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Laura Glesby |
Nov 16, 2023 12:54 pm
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Friends Jean-Claude Harrison and Philip Paris after testifying before the Health and Human Services committee.
A few days after obtaining stable housing, Philip Paris approached a committee of alders with a message he’s still trying to fully believe: that regardless of the fact that his addiction played a role in his homelessness, “my need is just as valid as anyone else’s.”
Gemma Joseph Lumpkin: "Homelessness can happen at any point."
There are currently 567 New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) students couchsurfing, “doubling up,” sleeping in cars, living out of shelters, or otherwise without a stable home — a jump from 281 at this time last year — representing a spike in youth homelessness that district leaders attribute to increased family migration, domestic violence, and a broader housing affordability crisis.
Dealmakers: Housing authority's Karen DuBois-Walton and Northland's Larry Gottesdiener.
Thomas Breen photo
Future looks a bit brighter for Church St. South wasteland (pictured).
The city’s public housing authority has reached an agreement with the Massachusetts-based owners of the former Church Street South site to purchase the vacant expanse across from Union Station and build it up into a new mixed-income housing complex.
by
Nora Grace-Flood |
Nov 10, 2023 12:25 pm
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Mt. Calvary Deliverance Tabernacle Pastor Robert Smith (right), with Youth Continuum's Tim Maguire: "The community is hurting."
A local homelessness services nonprofit is looking to open the city’s first warming shelter exclusively for young adults — but is still searching for a location after scrapping a Newhallville church partnership in the face of community opposition.
by
Nora Grace-Flood |
Nov 9, 2023 4:25 pm
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A rendering of the new apartment building at 873-897 Grand.
Prospective builders of 112 new apartments have gotten the go-ahead to help fill a blighted stretch of western Grand Avenue — despite opposition from neighbors convinced that a six-story complex would wreck the corridor’s character rather than revitalize it.
Mike P. doesn’t remember exactly when he last voted. It was probably a decade ago, likely for President Barack Obama.
As he pushed a shopping cart full of bicycle wheels and mattress frames and long metal poles to a Chapel Street scrapyard, he reflected on what would convince him to return to the polls: a candidate committed to making “a very, very, very noticeable difference for the homeless community.”
by
Nora Grace-Flood |
Nov 1, 2023 4:26 pm
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Orlando Sanchez: Housed for now, as cold weather sets in.
The Elicker administration has sent a second letter demanding that six newly constructed mini-shelters be dismantled in a Hill backyard where 57-year-old Orlando Sanchez and roughly a half-dozen fellow unhoused people have moved in.
55 planned new apartments on Whalley, now boosted by state $.
A long-delayed, church-led affordable housing development on Whalley Avenue took a big step towards breaking ground — alongside a suite of traffic calming measures on the perilously car-heavy corridor near Stop & Shop — thanks to a $7 million infusion from the state.
by
Nora Grace-Flood |
Oct 27, 2023 6:25 pm
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Suki and Todd Godek, recently moved in to a Rosette St. tiny home.
The Elicker administration has sent a cease-and-desist letter to two activist homeowners in the Hill — telling them to take down the handful of tiny homes they’ve already constructed in their backyard, and to not build any more until they get the proper city approvals.
The property owners, meanwhile, are refusing to remove the newly built shelters, arguing that the privately owned land belongs to those finding refuge on it.
Jennifer Stanfield: "I can’t stand all that stress. Trying to move, trying to pack, and trying to keep up with my health as well."
Jennifer Stanfield is packing to go to a place she hasn’t yet found.
She’s removed all the art from the walls. Sorted summer and winter clothes into different boxes. Set aside whole weekends to clearing every possession from the turquoise house on Parmelee Avenue where she and her husband have lived, at times with kids and grandkids, for seven years.
“I don’t know where I’m taking it,” she said, “but I’m packing.”
The vacant former Strong School on Orchard Street in the Hill will reopen its doors to the public this winter as a 47-space warming center — thanks to a Board of Education vote in support of creating more cold-weather shelter options for the city’s homeless.
by
Nora Grace-Flood |
Oct 24, 2023 12:21 pm
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Amistad's Mark Colville, with tiny houses now ready for "economic refugees" at 203 Rosette St.
Nora Grace-Flood file photo
Just under a dozen tents have been cleared from a backyard homeless encampment on Rosette Street to make space for six new “tiny homes,” the latest local experiment in providing emergency shelter to those most in need.
