Xu (in the background) arguing with Brennan, and shouting at this reporter: "Don't take a picture!"
A fatal-fire-inspired inspection of another one of Jianchao Xu’s potential rooming houses came to an abrupt end when the landlord confronted the city crew on his building’s front porch.
“Why did you come here? Because I’m a colored person? Why did you single me out?” Xu asked, his phone’s camera pointing at Livable City Initiative (LCI) Executive Director Liam Brennan. “This is not a communist country.”
Shenae Draughn, right, responding to a room of applause at her appointment.
Shenae Draughn will once again step in as the interim head of the Housing Authority of New Haven and its affiliate organizations, after Karen Dubois-Walton steps down in November.
Plans to bring a cannabis dispensary — and not 75 new apartments — to an Upper State Street warehouse took one big step forward, after a Fairfield-based housing developer flipped the property for $3.15 million to a local bud entrepreneur looking to bring “Hi!” to the people.
Showing up: Street medicine outreachers Phil Costello, Emma Lo, Claudette Kidd at WNHH FM.
Teens have started jumping out of cars and attacking homeless people sleeping on the street in Fair Haven, according to a veteran street outreach worker.
Welcome back, Chapel Street, looking east from Church.
Eastbound travel lanes are back open for the first time in a year and a half on a downtown block of Chapel Street — which is no longer a roadway-shuttering construction zone, and which now has 166 new places to live.
Yvonne Watts (right), with neighbor Lourdes Oritz, at a Mandy Management building that has failed two recent LCI inspections: "If they fix anything else, they're going to go up on rent."
Yvonne Watts said she doesn’t want Mandy Management to repair her bathroom mirror or replace her kitchen countertops — because she’s afraid that will raise the rent too high.
... and 50 senior dwellings approved for 34 Level.
The City Plan Commission signed off on 162 new mostly affordable apartments to be built in Newhallville, West Rock, and Whalley — as part of three more new-construction projects involving the housing authority’s nonprofit development affiliate, the Glendower Group.
Developer Jay Hakimian (center) at Tuesday's groundbreaking.
An $18 million infusion to a long-stalled downtown development means that 96 new apartments will finally soon rise at the site of the ex-Harold’s Bridal Shop — the latest step in a builder’s journey that began with a love for Louis Kahn’s architecture.
Renderings for the future of the Church Street South site, including a "central green" pictured here, were revealed...
Laura Glesby Photo
...at a packed meeting on Thursday.
Townhomes shift into high-rises as the buildings transition from the Hill to Downtown, anchored by a “central green.” In the mix is a coffee kiosk, an outdoor theater, and a pedestrian promenade.
A team of architects and designers sketched out those ideas on Thursday for a future mixed-use, mixed-income development at the vacant site of the former Church Street South housing complex and the current Robert T. Wolfe public housing apartments.
LCI Director Liam Brennan (center), with deputies Mark Stroud and Frank D'Amore: Time to "streamline all these processes, so that they conform more to what we think public expectations are."
Landlord fines for housing code violations are on track to jump from $250 apiece to up to $2,000 a day — thanks to a state-enabled local law newly endorsed by an aldermanic committee.
Joel Nieves, staying at Rosette for now: "I'm not alone anymore."
With the help of an extension cord providing power to his CPAP machine, Joel Nieves is still living in a tiny shelter on a Rosette Street backyard — two months after the city ordered the power turned off for him and his unhoused neighbors.
In that same time, the Elicker administration has also offered Nieves a new, more permanent place to stay, along with security deposit help.
The problem for Nieves — which has led him to turn down that housing help — is that the replacement apartment is two towns away, in Branford.
Ward 3 alder candidate Angel Hubbard kicks off the campaign launch: “I will never judge anyone for having an addiction. We do need programs.”
Rafael Rodriguez and Steven Fontanez (right) are working hard to help themselves and others out of addiction, as they told Hubbard, Valerie Boyd, and Justin Elicker.
Steven Fontanez is running out of time. He has only a few days left to stay at a sober housing program, and he hasn’t had luck finding an apartment.
Giselle Orosco is running out of patience. She’s tired of guessing whether the people who lie down outside her house are overdosing or merely asleep.
Angel Hubbard is running to be an alder for them both.
