Thomas Breen photo
Mayor Elicker announces$6.3M proposed “summer reset” spending.
A citywide youth ambassador program. Fixed up city playgrounds. Drop-in centers for the homeless. Street outreach workers focused on preventing summer violence.
Those are just a few of the programs the city hopes to fund this summer with $6.3 million in federal Covid relief.
Mayor Justin Elicker and a host of top city social services officials and local nonprofit leaders announced that “Proposed Early Start Summer Reset” initiative Tuesday afternoon on the ground floor of City Hall.
The press conference offered the first detailed view into how the Elicker Administration plans to spend at least a portion of the roughly $94 million in federal aid coming the city’s way thanks to the American Rescue Plan.
At Tuesday afternoon’s City Hall presser.
Tuesday’s presser focused on the $6.3 million in federal relief funds that the city plans on spending this summer on services geared towards youth engagement, violence prevention, citywide beautification activities, and addressing the needs people experiencing homelessness.
According to a proposed order submitted to the Board of Alders as a communication on Monday night, the Elicker Administration has also proposed using $20 million from this first tranche of American Rescue Plan funds on Covid-related “cost recovery.” In an interview after Tuesday’s presser, the mayor said that “cost recovery” could include everything from making up for lost building permit revenue and parking meter receipts to covering heightened pandemic-era expenditures in police and fire overtime and public health services.
The combined $26.3 million American Rescue Plan spending request now advances to an aldermanic committee for a public hearing before local legislators must take a final vote on whether or not to approve the mayor’s proposals on how to spend this initial pile of federal cash.
This $94 million in federal relief for the city, much like the $90 million-plus in federal aid coming to the city schools, can be used to make a “lasting impact on our community,” Elicker said Tuesday.
“The Summer Reset programs, taken together, represent a substantial and meaningful expansion of programming for the City’s youth following over a year of reduced activities due to the pandemic,” the mayor continued in a letter submitted to the alders Monday night along with the funding request communication. “The early start is complemented by the launch of the Civic Space conversation on recovery and the longer-term effort to recover and thrive.”
City Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli (pictured), who has taken a lead in mapping out the city’s proposed spending of American Rescue Plan funds, agreed. This is an opportunity “to create meaningful and lasting change,” he said.
Click here, here, here, here and here to read documents included in Monday night’s aldermanic submission regarding American Rescue Plan spending.
$6.3M For “Summer Reset”
The city has broken out its proposed spending of the first $6.3 million in federal relief into four broad buckets: youth engagement, a “clean and safe program,” arts and culture, and “safe summer.”
Piscitelli, city Department of Youth and Recreation Director Gwendolyn Busch Williams, and city Community Services Administrator (CSA) Mehul Dalal detailed 19 specific programs across those four buckets that the city hopes to fund with that money.
Based on their presentations Tuesday and on Monday night’s document submission to the Board of Alders, here’s what the Elicker Administration has proposed to spend that $6.3 million in federal relief on this summer.
Youth Engagement: $1.5M
City youth director Gwendolyn Busch Williams and CT VIP director Len Jahad.
• Expanded outdoor activities for youth, such as kayaking, hiking, biking, and archery. The federal aid would also used to fund additional seasonal staff to support “program goals around team building, cooperation, and conflict resolution.”
• Extended summer camps at non-New Haven Public Schools locations for an additional three weeks in August.
• A counselor-in-training program for eighth graders, to serve as a “pipeline for future Youth and Recreation counselors.” The goal is to support up to 200 students with training and stipends.
• A “grassroots grants” program, which would make available up to 25 grants to support nonprofit youth services providers.
• A youth driver safety program, which would see the city partner with a driver’s education instructor to teach a driver’s license prepatory course and general bike/pedestrian/traffic safety.
• Citywide neighborhood popups, which would include family-friendly events like basketball and softball tournaments, arts and crafts, and music for youth and adults at mid-week pop up events held over the course of eight weeks this summer.
• A summer concert series specifically geared to local youth.
“We recognize that youth engagement is a win-win proposition,” Busch Williams said. “Our young people are going to benefit by gaining skills and knowledge. They’re going to increase their self-esteem and their connectedness, which they need after experiencing this trauma” of the pandemic.
Clean and Safe Program: $1.5M
City Deputy CAO Rebecca Bombero.
• Parks and playground improvements, including playground resurfacing, edging and landscaping, equipment repairs and replacements.
• Neighborhood / commercial district enhancements, such as neighborhood clean ups, installation of new trash cans, and a “paint program.”
• A citywide youth ambassador program, which would see 12 crews of 5 youth each work over a six week period on cleanup activities in coordination with the Livable City Initiative, the parks and public works department, and the police department.
• Citywide beautification activities, such as citywide tree plantings and cleanups over the course of 12 weeks, with a goal of having six cleanups per week, each led by a two-person crew.
Arts and Culture: $1M
• Funding for “high profile civic events” such as the New Haven Grand Prix, July 4 fireworks, the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, and Citywide Open Studios.
• Expanded community celebrations, including making grants available to sponsors who host movies and concerts in parks, cultural equity programming, neighborhood pop up events, and publicly-accessible sporting events.
• Expanded youth arts program, focused on arts-focused programming at summer camps and after school, as well as youth apprenticeships.
• Marketing and promotional activities associated with “summer recovery for community and economic sectors with cultural focus.”
Safe Summer: $2M
City social services chief Mehul Dalal.
• Violence prevention initiatives, focused on enhancing existing intervention efforts by paying for more counselors, street outreach workers, engagement activities, and other related programs.
• Expanding Youth Connect, formerly known as YouthStat, which brings a host of services to young people most likely to be involved in violence.
• Support for mental health, community response teams and “trauma0informed services specifically geared to evidence-based approaches to recovery out of the pandemic.”
• Support for community providers engaged with high-risk populations, including those reentering society from incarceration, those struggling with substance abuse, and persons experiencing homelessness.
The Monday night BOA submission also identifies $300,000, or 5 percent of the total $6.3 million program, to be spent on program management, service delivery, planning, and civic engagement related to the American Rescue Plan money.