Fannie Mae contributes $20,000 to UCI housing project

Fannie Mae Corp. has contributed an additional $20,000 to help the University Community Initiative (UCI) continue with its housing acquisition, rehabilitation and resale program in the University Heights neighborhood of Buffalo.

Fannie Mae representatives yesterday presented a check to President William R. Greiner and Danis Gehl, UCI project director.

Fannie Mae, along with the University at Buffalo Foundation, Inc., funded the initial three-house pilot program.

The first house purchased and renovated through the program, located at 31 W. Northrup Place, is on the market. UCI has contracts pending with property owners on W. Northrup Place and Lisbon Avenue for the purchase of the last two houses in the pilot program, Gehl says.

In a related development, UCI has received $14,000 from the Community Foundation to support a collaborative Neighborhood Assets/Housing Market Project to help community members increase their knowledge base, identify audiences they want to reach and to "tell the story" of University Heights-the neighborhood surrounding the UB South Campus.

As part of the project, "neighborhood-building teams" will be organized in at least three keys sectors of University Heights, says Gehl. Each team will represent residents, local businesses, churches, schools, government, community-based organizations and housing-related partners. UB will act as a convenor, facilitator and partner, she adds.

Professional marketing and design consultants will be hired to help team members learn how to present a more accurate and promising image of the community and to assist in developing a multi-media resource system for ongoing community use, she says.

The multimedia resource system would describe and inventory neighborhood assets, Gehl says, and could include such tools as a Web site, photos, digital-image bank and press archive.

Community members will learn to identify and understand new market segments of residents, business owners and other service consumers, and create and implement effective communication strategies to reach these audiences. These strategies will be based on existing community assets, such as the wide price of available housing and proximity to UB, and projected new or changing assets, including housing-development activities and educational and commercial-district initiatives.

Community stakeholders will receive training so they can use effectively the UCI neighborhood assets resource system, Gehl says.