Meet the new boss: Harp, Carson.
Mayor Toni Harp Monday began honing a personal pitch to Donald Trump’s newly-announced pick for housing secretary — in order to salvage an endangered plan to rebuild Church Street South.
Harp said her administration has learned that the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has turned down the city’s application to secure a $30 million “Choice Neighborhoods” grant to help rebuild the soon-to-be-razed 301-unit federally subsidized housing Church Street South apartment complex across from Union Station.
The city has been clearing the families out of the housing complex because of dangerous health conditions that festered for years while HUD gave the private landlord millions of dollars in annual rent subsidies and passing inspection scores. The city and the complex’s owner, Massachusetts-based Northland Development, have been working on a plan to rebuild a 900 – 1,000-unit mixed-use apartment complex there, most of it market rate, but 30 percent of it “affordable” to people of modest means. They need government money to do that.
Harp and city Livable City Initiative (LCI) