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At the Unity Park housing projects in the city's North End, there seems to be little cause for hope. In April, a baby fell out of a second-story window protected by neither a child guard or a screen and was blinded in one eye. The incident came on the heels of an apartment fire in which 8-year-old Andre Barnes lost his life.
Last year, it was discovered that the projects' water meters had been tampered with, and nearly $700,000 worth of water effectively stolen from the city. And just last week, residents called the Health Department when human feces and other raw sewage covered yards and common areas, apparently backed out of sewers because of the heavy rains.
Meanwhile, Wesley E. Finch -- the man some call the city's worst slumlord -- sits comfortably in his fashionable Boca Raton, Fla., office, smugly accusing those who complain of trying to set him up and assuring beleaguered residents he's doing the best he can.
There are, by the way, no slums in Boca Raton.
Little has been done to improve conditions at Unity Park since the Jan. 5 release of an audit by state Comptroller Carl McCall. The report found that, in addition to the water bills, the project was in arrears on mortgage and city tax payments. Living conditions were repeatedly described as "deplorable."
"The Comptroller's office can only issue its recommendations," said Elaine Pienta, who works in the Comptroller's Buffalo office and lives near Unity Park. "Our purpose is to raise issues. (McCall) can't require they be enforced."
That burden would fall on any number of federal, state and local agencies, which have thus far done nothing. From the office of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo to that of Gov. George Pataki, the audit has been met with a resounding silence.
And at Niagara Falls City Hall, where a get-tough policy on small landlords in the city's South End has been gaining steam, Finch has even been rewarded. When news of the water thefts at Unity Park became known during the waning days of the Galie administration, the development was stripped of the right to rent to subsidized Section 8 tenants. That right was restored when the Elia administration took office.
Furthermore, tenants say code enforcement at Unity Park has been lax over the past nine months, even though code violations clearly exist in abundance.
"How people can allow other people to live like this makes no sense whatsoever to me. It's inhumane," Pienta said. "These people have to put trash cans in their living rooms because of the leaky roofs."
Since 1994, the most vocal advocate for the residents of Unity Park has been Niagara County Legislator Renae Kimble. For her, the battle to rid the city of Wesley E. Finch has become personal.
"He's a slumlord, without a doubt," she said. "These are human rights violations that call out for justice."
On more than one occasion, Kimble has been accused by Finch and employees of his companies -- the Finch Group and Signature Solutions -- of grandstanding on the Unity Park issue in an attempt to gain publicity for herself. Kimble laughs at the suggestion, and cited problem developments Finch operates in Syracuse and Rome as evidence of where the problem lies.
"Please. Do I need to be knocking my head against a wall for six years to get publicity? This man is enriching himself at taxpayer expense and exploiting the poor at the same time," she said. "What's being played here is plantation politics at its worst."
Virtually all of the tenants at Unity Park have their rents subsidized through various government programs. The rents aren't cheap, ranging from $400 to nearly $700 a month. Construction of the 402-unit complex was financed by the state in 1979, and the state has also shelled out more than $1 million since 1992 for capital improvements and other expenses.
But Finch blames the problems at Unity Park on the vagaries of government policies and on spiteful tenants who seem willing to go to great lengths to make him look bad. In a letter sent Sept. 6 to numerous officials and members of the media, he takes both tacks.
"On a 'macro' basis, (Unity Park) is but one small piece of the governmentally subsidized housing inventory that can be tossed about by the ebb and flow of ever changing governmental housing policy," he wrote.
Later in the same letter, he describes an incident he witnessed while personally touring the development.
"Unfortunately, the first unit we visited, with the water gushing in the bathtub, was, in my opinion, purely a set-up," he wrote. "To me, there is relatively clear evidence ... that the 'situation' was staged just before you entered the unit."
Earlier this month, when the raw sewage backed up in people's yards and apartments, he gave reporters a similar explanation in telephone interviews from his Boca Raton office.
Kimble said she believes that a full investigation into Finch and Unity Park might result in embarrassment for the various federal, state and local agencies charged with overseeing the development.
"We have this housing court the mayor is so proud of, why isn't this guy brought into the housing court?" she asked. "A baby has died, another has lost an eye, raw sewage is flowing back up into the apartments. ... Why hasn't he been shut down?"
For now, at least, that question will remain unanswered.