CCA Names New Chief

One of the city’s leading anti-poverty organizations has tapped a familiar face to usher in its next chapter.

The Hill-based agency, Christian Community Action (CCA), announced Wednesday that it has selected Charmain Yun to serve as its new executive director.

Yun succeeds Bonita Grubbs, who retired after running the agency for 35 years. Yun, who previously served as CCA’s director of administration and planning, officially began the new job on Monday.

Yun, who graduated from Yale in 1995, wrote her senior thesis on ​“Homeless in New Haven: The Need for Coordinated Service.” She worked for close to two decades as a campus minister. After obtaining a master’s degree in social work from Unviersity of Connecticut in 2021, she came to CCA, beginning as a landlord engagement specialist.

In other words, she’s been around. She’s not starting the job from scratch.

“The board is confident that Charmain has what it takes to grow CCA’s capacity to provide our unique person-centered services,” Board President Sherwin Yoder stated in a release announcing Yun’s promotion.

CCA serves as both a direct lifeline for emergency help for families as well as a springboard for policy advocacy advanced by people directly affected. Its emergency housing complex has grown to 17 units by its original Davenport home, which doubles as a food bank and energy assistance provider. It developed a second iteration of a transitional housing facility on Winchester Avenue, now called New HOPE, giving homeless families up to 36 months to prepare for independence with training help. Since 2014 it has developed a skill-building and employment training center on Winchester called ARISE.

Meanwhile, Grubbs guided CCA to a prominent advocacy role. She oversaw the creation of Mothers for Justice (since renamed Mothers and Others For Justice). The group originally enlisted single moms in CCA’s shelters to read up on government anti-poverty programs, suggest ways to make it better, then lobby politicians and policymakers to make changes. CCA served as a leader in the grassroots movement to save low-income housing on surrounding streets in the Hill during the construction of John C. Daniels School.