4 B.U. Pub. Int. L.J. 275 (1994-1995)
Law School Initiatives in Housing and Community Development

handle is hein.journals/bupi4 and id is 293 raw text is: LAW SCHOOL INITIATIVES IN HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PETER PITEGOFF* The beauty of Benedict House - the ornate wooden trim, the elegant din- ing room, the stained glass windows - tempers the harsh reality for its residents. Fifty of our residents have died, explained a staff member, suggesting an ironic benchmark of progress in this home for people with advanced cases of AIDS and nowhere else to live.1 So began a brief tour of special needs housing in Buffalo, New York, and a glimpse at the role of one law school in afforda- ble housing development. Across town on Emslie Street, in one of the poorest census tracts in the Western New York region, workers were renovating a century old Jesuit rec- tory. St. Ann's rectory was soon to reopen with nineteen units of subsidized housing for elderly residents.' Two blocks away was the Precious Jewels Day Care Center, operating in a renovated house and an adjacent new play area in the midst of its inner-city neighborhood.3 Precious Jewels, Benedict House, and St. Ann's are among a wide range of community-based clients of the Legal Assistance Program at the State Univer- sity of New York at Buffalo.' In October 1993, SUNY Buffalo and the * Professor of Law, State University of New York at Buffalo. I thank the Interuniversity Consortium on Poverty Law for supporting this research, with special thanks to Louise Trubek, Lois Lupica, Stephen Wizner, Robert Solomon, Thomas Dis- are, George Hezel, Nils Olsen, Lauren Breen, Philip Halpern, and Janet Stearns. I Phil Fairbanks, City Approves Benedict House Plans, THE BUFF. NEWS, July 1, 1994, at Cl; Phil Fairbanks, Some Petitioners Recant Opposition To Benedict House Expansion, THE BUFF. NEWS, June 2, 1994, at Cl; Henry L. Davis, Benedict House Presses County For Funds To Expand AIDS Care, THE BUFF. NEWS, Dec. 6, 1993, at Cl. Deborah Ellis, the chief financial officer of Benedict House, hosted a visit there on October 28, 1993, by the peer exchange participants. See infra note 5 and accompany- ing text (describing the peer exchange and listing its participants). 2 By early 1994, all nineteen units at St. Ann's were occupied. Reaching Out: UB Law School's Development Clinics, Making A Difference for Those with Least, U. BUFF. L.F. Spring-Summer 1992, at 22-24; Dave Condren, Ex-Parish Rectory Makes Bow As Low-Income Project, THE BUFF, NEWS, April 28, 1994, at C4. ' Peter Pitegoff, Child Care Enterprise, Community Development, and Work, 81 GEO. L.J. 1897, 1899-1901 (1993). Peter Pitegoff, Community Economic Development in the Law School Context, Plenary Presentation at AALS Conference on Clinical Legal Education, (June 5, 1994), in CHALLENGES FOR THE NINETIES EXPANDING PEDAGOGY, SCHOLARSHIP AND SOCIAL JUSTICE, at 67-73; see also Peter Pitegoff, Buffalo Change and Community, 39 BUFF. L. REV. 313, 335 n.99 (1991) (describing the SUNY Buffalo Legal Assistance

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