1,052 Tenants Paid, Closing Housing Saga

The last of $18.75 million in checks have gone out to former tenants of Church Street South, closing out a seven-plus-year legal quest to compensate families subjected to unhealthy living conditions.

Attorney David Rosen reported that update in a ​“plaintiffs’ closing status report” this week in state Superior Court in the case Personna Noble, et al v. Northland Investment Corporation et al.

Rosen originally filed the class action lawsuit in October 2016 on behalf of tenants who used to live in the federally subsidized 301-unit Church Street South housing complex across from Union Station.

The families represented in the lawsuit lived amid persistent leaks and mold in the decaying complex — in some cases developing health problems — until the city ordered it demolished in 2016. The lawsuit accused Massachusetts-based Northland, the complex’s final owner, of neglect in maintaining the complex. (As Rosen’s filing notes, Northland purchased the property with hopes of building a more upscale development there, until politics killed the plans.)

Northland agreed to settle the case in 2020 for the $18.75 million. It took four years to track everyone down and distribute the money.

All 187 checks have now been sent, although 18 recipients have yet to cash them, Rosen reported.

He wrote that his office is working with the case’s settlement administration to track down the 18.

Pending approval by the judge, Rosen wrote, this filing ​“effectively close[s] this case” — the final chapter in a decade-long quest for justice first launched by tenants in 2011 originally represented by New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA) attorneys seeking repairs, then help in relocating families.

That marks a ​“capstone” in the legal case, Rosen told the Independent Thursday. ​“But really feels to me like the end of the beginning for these families, that they will, we hope, take the benefits they got from this case and have lives that are better for it.”

A total of 1,052 people lived at Church Street South at some point since 2013, the time period covered by the class-action suit. They all signed up to participate in the lawsuit; they received between around $3,000 and $17,000 apiece. Out of that group, 187 applied for supplemental payments based on injuries and property damage related to mold. They received an additional $1,500 to $21,000 each.

Rosen said most former tenants have relocated in the New Haven area. (See the map below to see where.)

Rosen’s closing filing — read it here — serves as part legal document, part history tour of the property from its Model Cities-era ambitions to decline and destruction. A new chapter looms: The housing authority’s development arm has purchased the property with plans to build a new mixed-use mixed-income complex.

Housing authority President Karen DuBois-Walton said Thursday that former tenants will have priority for newly built apartments on the property. The authority plans to do ​“outreach to include them in the planning phase” of the project, she said.

Once the new complex is built, it will be up to government inspectors to ensure the roofs get repaired and replaced this time and kids can breathe inside.