Paul Bass Photo
Murphy, DeStefano & DuBois-Walton step into Q Terrace.
New Haven officials made a $30 million pitch to their new U.S. senator by taking him on a before-and-after tour.
On his sixth day in office, Sen. Chris Murphy went on that tour Tuesday afternoon with housing authority chief Karen DuBois-Walton and Mayor John DeStefano.
First they took him to Farnam Courts, the rundown circa-1940 brick projects tucked away from the rest of civilization next to I‑91 and an industrial stretch of Grand Avenue. The project, with its narrow, perilous, dark hallways, has been one of the city’s most violent spots.
The housing authority has tried twice to obtain a $30 million federal “Choice Neighborhoods” grant to tear down Farnam Court and rebuild it as a less crowded, mixed-income community with some homeownership as well as tenancy. Twice the feds turned down the authority’s request. (Read about that here.)
Standing in Farnam’s central courtyard, Murphy asked whether to-be-displaced tenants would eventually return to the rebuilt project if the money does ever arrive. DuBois-Walton said they’ll have that option. Generally about 20 percent of tenants have returned to projects that have undergone demolition and rebuilding, she said; others move to other homes in New Haven, or even take their federal housing vouchers and leave town. “The family that always wanted to go back to South Carolina, this is their opportunity,” she said.
The housing authority has found the money to get started on the demolition of Farnam Courts and construct some new apartments scattered on the east side of town to house tenants who’d be at least temporarily displaced. (Read about that here.) But they still need to $30 million from the feds to construct the new Farnam Courts.
DuBois-Walton and DeStefano asked their new senator to help them get it.
To drive home the pitch, they enlisted a van driver to take the senator and his New Haven escorts to a second public housing project, Quinnipiac Terrace.
Q Terrace used to look like Farnam Courts. It suffered from the same chronic crime and maintenance problems as Farnam. Then the housing authority tore it down and gradually rebuilt it, the way it transformed the old Elm Haven projects in Monterey Court: with a mix of incomes, a mix of renters and homeowners (currently 20 out of 176 families) living in attractive row houses made of brick and pastel-painted wood, spread out with attractive landscaping. Q Terrace looked like a set from the Truman Show.
Seven years later, it still looks that way.
“This is public housing,” DuBois-Walton proclaimed to Murphy as the entourage alighted from the van onto the winding walkway down to the sun-touched Quinnipiac River.
This is what Farnam Courts can look like if New Haven gets that Choice Neighborhoods grant, DuBois-Wlaton said. The city’s applying a third time.
Murphy promised he will help the city try to get a yes this time.
“It’s not going to be a light lift,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”
Mayor DeStefano was also looking to Murphy to help the city get another federal TIGER grant for the next phase of Downtown Crossing, the project in which the city is filling in the Route 34 Connector mini-highway-to-nowhere.
Before freeing Murphy for his next appointment (a tour of Higher One’s newish complex), officials took him to see one of New Haven’s showpiece rebuilt schools, Fair Haven. The third-graders in Alex Novak’s class swarmed around Murphy as he showed them a photo on his smartphone.
“That’s me getting sworn in” last week, Murphy told them.
The kids wanted to know if he had any photos of President Obama. No such luck.
But he did make the kids a promise.
“I’m going to ask him to come to Fair Haven School,” he vowed.
“Yayyyyyyyyy!!!!!” came the response.
“I don’t know if he’s going to say yes,” Murphy said, acknowledging yet another heavy lift in D.C. on New Haven’s behalf. “But it doesn’t hurt to ask.”