by | Apr 30, 2024 3:32 pm | Comments (13)
Thomas Breen photo
Kolokotronis and Blau in Kolokotronis's city-condemned apartment.
The property manager of a church-owned apartment complex on Orange Street has ordered the two lead organizers of the building’s tenants union to move out or face eviction — from city-condemned rental units that they haven’t been able to live in for months.
by | Apr 24, 2024 3:04 pm | Comments (23)
Dereen Shirnekhi photos
The Teklehaimanot family (center) hears their name called at Tuesday's housing lottery.
Seven-year-old Meklit and five-year-old Bethlehem ran around the empty rooms of 455 Howard Ave., dodging the legs of parents and realtors and city workers. This two-family home would soon be theirs.
“We always wanted a big house,” Meklit said, minutes after her father won the Livable City Initiative’s (LCI’s) latest affordable housing lottery. “I always wanted this to happen.”
by | Apr 17, 2024 2:07 pm | Comments (7)
Edgar Becerra and Josue Mauricio Arana in court.
Laura Glesby Photo
Edgar Becerra protests his former employer, MDF Painting and Power Washing, before the eviction proceedings.
A judge has ruled that Edgar Becerra and Josue Mauricio Arana must find a new place to live, ending an eviction case that sparked protests over alleged exploitation of migrant workers.
by | Apr 15, 2024 5:35 pm | Comments (7)
City of New Haven photos
Before and after photos of the now-cleared former encampment.
The city cleaned up an abandoned homeless encampment off of Middletown Avenue Monday morning after the site’s sole former resident had a chance to retrieve any remaining belongings.
by | Apr 15, 2024 3:35 pm | Comments (49)
Wooster Lofts LLC rendering
64 apartments eyed for Hamilton lot: a new housing solution?
Thomas Breen file photo
Ben Trachten: IZ makes it EZer.
Because of one section of New Haven’s zoning code, this apartment building can’t be built.
Because of another section of New Haven’s zoning code, this apartment building might be built.
by | Apr 12, 2024 3:46 pm | Comments (35)
Thomas Breen File Photos
LCI's Javier Ortiz investigates conditions in a Vernon St. apartment.
Liam Brennan, hired by city to review LCI.
A former mayoral candidate has been tapped to guide future reforms to enhance housing code and blight enforcement at the Livable City Initiative (LCI), as the Board of Alders reviews a mayoral proposal to remove affordable housing development from that city agency’s work.
Continue reading ‘LCI Could Grow & Split; Brennan To Consult’
by | Apr 9, 2024 9:15 am | Comments (26)
AARP
ADU examples, as pictured by the AARP.
A city proposal to let landlords build extra apartments on their properties met resistance from an aldermanic committee wary of removing an existing owner-occupant restriction.
by | Apr 5, 2024 4:03 pm | Comments (41)
Thomas Breen Photo
Arthur Taylor at Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen's drop-in center in 2022.
Arthur Taylor brought the music — and an unflagging sense of urgency — to advocacy for the rights of unhoused people like himself.
He died at age 71 in a car crash this week while walking along an I‑91 travel lane, a few weeks after moving into the city’s new non-congregate shelter in a former hotel on Foxon Boulevard.
by | Apr 3, 2024 12:07 pm | Comments (38)
Thomas Breen photos
What's that, Spinnaker VP Frank Caico? Why it's ...
... more and more and more apartments on a rebuilt Audubon.
Another 60 high-end apartments are now available to rent on a transformed Audubon superblock.
Wait, hold on a second: Half of those newly opened residences have already been snapped up, by more and more people able to afford monthly prices of $2,500 and higher.
by | Apr 1, 2024 9:17 am | Comments (29)
Thomas Breen file photo
20, 34 Fair St. (right): Recently sold, to be built up into 185 new apartments.
One of the city’s busiest builders has teamed up with a Wooster Square luxury apartment developer to bring 185 new rentals to Fair Street — now that the duo have acquired two service garages and a surface parking lot for $3.45 million.
by | Mar 28, 2024 4:27 pm | Comments (22)
Thomas Breen photos
Ceremonial shovels, at the ready...
... for 56 new apartments in West River.
Officials joined West River neighbors to celebrate the government-backed construction of 56 new affordable apartments where Urban Renewal’s bulldozers once plowed through the Oak Street neighborhood six decades ago to make way for a mini-highway.
by | Mar 21, 2024 3:46 pm | Comments (4)
From "mass-level instruments of death" to homes and community: Matt Pugliese, Alder Kim Edwards, Alder Troy Streater, Eric Steinberg, Alex Twining, Arlevia Samuel, David Silverstone, Jake Pine and Mayor Justin Elicker break ground on Winchester Green.
As excavators pushed dirt from side to side at 315 Winchester Ave., city officials and housing developers dug shovels into a picture-planned pile of rocks to symbolically break ground on the mixed-use development that will one day be called the Winchester Green.
Continue reading ‘"Winchester Green" Grows Into Construction Zone’
by | Mar 21, 2024 1:05 pm | Comments (11)
Allan Appel Photo
View of the factory from Wallace Street.
