by | Feb 28, 2024 3:59 pm | Comments (55)
Paul Bass Photo
The road to connectivity: Work begun on State Street bike lane.
Highlights from Wednesday's press conference.
The work of excavators mixed with officials’ visions of bustling downtown blocks Wednesday as New Haven started rebuilding a new stretch of State Street — or rebuilding a version of the old one.
by | Feb 26, 2024 12:51 pm | Comments (8)
A rendering of the upcoming shelter on the Boulevard.
Eighty more homeless shelter beds are on their way to Ella Grasso Boulevard, with a new layer of privacy.
by | Feb 26, 2024 9:29 am | Comments (13)
Paul Bass Photo
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Tenants Kenneth Naito, Alex Kolokotronis, James Blau celebrate formal recognition of their new union at the Emerson (pictured at top).
The city’s fifth tenants union has formed, marking the first time New Haven residents have organized formally to bargain with a property owner that isn’t megalandlord Ocean Management.
Continue reading ‘WWJD? Church Tenants Form City's 5th Union’
by | Feb 23, 2024 9:43 am | Comments (6)
Laura Glesby Photo
Edgar Becerra protests with ULA outside MDF Painting and Power Washing.
“We have human rights,” Edgar Becerra called into a bullhorn, speaking in Spanish. “We have a heart.”
He was surrounded by over 25 immigrant rights activists outside the Branford headquarters of his Fair Haven landlord and former employer — who brought him to the U.S. as a temporary worker, allegedly fired him for work-related injuries, and is now trying to evict him a second time.
by | Feb 22, 2024 10:25 am | Comments (13)
LCI documentation of violations at Annex Ocean Management property — including faulty gutter likely contributing to in-home water damage.
The Fair Rent Commission ordered an invisible landlord to charge invisible rent until they reconcile 12-year-old complaints lodged by a long-term tenant.
by | Feb 21, 2024 6:21 pm | Comments (6)
Hill Alder Carmen Rodriguez: The Hill's happening.
Two affordable housing developments are a step closer to materializing in the Hill, along with the nearby revival of the old Coliseum site, thanks to approvals from the Board of Alders.
by | Feb 21, 2024 4:02 pm | Comments (38)
Laura Glesby Photo
Karen DuBois-Walton at Tuesday's board meeting: Looking beyond borders.
For the first time, the Housing Authority of New Haven is providing site-based housing vouchers outside of the Elm City itself, covering 40 low-income apartments in the town of Branford.
Continue reading ‘Housing Authority Branches Out To Branford’
by | Feb 19, 2024 5:11 pm | Comments (7)
Sunset Ridge tenant Asia Huff protests a $400 rent raise alongside legal aid organizer Caitlin Maloney.
Can the city’s Fair Rent Commission regulate federally-funded housing?
East side tenants facing rent hikes of up to 45 percent are demanding a hearing — and raising that question in the process.
by | Feb 15, 2024 12:40 pm | Comments (3)
A plan to build affordable housing for veterans has been discharged due to a bad parking design.
by | Feb 14, 2024 5:00 pm | Comments (26)
Collage of Firebird memories presented at Tuesday's BZA meeting.
An affordable housing group has spotted space for nine new nests to accommodate Firebirds and lower-income renters on Orchard Street — but hopes the city will find room in its zoning regs for the dense development.
Continue reading ‘Dwight Project Pitched For Firebirds, Families’
by | Feb 8, 2024 1:49 pm | Comments (27)
Laura Brown
Proposed ADU rules for new construction.
The City Plan Commission voted to recommend lifting some restrictions on Accessory Dwelling Units — but maintaining a requirement that owners live on the property.
by | Feb 7, 2024 3:33 pm | Comments (20)
Laura Glesby Photo
Alder Streater at the 180 Center, where he works overnight.
Troy Streater turned the key to the Lloyd Street apartment door, walked inside, and inspected the fresh gray paint job he’d recently commissioned so new tenants can move in.
Hours later, he arrived at the 180 Center to make his trademark hazelnut coffee for clients who have no apartment to sleep in.
by | Feb 6, 2024 5:51 pm | Comments (3)
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Tenant Alisha Moore with her union on Tuesday: "We want real fixes."
