Buffalo’s Winter Snow Plan, released Monday, includes designating nine emergency warming shelters for citizens in the event of another weather emergency.
But some east side neighbors are feeling some locations are too far away from their homes.
7 News Senior Reporter Eileen Buckley went into the middle of this community to give a voice to these concerns.
“It was very disappointing to not see a shelter from Michigan to East Ferry, from Delavan to William,” reflected Dakarai Singletary.
Singletary is the founder/president of Candles in the S.U.N., a program working with underprivileged communities.
Singletary wrote a social media post about the city's snow plan warming shelter map, pointing out that the nine community centers designated as emergency shelters miss a huge swath of Buffalo's east side where the deadly blizzard hit hard.
“We don't want to lose more residents. That's something that I’ve seen firsthand, last year,” explained Singletary. “We can't lose our residents again and we can't lose one another again.”
But in the heart of Masten District, there are no community centers to set up an emergency shelter, and yet some of the most vulnerable members of our community live on the east side.
“The deep poverty within those districts -- understanding like some people can't prepare themselves so they're supposed to properly prepare themselves and they will be unable. I was looking at a study literally just now 69% of urban residents in America live paycheck to paycheck,” Singletary commented.
“It’s so important to have resources boots on the ground before it gets really bad,” remarked Candace Moppins, executive director, Metro Community Development Corporation.
Moppins leads the Delavan Grider Community Center in another section of the east side.
That center is one of the nine that will serve, once again as an emergency warming center.
Moppins says the center's location is key.
“Because we are near the Erie County Medical Center, and that Delevan is a thoroughfare for transportation and emergency vehicles to get ECMC. I'm sure that in the plan, they are really looking at those access routes and Delevan is going to be one of those priority streets that gets plowed,” replied Moppins
Moppins tells me the city will provide them with a generator in case they lose power during a storm.
While that provides a sense of relief for people in that neighborhood, it's a different story for people like Grace Ferraraccio who lives in Lovejoy.
“We’re feeling left out of everything -- all the time,” declared Ferraraccio.
I spoke with Grace by phone after she emailed our newsroom to voice her frustration. She says the nearest community center on Clinton Street is too far away for residents.
Are they going to walk there in the event of a storm? I don't think so,” responded Ferraraccio.
Ferraraccio suggests using a city school that's across from her home as another shelter. Lovejoy District Council Member Bryan Bollman agrees.
“The schools seem to be a willing partner. I’ve talked to within my education committee to Buffalo Public Schools, and they have locations that are willing to be a partner, so I'm saying why are we not working with Buffalo Public Schools?” Bollman questions.
Bollman tells me has been fighting for more shelters and pushed his WARMUP Act. He says nine is better, but still wants more.
“I want to see us have warming shelters, really in every neighborhood or have some form and have more accessibility for people who have transportation issues. And we have a lot of centers, right we have centers, senior centers, community centers, Buffalo Public Schools -- let's use those assets as resources,” Bollman noted.
The City of Buffalo says there's a strategy behind the locations.
“We’ve got one in every district. That was the core goal. We, unfortunately, aren't able to open a shelter right around the corner from everybody in the city. There is some ability or need to be able to get there. The idea with the shelters is to promote when they're open ahead of the storm,” Nate Marton, commissioner, Buffalo Public Works, Parks & Streets.
Singletary said his organization would like to work with the city as another resource.
“We would love to really work with the city to create an actual plan and communicate that with residents that may be in need of the actual plan,” said Singletary.
