Residents gathered in Buffalo’s Hamlin Park neighborhood Friday to celebrate four newly renovated affordable housing units.
The homes were developed by Amun Ra - a local resident and emerging developer - with the help of a loan from a nonprofit financing group. But getting to this point was no easy feat.
Back in 2011 a then 19-year-old Ra purchased a property on Buffalo’s Florida Street as part of a federal program. He paid $1, or as he puts it, 20 nickels.
"There were no front steps. Trash and debris filled every single corner. The house was worn, neglected, and actually marked by a red square right inside that corner right there," Ra said, pointing to the front side of the property. "And if you know, back in the day, that means that this house was slated for demolition."
But Ra had plans beyond the bulldozer, which had already razed dozens of vacant properties in the neighborhood at that time.
"That red square wasn't a death sentence for this house. It was a target. It was a goal. It was a call to action. And when I was ready, I wanted to give it every single thing that I had."
He got his start through a program aimed at supporting emerging developers of color a few years later. That program was created in response to a report outlining a wide lack of diversity in the real estate industry. Mina Norman Hernandez is vice president of the Community Preservation Corporation, the New York City nonprofit behind the initiative.
"In 2020 there was a grove impact report that came out that came out that said less than 1% of real estate developers in the entire country were people of color. As a matter of fact, that number is 0.56%, which is abysmal," Hernandez said.
Through the program, Ra then secured a construction loan of $461,200 from the CPC to rehab not one, but three properties in Hamlin Park. The group’s vice president and Buffalo mortgage officer, Michael Alexander, said they were all in pretty bad shape.
"Right up the street on Florida is a home that was brought back from a complete fire devastation, literally a phoenix rising from the ashes. [Ra] took it down to the studs and did an absolutely amazing job - hard surface countertops, LED lighting, cameras everywhere, AC, absolutely beautiful luxury amenities," he said.
Construction took 18 months, and all four units are already occupied. But for Ra, the transformation went beyond just the buildings themselves.
"I was able to hire the individuals in and of our community. I was able to restore the properties in and of our community, and I was able to maintain the integrity and build everybody along with me while I did it."