Lenox Street residents said they couldn’t get through to their landlord to report rodents, water damage and trash pile-up — so they formed a union and pasted their collective complaints to Ocean Management’s front door.
by | Feb 6, 2024 2:06 pm | Comments (2)
Laura Glesby Photo
Becerra and Arana: They beat the landlord in court.
A landlord has to start all over again if he still wants to evict two of the Guatemalan temporary workers he brought to Fair Haven to work at his painting company.
Continue reading ‘Migrant Workers' Eviction Stopped, For Now’
by | Feb 1, 2024 4:09 pm | Comments (29)
Laura Glesby Photo
Neighbor Shawn: Affordable apartments needed to combat high rent.
10 Liberty St.
An abandoned lighting manufacturing hub will soon transform into 150 below-market apartments a block from Union Station, if a development plan comes to fruition.
by | Feb 1, 2024 12:46 pm | Comments (53)
Laura Glesby Photo
Carlota Clark at Wednesday evening's open house at Science Park.
A rendering from Pine's presentation: Apartments up to $4,500 a month on Winchester Ave.
As Science Park developers presented renderings of a housing complex soon to rise on Winchester Ave., Carlota Clark wondered if one of the 283 apartments would someday be hers.
by | Jan 31, 2024 2:55 pm | Comments (3)
Dazauna Smith shows paint problems in her bathroom to LCI inspector Alvarado.
LCI Inspector Frank Alvarado paced around a frigid Cedar Hill bedroom with a mystery to solve: How could a bedroom have been built without a heating vent?
Another city inspector hadn’t noticed the problem the last time he’d visited the apartment. Now a judge had sent Alvarado back to check again.
by | Jan 26, 2024 11:30 am | Comments (17)
As close to actualization as they've gotten: A rough sketch of the future West River apartments.
Tom Breen Photo
Marchand: Would love "another bite" at the environmental apple.
A long-delayed elderly housing development will now open its doors to families of all ages – if it ever does end up actually opening its doors.
by | Jan 26, 2024 11:04 am | Comments (9)
A rough sketch of what the building could look like.
A local developer is planning to build an affordable housing complex designed for seniors atop a vacant city lot in the Hill — with the hope that she could someday move in.
Continue reading ‘New Affordable Housing Slated For Congress Ave.’
by | Jan 23, 2024 3:31 pm | Comments (7)
Alder Rodriguez makes a dent in homelessness.
Alder Carmen Rodriguez donned a hard hat and struck a sledgehammer into a wall — and urged her counterparts in other cities to break down metaphorical walls as well to support the “cold, wet, and hungry.”
by | Jan 22, 2024 3:14 pm | Comments (4)
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Monique Ricks on her Healthy Homes-funded porch: Don't forget to remember about radon. The city is distributing 50 free test kits this week.
Monique Ricks can breathe easy — now that she’s sure her home is radon free.
by , and | Jan 19, 2024 1:40 pm | Comments (18)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
Monique Coleman bundles up inside Varick warming center: “There’s nowhere else for me to go."
Monique Coleman didn’t have to wait in line like usual to get into a warming center Thursday night.
She has a cot reserved for her and a guaranteed roof over her head throughout the predicted deep-freeze weekend — after the governor declared a statewide cold-weather emergency.
by | Jan 19, 2024 8:50 am | Comments (14)
Veterans group members at the Long Wharf memorial.
A local nonprofit is backing up but not out on plans to convert a vacant lot into housing for vets — after the city rejected their idea to let vets back their cars over sidewalks and into an intersection.
Continue reading ‘Vets' Housing Plan Returned To Drafting Table’
by | Jan 17, 2024 3:03 pm | Comments (24)
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Mark DeFrancesco: I treated tenants/workers well.
Mark DeFrancesco denied that he offered no beds to the 19 Guatemalan migrants working for him and living in one of his houses.
He denied that he deliberately locked out two of those tenants after they got injured at work.
And he denied that the eviction he has launched against those two tenants is a way to avoid paying worker’s compensation.
“I got them a 60 inch TV!” he testified in housing court. Two of them, in fact, he added at his lawyer’s prompting.
Continue reading ‘Boss/Landlord Defends Booting Injured Worker’
by | Jan 16, 2024 4:00 pm | Comments (48)
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Trachten in the office: Fed up with people saying, "We have a crisis -- so all rules out the window; we can do whatever the fuck we want.”
If you’ve ever had to go before the Board of Zoning Appeals, you probably know Ben Trachten.