshot in ten years: What is your dream of what is happening? What impact has your organization had?
PUSH Buffalo would have several hundred housing units in its portfolio, each producing equity for low-income residents. Its organizing structure would be well developed, with a strong leader on each block. All of Buffalo's West Side would have a far greater capacity to mobilize en masse around pressing housing issues, but also around the need for better employment opportunities and better schools.

What's in your CD player right now?
Digable Planets, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Dead Prez, the Roots, 20th Century French organ music.

What are a few book recommendations (pleasure, work and anything in between)?
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs, Urban Fortunes by Logon and Molotoch, Workers in a Lean World by Kim Moody, Black Skin, White Mask by Frantz Fannon, Wall Street by Doug Henwood, The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin, Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg, and Power, Politics and People by C. Wright Mills. Also Pynchon, Thomas Wolfe, and Nabokov.

What websites do you go to often (work and personal)?

• www.google.com
• www.drudgereport.com
• www.nytimes.com
• www.commondreams.org

Quick piece of advice for people starting social change organizations:
Innovate, but honor the thousands of committed, effective organizers who've come before you. Social and economic justice organizers have weathered wars, witch hunts, totalitarian dictators, and fascist states, and they've come out ahead in many cases. The historical processes and structures that have proven most effective in the past, whether in Spain, El Salvador, or the US Civil Rights Movement, are still highly relevant.