Scenes from Church Street South.
What a difference a year — and a lawsuit — make.
At least that made a huge difference in how the federal government has responded to New Haven Mayor Toni Harp’s pleas to fix the disaster it funded, and let occur, at the Church Street South housing complex across from Union Station.
Harp got a personal audience with the secretary of housing and urban development, and 15 of his key staffers, during a visit to Washington, D.C. two weeks ago. They promised to fix the way they inspect apartments with rents subsidized under the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)‘s Section 8 program. They also promised to give New Haven the help it needs quickly to find homes for the Section 8‑subsidized 288 families who have to leave Church Street South as soon as possible because the whole complex has become so deteriorated, moldy, and physically precarious that it needs to be demolished.
At the meeting, HUD Secretary Julián Castro and his staffer in charge of inspections promised that future Section 8 inspections — not just in New Haven, but across the country — will look for mold. Among other problems those inspections didn’t cover in the past.
Because of the current rules, HUD inspectors for years gave passing grades to Church Street South, even as it fell apart and city inspectors flunked it. Harp noted that HUD didn’t even check for bedbugs or asbestos.
“Some good came of” the Church Street South crisis, Harp said on the latest “Mayor Monday” on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven.” “Once those regulations get written and implemented, it will make a difference across the United States.”
Left unresolved at the meeting, Harp said, was the question of whether HUD will reimburse more than it currently does of the cost to rent four — and five-bedroom apartments. The current Section 8 reimbursements are proving too low for larger families leaving Church Street South to find new apartments elsewhere. Harp said the city will continue to press that point with HUD.
Harp contrasted her most recent visit with one she made to HUD in January 2015 pleading with the agency to take action against Church Street South’s private landlord, Northland Investment Corp.
“I brought pictures of Church Street South with me. The secretary wasn’t there. They were all what we call the permanent government, the heads of these various units within the Department of Housing and Urban Development. I showed them the pictures. I told them, ‘This is a real problem.’ … The most junior person there said, ‘We will look into it.’ He was probably somebody’s executive assistant.”
HUD didn’t look into it. Conditions got worse.
Then, as Harp noted on the program, a New Haven Legal Assistance attorney sued Northland and HUD on behalf of tenants. The press covered the health problems and dangerous conditions rampant at the property. HUD was shamed into action.
And last week, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy pressed the issue with Secretary Castro at a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee. Castro promised at the hearing to come through for New Haven in its efforts to relocate the families, a process already far behind the original schedule.
Murphy also sent staffers to accompany Harp to her meeting with Castro at HUD, Harp said. “They know that he is on it and it’s important. That was really important for him to do. Not just for the people at Church Street South.”
HUD spokeswoman Rhonda Siciliano said the agency has approved the first batch of portable rental vouchers for many of the families to use to find long-term apartments on their own. It is also working with owners of two New Haven apartment complexes to accept site-based subsidies for units to house Church Street South families.
HUD informed the Housing Authority of New Haven, which is helping Northland place tenants in new apartments, that 198 of those portable vouchers will be available starting May 1, according to authority Executive Director Karen DuBois-Walton. She said her agency has begun screening and processing paperwork for families to qualify for the vouchers once they become available. With these portable vouchers — as opposed to the place-based subsidies, which are attached to apartments, not families — tenants go out and find apartments and take the subsidies with them.
Families won’t be able to move in immediately on May 1 because the city will still have to inspect and approve chosen apartments, DuBois-Walton said. She said that process should be quickest for apartments where former Church Street South tenants are already living on a temporary basis.
Click on or download the above sound file to listen to the full “Mayor Monday” episode of WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven,” which also touched on opiods, the St. Patrick’s Day and Freddie Fixer paraders, dirt bikes, Advance Placement classes, and the upcoming mayor’s inaugural ball. The discussion of Church Street South begins at 11:30 in the file.
Monday’s episode of “Dateline New Haven” was made possible in partnership with Gateway Community College.
Previous coverage of Church Street South:
• Nightmare In 74B
• Surprise! Now HUD Flunks Church St. South
• Church St. South Tenants Get A Choice
• Home-For-Xmas? Not Happening
• Now It’s Christmas, Not Thanksgiving
• Pols Enlist In Church Street South Fight
• Raze? Preserve? Or Renew?
• Church Street South Has A Suitor
• Northland Faces Class-Action Lawsuit On Church Street South
• First Attempt To Help Tenants Shuts Down
• Few Details For Left-Behind Tenants
• HUD: Help’s Here. Details To Follow
• Mixed Signals For Church Street South Families
• Church St. South Families Displaced A 2nd Time — For Yale Family Weekend
• Church Street South Getting Cleared Out
• 200 Apartments Identified For Church Street South Families
• Northland Asks Housing Authority For Help
• Welcome Home
• Shoddy Repairs Raise Alarm — & Northland Offer
• Northland Gets Default Order — & A New Offer
• HUD, Pike Step In
• Northland Ordered To Fix Another 17 Roofs
• Church Street South Evacuees Crammed In Hotel
• Church Street South Endgame: Raze, Rebuild
• Harp Blasts Northland, HUD
• Flooding Plagues Once-Condemned Apartment
• Church Street South Hit With 30 New Orders
• Complaints Mount Against Church Street South
• City Cracks Down On Church Street South, Again
• Complex Flunks Fed Inspection, Rakes In Fed $$
• Welcome Home — To Frozen Pipes
• City Spotted Deadly Dangers; Feds Gave OK
• No One Called 911 | “Hero” Didn’t Hesitate
• “New” Church Street South Goes Nowhere Fast
• Church Street South Tenants Organize