Thomas Breen Photo
Arthur Taylor at Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen's drop-in center in 2022.
Arthur Taylor brought the music — and an unflagging sense of urgency — to advocacy for the rights of unhoused people like himself.
He died at age 71 in a car crash this week while walking along an I‑91 travel lane, a few weeks after moving into the city’s new non-congregate shelter in a former hotel on Foxon Boulevard.
State police first announced Taylor’s death on Tuesday morning, stating that he had been walking on I‑91 near Exit 9 in North Haven around 9:15 the night before when he was struck and killed by a car driven by a 20-year-old from Stamford. They initially identified Taylor as 53 years old, but both the city and several people who knew Taylor confirmed that he was actually in his early 70s.
Taylor had been wandering along I‑91 in a northbound travel lane, right by Exit 9 in North Haven., when the car struck him. No one the Independent spoke to knew why Taylor had been walking on the highway at that time.
Having lived in and out of homelessness for years, Taylor dreamed of a home in an elderly housing complex.
He grew up in New Haven and moved back to the area after spending much of his life in Georgia, where he worked supporting people with developmental disabilities. He spent the last few years moving between apartments, outdoor tents, and, this past winter, the Varick Church warming center.
On March 4, he moved into a room at the former Days Inn hotel on Foxon Boulevard, which the city recently converted to a shelter — unique among local alternatives for offering individual rooms — operated by Continuum of Care.
Christopher Dixon, a fellow shelter resident, found himself “heartbroken” upon hearing the news of Taylor’s death.
“It’s sad that it happened to him,” Dixon said on Thursday, “because he was going through a transformation in his life.”
In a statement, Continuum of Care Vice President John Labieniec wrote, “It’s been a sad few days for us at Continuum and for many of Mr. Taylor’s fellow residents. We continue to extend our deepest condolences to Mr. Taylor’s family, in particular to his sister who was of support to him.”
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Arthur Taylor, with Tammy Imre, at a 2023 May Day rally. "We’re tired of being criminalized for things like eating, sleeping, using the bathroom,” he said at the protest. “We shouldn’t have to be begging for shelters… The emergency is tonight. The time to act is now.”
Taylor was a leader in the Unhoused Activists Community Team (U‑ACT), a group of housing advocates who have personally experienced homelessness.
At demonstrations, public hearings, and U‑ACT planning meetings, Taylor ensured that no one could forget the urgent, life-or-death nature of the homelessness crisis, U‑ACT community organizer Billy Bromage said.
At a Board of Alders committee meeting in February 2023 about how to spend federal American Rescue Plan Act funding, Taylor delivered off-the-cuff public testimony with characteristic fire.
He grilled alders for not adequately responding to the homelessness crisis, accusing them of “looking down on your brothers perishing in the dust.”
He stressed the point that anyone might someday become homeless. “Y’all want to be all this and all that because you think you got it made?” he asked them. “Don’t underestimate God.”
He wrapped up his remarks by adding: “Thank you for listening. Thank you for listening.”
Bromage recalled that Taylor would come to U‑ACT’s weekly community lunches on the New Haven Green with “an old-time speaker, and he would be playing this upbeat music from the ’70s.”
The R&B and disco tracks prompted the U‑ACT community to serve food and eat amongst each other with “a little bit more life,” Bromage said. “He always brought the music. He didn’t wait for permission.”
Update: Arthur Taylor’s funeral will take place at Howard K. Hill Funeral Services (1287 Chapel St.) on Friday, April 12. Family greetings will begin at 11 a.m. The ceremony will begin at noon.
Shelter Residents Face Pedestrian Perils
Laura Glesby File Photo
Crossing the street from the shelter (pictured) is "like playing Frogger," said Christopher Dixon.
Two residents of the Foxon Boulevard shelter, neither of whom have access to a car, said they feel vulnerable to traffic in that highly car-centric portion of New Haven.
The shelter is located along Route 80, a six- to seven-lane artery controlled by the state. There’s no sidewalk outside the shelter or by the closest bus stop. In fact, several nearby bus stops require riders to balance on a narrow, slanted strip of slanted grass (or else in the actual road).
Labieniec said the shelter has a loose curfew of 7 p.m., but “there is a grace period to 10 p.m.”
“People can come and go,” he said. “The model is that we’re there as support staff 24/7, but we’re not telling people they can’t leave and they can’t go about their business. We encourage people not to panhandle — that’s just encouraging. We can’t control what people are going to do.”
“With the crisis we’re in, there’s people sleeping on the highway,” Labieniec added.
“Anywhere you would have placed a model like this is going to have its pluses and minuses,” Labieniec said. “We do worry about the traffic because we have a lot of medically compromised folks, we have a lot of folks who are elderly. … At the end of the day, this is going to improve the lives of the people we’re servicing. It’s offering something that will get people out of the street.”
Labieniec said he and the city have been advocating for a safer walkway outside the shelter. In the meantime, Continuum of Care offers some transportation services to shelter residents, with one six-seat van for the approximately 75 people staying there. Labieniec said that the organization prioritizes the transit for clients who have housing-related appointments or who need medical care. He added that staff educate clients about the nearby bus stops and encourage them to use public transportation.
Fellow shelter resident Hillary Forbes said she’s found the shelter’s transit option to be insufficiently reliable. She recently decided to stop trying to cross Route 80 by herself: “I almost got hit!”
Instead, she said, a friend from her church drives her to the nearby CVS or Walmart so that she can buy the items she needs, including her insulin. She said she once went several days without insulin due to her fear of crossing the street.
“It’s very hectic crossing the street,” Dixon confirmed. “It’s like playing Frogger. … Hopefully someone has a heart to let you go by.”
Thomas Breen contributed reporting.