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Thomas Breen |
Oct 23, 2023 12:51 pm
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A design of 6 new senior apartments coming to Ferry Street.
Six new one-bedroom apartments for seniors are coming to two vacant lots on Ferry Street, in a developer’s bid to help elderly residents get out of nursing homes and back into neighborhoods.
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Nora Grace-Flood |
Oct 17, 2023 9:04 am
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Alder Marchand: "This facility will support people on their journeys towards being housed.”
The Board of Alders signed off on a new $3.5 million contract with a local nonprofit that will oversee the crisis bed program at a Foxon Boulevard hotel that is slated to be converted into a homeless shelter before winter hits.
by
Nora Grace-Flood |
Oct 12, 2023 1:10 pm
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City Director of Community Resilience Carlos Sosa-Lombardo (right), with Continuum's John Labieniec: “Our goal is to help as many unhoused community members as possible in advance of a harsh winter season.”
Case management, healthcare, meals and 112 crisis beds took a step closer to replacing the typical hotel rooms of the Days Inn on Foxon Boulevard — as alders moved ahead a proposed $3.5 million contract with a local homelessness services nonprofit that will oversee the conversion of that hotel into non-congregate shelter space.
by
Dereen Shirnekhi |
Oct 11, 2023 4:27 pm
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The city’s housing authority has been awarded $500,000 in federal funds to help plan for how best to revitalize the Robert T. Wolfe apartment complex and the surrounding community around Union Station.
by
Thomas Breen |
Oct 11, 2023 9:02 am
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Back at work at 188 Lafayette on Tuesday.
A hard-hatted construction crew is back at work building up 112 new apartments in the Hill — four months after a concrete-pouring accident caused the building’s second floor to cave in, injuring eight workers.
Bella Vista tenant Marie, at a busted elevator last December.
New Haven landlords could soon face stricter penalties for neglecting to fix broken elevators — as part of a city push to make sure disabled tenants aren’t left stranded in their apartments.
Marcus Harvin: “As long as they’ll have me, I’ll be there.”
Re-entering society is a daunting task for many formerly-incarcerated individuals. For Marcus Harvin, that stress was partially alleviated thanks to Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven (NHS) — an affordable housing nonprofit where Harvin has found a sense of purpose through community building and beautification.
Karen DuBois-Walton with Sens. Blumenthal and Murphy, Mayor Elicker, and Alder Smith.
Fifty new low-income elderly housing units are coming to Level Street, bringing new life to the site of an abandoned nursing home and more options for aging tenants waiting for an affordable home.
Half of the 18 Mill River St. property to be sold by the city to neighboring landlord Michael Smart.
Paul Bass file photo
City Clerk Smart: Just providing parking for tenant, following sliver lot rules.
Should the standard sale of a small plot of unusable city land to adjacent property owners trigger an ethics review — if one of the potential buyers is a citywide elected official?
Members of two city commissions recently raised that question at two separate public meetings, even as both boards ultimately voted in favor of selling a vacant 1,887 square-foot lot on Mill River Street to a holding company controlled by City/Town Clerk Michael Smart without first consulting the Board of Ethics.
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Nora Grace-Flood |
Sep 25, 2023 8:45 am
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A rendering of the extant Strong School building which will continue to face Grand Avenue ...
... and the adjoining apartment complex slated for construction behind the historic school.
Empty hallways and vacant classrooms at Fair Haven’s former Strong School are ready for conversion into “inclusive” apartments — with 58 affordable, LGBTQ-friendly rentals on their way alongside a community arts space on scene.
A mysterious tube — carrying something out of a Clifton Street house’s sewage-flooding basement, through the backyard, over a neighbor’s fence, and out beside the Quinnipiac River, and installed without permits or permission from the riverbank property’s owner — led the Fair Rent Commission to drop two tenants’ monthly rents to $1 apiece.
It also put a convicted mortgage fraudster who is still involved in New Haven rental real estate back in the spotlight.
Landlord lawyer Herb Reckmeyer (right): Why not move? Tenant Tia
Cuthbertson: "Everybody deserves to live in a safe environment."
Tia Cuthbertson Photo
The mice in Cuthbertson's apartment.
The last time Tia Cuthbertson used her oven was over a year ago. She was preheating the appliance when she noticed a cloud of smoke — and found a charred mouse inside, burning alive.
Cuthbertson has now received a dramatic reprieve from the Fair Rent Commission, which lowered her rent to $1 per month until her megalandlord, Ocean Management, clears out the mice that have invaded her apartment and fixes other problems.
