By Matt Chandler
mchandler@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1654

Aaron Bartley is a believer.

Take a drive through neighborhoods on the West Side of Buffalo and it would be easy to see nothing but vacant homes, boarded-up businesses and economic blight that has consumed much of the area. But take that same drive with Bartley and he will point out progress that has been made, opportunities that still exist and lots of people eager to stake a claim in their neighborhood and help turn around the decline.

At 36, he is a bit of an enigma. Born and raised in Buffalo, he says, "I was the product of the Buffalo Public Schools and received a high-quality education." He headed to college outside Philadelphia and then to Harvard Law School.

With a Harvard degree in his pocket, he passed the bar exam and was ready to embark on what likely would have been a lucrative career as an attorney. Then, he felt a calling to return to Buffalo.

"I saw a need for a lot of community-based development here," he says. "Not just building a new stadium or more retail development but real, community-driven development."

That desire to make a difference manifested itself in PUSH, People United for Sustainable Housing. Bartley is executive director of the organization, which is dedicated to West Side revitalization through a variety of ways, including purchasing and refurbishing abandoned homes.

"From the beginning, we started as a group that wanted to bring regular people together to create agendas for change," he says.

With a staff of 20 and a coalition numbering more than 400, Bartley says the group purchased and renovated seven properties thus far and partnered with two other organizations on nine more. And it's just the beginning, he says.

"We also own 20 vacant lots that we have transformed into gardens. It is all about giving the people who live here the power to have a say in their neighborhoods and feel proud of where they live," he says.

The group, which funds projects through bank loans as well as federal grant programs, has an ambitious agenda that includes purchasing and renovating 200 homes on the West Side over the next five years.

"There is such a need here," he says. There are so many people out of work. There are too many vacant properties and there are challenges.

"We don't try to pretend those don't exist."

As the group continues its work, it will become contagious and others in the community will follow suit, according to Bartley.

Driving along Grant Street and weaving his way through the neighborhood, he points out a Burmese restaurant and several other locally owned businesses tailored to the needs of the large immigrant population that calls the area home. That is the true mission of PUSH, he says.

"We don't want to improve the properties and then bring in people from outside the area to buy them or live in them," he says. "Our goal is to transform these properties into clean, safe, affordable places that the people who currently live here can purchase. We want to build homeownership among the people who are right here."

He and the group have a vision of restoring the West Side to a place where hard-working, blue-collar people can live and raise their families and have a good life there.

Six years into PUSH, with much still to be done, does Bartley have any second thoughts? Should he have followed the traditional path laid out for him after law school and climbed up the corporate legal ladder?

"I'm not someone who wants to be stuck in an office," he says. "I love to be out here and I love meeting so many different people from all walks of life. So, no, I am happy right here in Buffalo."

For more information, visit www.pushbuffalo.org.