Laura Glesby photos
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.
Upon This Rock Ministries, a local Christian organization that the city has contracted to operate multiple warming centers in recent years, bought the single-story commercial building at 645 Grand Ave. from Immanuel Baptist Church’s Emergency Shelter Management Service earlier this year. The church did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The building sold for $475,000, according to a deed posted to the city’s land records database on March 27.
The shelter closed down at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. At their full board meeting in City Hall on Monday, alders unanimously approved a $500,000 city contract with Upon This Rock to “establish and operate” a shelter for 65 men in that space from July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025.
“This is a site that has been offline since Covid and we’re very excited to bring it back online and have these beds available for our neighbors who are experiencing homelessness,” said Sarah Miller, speaking on behalf of the Health and Human Services committee.
The Grand Avenue shelter had once been notorious for allegations of bedbugs, mold, and substance use on the premises.
In an interview, Miller expressed confidence that Upon This Rock will be able to operate a well-run shelter. “Pastor Valerie Washington is a very good administrator,” said Miller, who said she previously worked with the ministry’s founder while coordinating pandemic “learning hubs” at Clifford Beers. “I’ve seen also the relationships that she builds with people on the street,” she said. “She has lived experience that helps her to understand what people are going through.”
In a June presentation to the Health and Human Services Committee, city Homeless Services Coordinator Velma George said that the Grand Avenue Shelter will take “referrals only,” not walk-ins, “so there will be no lines.”
George told the committee that evening, “in my years working in homeless services, this is the most [people] I’ve ever seen on the street. It just breaks my heart.”
On Monday, alders also approved funding for the following programs:
• $130,000 for eviction prevention funds at Liberty Community Services, including rent and utility assistance programs as well as education programs for tenants. George explained in June that financial literacy and tenant training classes can help reassure landlords reviewing housing applicants with eviction records.
• $117,000 for Liberty Community Services to continue offering drop-in resources at its “navigation hub” at 210 State St., while expanding its library-based outreach to three library branches in the city (adding an outreach worker at Fair Haven, Stetson, and Wilson). The resources provided include showers, laundry, meals, harm reduction supplies, employment and housing assistance, and medical and mental health care.
• $205,000 in “gap funding” for New Reach’s Life Haven Family Shelter, a shelter for 20 families comprised of women and children at a time.
• $100,000 in “gap funding” for Christian Community Action’s Hillside Family Shelter, which has the capacity for 17 families at a time and provides “family coaches” who connect clients to all kinds of resources.
• $65,000 in “gap funding” for Christian Community Action to continue providing utility and rent assistance.
“Even with all of this, we still have tremendous need,” Miller said in an interview. There’s a need, she said, for “a comprehensive solution for the city that provides everybody with an option for shelter. … We have more work to do.”
"The State Has A Big Problem"
The Grand Avenue block where the shelter is slated to reopen was quiet after Wednesday morning’s rain.
Two blocks away, Fernando Morales and Kiki Moreno headed out of an outpatient substance use treatment center, Multicultural Ambulatory Addictions Services (MAAS), on East Street. Both Morales and Moreno now have housing in various parts of New Haven, but said they’d previously stayed in a variety of homeless shelters for years at a time.
Moreno and Morales also called for more attention to the root causes of homelessness. They both argued the spread of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid associated with 84 percent of unintentional overdose deaths in Connecticut last year, is responsible for much of the homelessness that they’ve witnessed.
“The state has a big problem,” said Morales, and the current treatment resources aren’t enough to address people’s needs.
Moreno added that psychological and emotional support is especially necessary for people experiencing both homelessness and addiction.
Morales also noted how hard it is to find a place to live without a solid credit score, or with a criminal record, or with a past eviction. “The landlords put pressure on us,” he said, arguing that the state should provide more housing for people struggling to find private landlords who will rent to them.
“I see people waiting six years, seven years, eight years” for housing, he said.
Based on their personal experience, they offered advice for Upon This Rock’s new shelter: stay open beyond the winter months, and don’t kick people out when morning comes.
Many unhoused people need “something to pass the day,” said Morales.
“Like card games,” Moreno said. “Or bingo.”