By Mark David Blum, Esq.
I have absolutely had it with the Syracuse Housing Authority. Twice now, I have been exposed to some horrid situations and arrogant attitudes by these taxpayer supported mini-prisons. This time, it’s “on”. Lawyers are forbidden from soliciting clients except under some very limited circumstances. One of them is an offer to represent a party pro bono. Here is my offer: Anybody for a lawsuit?
Ground Rule #1: Defamation: Libel: “Truth” is the ultimate defense. If I’m lyin`, I’m dyin`. If they do not sue me, then res ipsa loquitor. Sue I say the Syracuse Housing Authority. Not for money – but to enjoin them from behaving as parental authorities and jailors. Someone has to return to the tenants and users of taxpayer owned properties the dignity and privacy rights to which all free Americans lay claim as inalienable.
Walk back through time with me for a moment: My first boil came about as a result of greedy Ol’ Fred down there at the Housing Authority summarily cutting off bus service for tenants. (I remind you again, we are talking about tenants, not prisoners). When he said it was for “cost” reasons, George Kilpatrick and I started a public outcry that we were promised resulted in a return of the bus service.
Then, there was the day I met half their tenants in the one working elevator. I still gasp for air at the thought.
This morning thanks to Linda Covich of Syracuse in a letter to the editors, we learn that now the Syracuse Housing Authority wants to remove the balconies of the apartments. Why? According to Ms. Covich, “they say they got a grant that has to be used on a project. That is what they want to spend it on. Their main complaint is the pigeons.”
A grant -- to remove balconies? Money given for a major UNrenovation project? When people are hungry, desperate for working elevators and fresh air, operators of the Syracuse Housing Authority have secured MONEY to tear down amenities that make living on the top floors bearable. Seems to me there are far better uses for that grant money than to tear down dozens of balconies.
Perhaps some of these public employees should get outside and clean up the pigeon shit and stop whining. Because employees are too lazy to do their jobs and in an effort to streamline and minimize services, the Housing Authority’s motto should never be, “tis a far better thing to just tear the damn place down than it is to maintain it”.
What is becoming painfully obvious is that the Housing Authority management has become a fiefdom with very little concern for the lifestyles and needs of the tenants. Stripping the weakest in society of basic human needs for fresh air or a balcony or a ride to the supermarket or a working elevator is grotesquely unfair. There appears to resonate from within the Authority an attitude of warehousing chattel or corralling cattle. Tenants are human beings, same as you and I. The indignity of poverty should not be compounded by arrogance and indifference.
If the Housing employees, including management, are too “busy” to job done, then perhaps we need to find employees (and management) who can. Many unemployed and hungry people would line up to do an honorable job – even clean pigeon shit. (I have shoveled snow in the winter and driven a street sweeper at night to feed my family. There is no shameful job).
Here is a thought: Perhaps Judge McKinney would consider having his name removed from one of the Authority’s properties in protest of the Authority’s attitudes. Clearly the Agency would clearly get the message if he did. I know Judge McKinney would never support an attitude as is being manifested in the Housing Authority Management Office.
But I am here today telling you that, like me, we all have to be very alert as to how we treat our elderly and poor and ill. It is not our place to deliver the least amount of service. These are folks for whom a walk to the bus stop to could be an overwhelming chore. Just being outside in the sunshine for 15 minutes without having to take a stressful two hour elevator ride is a wonderful feeling. Remember the Seinfeld’s race to the early bird special at the Old Country Buffet? At a certain point in life, it is the small things, the little moments, the tiny pleasures, which give us our greatest joy and peace.
None of us ever plans to end up old, poor, and dependent on the largesse of the City of Syracuse. We all have high hopes and dreams and plans for a safe and secure and comfortable future. Ask me someday how quickly that can all disappear and how far away you really are from homelessness and food lines.
I bring all this to your attention for another reason.
As we today treat our elderly; the attitudes we adopt and the resources we pledge, will not go unnoticed to those who follow us. Our children are watching. What lesson will you teach them today about how you want to be treated tomorrow?
