I am sad that I won't be back in Buffalo tomorrow for an amazing event the law school is organizing in conjunction with EPA and local environmental activists and community organizers. Stemming from a Healthy Home Practicum taught by Kim Connolly, the event will involve discussion of improving our local Western New York communities. More than a symposium, this forum will explore ideas with a goal of actually implementing plans to improve environmental and public health here in Buffalo.
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Local activists, academics, community organizers and federalexperts will exchange ideas toward making Western New York’shomes and communities healthier at a daylong environmental justiceforum on April 26. The gathering, titled “An Environmental Justice Forum forBuffalo Homes and Neighborhoods,” will run from 9 a.m. to 2p.m. at the University at Buffalo’s Clinical andTranslational Research Center, 875 Ellicott St.
Matthew Tejada, recently installed as director of theEnvironmental Protection Agency’s Office of EnvironmentalJustice, will open the forum. William J. Hochul '94, US attorneyfor the Western District of New York, will discuss the importanceof enforcement in addressing healthy homes matters. Otherpresenters include environmental justice experts from theEPA’s headquarters offices, the U.S. Department of Housingand Urban Development, and the Agency for Toxic Substances andDisease Registry.
The program’s sponsors include SUNY Buffalo Law School andits Healthy Homes Legal Practicum, the Community Foundation forGreater Buffalo’s Green and Healthy Homes Initiative,Neighborhood Legal Services, UB’s Civic Engagement and PublicPolicy Research Initiative and the UB Office of Sustainability.
Students participating in the Law School practicum provide legalsupport to the National Green and Healthy Homes Initiative, whichhas chosen Buffalo as one of 17 pilot cities for its work inpromoting safer housing. Among the work produced by practicumstudents is 36-page publication called “ANeighborhood’s Continuing Evolution: An Environmental JusticeWalking Tour of Buffalo, NY’s West Side.”
Professor Kim Diana Connolly, who directs the Law School’sclinical program and is one of three instructors of the practicum,says of the conference: “This forum will showcase theon-the-ground work being done by SUNY Buffalo Law School studentsand faculty that’s changing lives here in Buffalo whilebecoming a model for next-generation environmental justiceelsewhere in the nation.”
The conference recognizes the presence, especially in the Cityof Buffalo, of an aging and deteriorating housing stock,environmentally unhealthy conditions in many neighborhoods, as wellas high poverty and unemployment rates. Many families live in homesor communities that are unhealthy, unsafe and notenergy-efficient.
Though local groups have been working to address these problems,their efforts are incompletely coordinated. The forum seeks tobegin to develop “a truly sustainable strategy for healthyhomes and communities that can become a model for othercities.”