The latest plan to move forward with the on-again, off-again resurrection of Hamilton Street’s historic clock factory was tabled at the last minute, but it’s still moving ahead.
Continue reading ‘Despite Delay, HANH "Still Dating" Clock Shop’
by | Mar 20, 2024 2:51 pm | Comments (8)
Tenant union leader Alisha Moore (center): "We deserve to be heard."
Lenox Street tenants union members joined hand in hand — or, at least, sign in sign — with labor and renter advocates to demand that megalandlord Ocean Management do what they did on Blake Street, and come to the collective bargaining table.
by | Mar 20, 2024 2:50 pm | Comments (2)
Allan Appel Photo
Hannah Sokal-Holmes with a photo of her children.
Hannah Sokal-Holmes is proud of the hundreds of units of public housing that she has helped redesign and modernize over more than two decades with the Housing Authority of New Haven.
by | Mar 18, 2024 9:53 am | Comments (16)
Thomas Breen Photo
More of him please: LCI's Javier Ortiz checks out Vernon Street apartments.
Children urinating into buckets. Mice and mushrooms emerging from floorboards. Showering at Planet Fitness!
The first public hearing on the mayor’s proposed new city budget elicited such horror stories — as members of the public came out en masse to push not just for more affordable housing, but for better government oversight of living standards across existing housing stock.
by | Mar 14, 2024 4:03 pm | Comments (40)
File photos
Local landlords Shmuel Aizenberg (top left) and Mendy Edelkopf (bottom left), 2 of 20 signatories of form letter opposing state bill; tenant advocates Sinclair Williams (top right) and Sarah Giovanniello (bottom right, with Amy Eppler-Epstein), in support of bill.
“I am a part of a group of landlords in the area who help each other out by discussing issues and providing support and guidance to each other,” wrote Ocean Management’s Shmuel Aizenberg.
Mandy Management’s Adir Chen wrote that too. So did Julian Cardona and Menahem Edelkopf and Alejandro Soriano and Menahem Lebenhartz and more than a dozen fellow New Haven-area landlords and property managers.
Each “wrote” those same words in individually signed form letters seeking to persuade state legislators to protect their right to evict rent-paying tenants whose leases have expired.
Continue reading ‘Local Landlords, Unite! vs. Eviction Bill’
by | Mar 14, 2024 9:45 am | Comments (9)
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Jim Blau during Wednesday's protest: "Love thy neighbor — respect our union."
Tenants of the Emerson Apartments returned to their residence after work Wednesday evening — not to wind down from the day, but to wind up their landlords’ energy to make their homes habitable again.
Continue reading ‘WWJD II: Tenants Tell Church, "Start Work!"’
by | Mar 13, 2024 1:43 pm | Comments (22)
Nora Grace-Flood file photo
Four of the six tiny homes constructed behind Amistad House.
Six backyard emergency shelters built without city approval won zoning relief Tuesday night — as even rule-abiding commissioners backed the argument that community action should sometimes precede paperwork.
by | Mar 11, 2024 12:32 pm | Comments (4)
Thomas Breen photo
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro and New Reach CEO Kellyann Day on Monday.
Twenty-six Greater New Haveners at risk of sleeping on the street will have a new permanent “supportive” place to stay — thanks to part of a recent federal funding award targeted to combat homelessness.
Continue reading ‘Nonprofits Welcome Fed $ For Supportive Housing’
by | Mar 11, 2024 9:15 am | Comments (7)
President Biden signed passed a bill this weekend to keep part of the federal government funded — and over $4 million of the approved dollars are set to flow to New Haven’s efforts to house the homeless and feed families.
Continue reading ‘Signed Budget Bill Contains Millions For New Haven Housing, Food’
by | Mar 8, 2024 11:15 am | Comments (11)
Nora Grace-Flood File Photo
Rolling up a mattress before bulldozers come in to demolish a Lamberton Street homeless encampment.
As executive director of New Haven’s Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen (DESK) and drop-in center, Steve Werlin has seen firsthand the state’s “historic” rise in homelessness. He told state legislators about that — to urge them to find extra money this year to help front-line agencies like his save lives and work toward solutions.
by | Mar 6, 2024 3:06 pm | Comments (11)
Thomas Breen photo
Ziggy's Pizza: Lease extended, staying put, as part of plan.
The housing authority has officially purchased two Fair Haven Heights properties by the Quinnipiac River as part of its latest effort to redevelop long-underused city plots into new places to live.
by | Mar 4, 2024 4:21 pm | Comments (11)
Thomas Breen photo
Hugh Edwards celebrates auction win with Karlyn and Chris Duncan.
Hugh Edwards returned home to Newhallville — and left with a chance to revive a dilapidated home just a few blocks away from where he grew up.
by | Feb 29, 2024 4:19 pm | Comments (6)
Laura Glesby Photo
Ray Boyd at 43 Sylvan, planned transitional home for formerly incarcerated men like himself.
Ray Boyd knows what it’s like to come home after decades in prison without support or guidance on how to rebuild his life.
Two years later, he and his wife Jackie James are trying to provide a better homecoming for others — by transforming James’ childhood home into a transitional home for people re-entering society.