Help Bob Jahnke Keep His Home

For almost 15 years Robert Jahnke has worked tirelessly as a leader of the community development movement on Buffalo's west side. As a long time board member of Push Buffalo, he has helped to guide public and private investment for affordable housing, job training and youth recreational activities on the West side. The projects that Robert helped to make possible include the affordable, accessible housing development that he lives in.

As a private citizen, Robert has a reputation across the community as a "go-to" Mr Fix-It, with wide-ranging knowledge of the construction trades and all things mechanical. More often than not, Robert applies his knowledge free of charge helping many elderly and low income residents to make minor repairs. Robert has fallen behind on his rent over the past several months is disabilities and related health challenges have been a major contributing factor.

Given his stellar reputation in the community I am assisting Robert in raising funds to pay his back rent and avoid the trauma of having to find and adjust to a different residence.

Bob's Statement:

Hello, my name is Bob Jahnke (pronounced yankey). After losing my home in West Seneca to foreclosure in the '07-'08 mortgage crisis, I moved to the west side of Buffalo to take advantage of the lower rent. At that time I got involved with volunteering with local community organizations and over time learned much about community advocacy and helping to build safer, healthier neighborhoods. Though living on a fixed income, I personally was able to flourish a bit. Staying active, I was able to engage in several pursuits including furthering my education in the building trades and engaging with University Heights tool library.

After working as a flea market vendor in 2019, when the covid-19 shut down happened, I put a bunch of merchandise in storage units, which were cheap at the time, Intending to switch to online sales eventually. I put the storage units on auto pay so I didn't have to worry about missing a payment, not realizing that I had authorized rent increases, with the notifications buried in email. So, as the storage company gradually doubled my rent I started running out of money to last the whole month, and I ended up letting my apartment rent lapse a few times.

To catch up I started doing odd carpentry and repair jobs at a friend's newly opened bookstore. Then in the summer of 2023 I was struck by a severe ulcerative colitis flare up and lost that supplemental income. After the storage unit rent increased, I was paying out over $750 a month to the storage facility, and had fallen behind 5 months in rent. I set out to clean out the storage units and try to save the most valuable stuff. After the summertime attack of colitis and the accompanying arthritis I found out that I was physically incapable of managing an inventory of that size, and if you take more time than is allotted to clean out a storage unit, you are penalized, usually being charged for the whole next month's rent. So it just turned into a physical and financial nightmare.

All the while, my transportation is a 2005 Durango getting 9 miles a gallon that is constantly breaking and averages close to $300 a month in gas alone.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t keep up with my rent and I got a 14-day eviction notice. I negotiated a payment agreement, but I wasn't finished closing the storage units and got gouged for another month in order to get the rest of my stuff out. I tried to slow things down legally, and the judge gave me until the 25th of April. At that time the landlord can choose to evict me, or accept a lump sum that I am attempting to raise between now and then, and put me on a payment plan for the balance. Any help would be appreciated, whether it be a gift or a loan that I could pay back over time.