The Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo has made a $28,000 grant to Housing Opportunities Made Equal in support of HOME’s innovative Community Housing Center.
Born out of the settlement of the class-action lawsuit Comer v. Kemp, the Community Housing Center works to strengthen communities and to increase diversity by helping low-income families with Section 8 rental assistance to take advantage of the full range of housing opportunities available in Erie County. Since opening its doors in April 1999, HOME’s Community Housing Center has assisted more than 3,500 families lease housing in communities of their choice.
Following three years of invaluable support from the John R. Oishei Foundation, the future of this highly successful program had been in doubt. Funds from the Community Foundation will be used in combination with grants from the Josephine Goodyear Foundation and HSBC Bank USA. to increase opportunity in the nation’s sixth most racially segregated metropolitan area. HOME continues to seek additional support for program.
“The Community Foundation has once again been a leader in efforts to reduce the racial and ethnic disparities which have hobbled our region,” said HOME Executive Director Scott W. Gehl. “Our philanthropic community understands how segregation and concentrated poverty lowers all boats–and impedes Buffalo-Niagara’s ability to compete successfully in a global economy.”
Housing Opportunities Made Equal is a civil rights organization whose mission is to promote the value of diversity and to ensure the people of Western New York an equal opportunity to live in the housing and communities of their choice.