Liam Brennan: Looking for enforcement mechanisms "everywhere we can."
With hopes of building a faster housing code inspection system with more teeth, the Livable City Initiative (LCI) under its new director is moving away from the courthouse and toward municipal fines.
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Dereen Shirnekhi |
Aug 28, 2024 3:38 pm
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Dereen Shirnekhi photo
Jim Farrales and Nancy Navarretta: This center is the "first of its kind" in the state.
The city’s non-cop crisis response team now has a central location on Winthrop Avenue where first responders can bring adults who need short-term help for substance use and mental health challenges — while keeping them out of hospitals.
Soon after she moved into a rental in Fair Haven in the winter of 2022, Stella Damoah realized the heat didn’t work and the landlord couldn’t, or wouldn’t, fix it. She looked around for another place and found studio apartments starting at $1,800 and one-bedrooms for well beyond that. So she opted for space heaters, adding about $600 to her expenses.
“That was when I made up my mind to look for a place to own,” said Damoah in a recent Zoom interview.
Following an almost two-year odyssey, Damoah, an accountant who came to Connecticut from her native Ghana in 2005 to pursue a master’s degree at the University of New Haven, will close on a home in Naugatuck next month.
A plan to build 50 new affordable apartments for seniors in West Rock took a key step forward, as alders endorsed a 39-year tax-break deal for the housing authority development to-be.
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Thomas Breen |
Aug 19, 2024 3:37 pm
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Thomas Breen file photo
67 Winchester: Now approved for expansion.
A plan to build new bedrooms atop a derelict Winchester Avenue home’s backyard won approval the second time around — after calls for more, quality housing beat out concerns about neighborhood change.
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Thomas Breen |
Aug 19, 2024 2:14 pm
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402 Crown St.: 2 apartments, coming up?
A vacant former Crown Street car rental center is slated to become two new apartments — after the landlord’s attorney explained that now is not the best financial time to knock down the commercial structure and build a big new building in its stead.
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Maya McFadden |
Aug 12, 2024 1:52 pm
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Maya McFadden Photo
Edgewood neighbors Charlie Nixon and Julie Jaus meet with Alder Hamilton (second from right): When do we have to go?
Edgewood tenants turned to their neighborhood alder for help from potential mass evictions precipitated by the sell-off of rental properties owned by nonprofits controlled by incarcerated sex offender Rabbi Daniel Greer.
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Laura Glesby |
Aug 9, 2024 2:30 pm
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Abdul Osmanu, Steve Winter, and Tarolyn Moore after the debate.
“Like Abdul just said…”
“I do kind of agree with Steve…”
“Tarolyn’s exactly right…”
“My answer was what he said!”
Phrases like these were heard frequently at a political debate on Thursday evening, where three state representative candidates agreed more than they disagreed on issues such as tenants’ rights, income inequality, teacher pay, and the role of deep listening in politics.
Kiki Moreno and Fernando Morales: Formerly homeless, currently calling for better shelter hours.
Upon This Rock to revive the Grand Avenue shelter.
One of the city’s go-to homeless shelter contractors is slated to revive a shuttered 65-bed facility on Grand Avenue, with case management and healthcare services on site.
Alders voted to allocate $500,000 toward that effort — part of just over $1 million approved on Monday evening for helping people with nowhere else to go.
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Allan Appel |
Aug 5, 2024 12:35 pm
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The Strong School.
The plan to turn the vacant old Strong School at 69 Grand Ave. into 58 affordable, artist and LGBTQ-friendly apartments is moving ahead, if a little more slowly than anticipated.
New LCI head Liam Brennan and former LCI head, new housing development czar Arlevia Samuel.
Former mayoral challenger Liam Brennan will have the chance to enact the “philosophy sea change” he called for last year in the Livable City Initiative (LCI) — as the department’s new director starting Monday.
Meanwhile, current LCI Director Arlevia Samuel is moving to a new position in the city focused on spurring affordable housing development.
The apartment-less Grand Ave. property on Tuesday.
(Updated) A lawsuit by a pair of Wooster Square neighbors concerned about backyard shade is jeopardizing plans to transform a series of abandoned Grand Avenue commercial buildings into 112 new places to live.
