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SYRACUSE, NY--It's the oldest con in the book--sort of like three-card monte. In Syracuse, city officials are trying the now you see it, now you don't trick to steal $10 million in HUD funding intended to repair the crumbling housing stock in the neighborhoods of the south and west sides of the city. The majority of the city's estimated 1,200 vacant buildings are in the low-income neighborhoods most effected by the city's economic problems in past years.

What does the city want to use this money for instead? Loft apartments in the yuppie/gentrified Armory Square district, an astroturf baseball field in the middle-class Valley section and other gifts to either private developers or affluent neighborhoods.

The members of Syracuse United Neighbors will not be fooled by the city's sleight of hand. They fought for too long to be ripped off at the last minute. This money came to Syracuse as a result of SUN's national work on HUD/FHA reform. Carolyn Stanley was a member of the leadership team that led the charge of over 900 people onto HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo's driveway in 1998. A year later, Carolyn showed Assistant HUD Secretary William Apgar, during his visit to Syracuse, into one of the 6 vacant HUD houses on her block. The house was open to entry and covered with gang graffiti.

"When we fought for this money, we didn't fight for them to fix up buildings downtown." Carolyn said at a public meeting July 27. "When you say low-income housing, that's us. I'm very upset to know that this money is going to be used somewhere else." SUN members are taking the lead in fighting to restore this money to our neighborhoods. Two public forums were held June 27--one for the southside and one for the westside. Each drew more than 50 area residents. The meetings brought residents and non-profit developers of housing together to talk about potential projects for our neighborhoods and to ridicule the city's plans.

SUN's Skunk City neighborhood group is fighting to fund a proposal to renovate 13 vacant houses along a three block stretch of W. Onondaga Street. SUN's Southside Coalition is fighting for a proposal that would renovate 22 houses in the Cannon St. area. The keystone of the project will be the demolition of a problem corner store at the corner of Newell and Cannon Streets and the construction of two new houses on the five-lot site. This store was the site of a horrific (and still unsolved) shotgun murder of a 17 year-old young man over a drug deal.

Both meetings sought commitments from the Department of Community Development and area Common Councilors to dedicate this funding to housing projects in our neighborhoods. Community Development officials are still trying to play three-card monte with SUN, arguing that if the city invests money in yuppies, yuppies will invest in the city. However, area Common Councilors, who must vote on the final uses of the money, are running scared. A total of 5 Councilors attended these meetings, enough to defeat any city proposal.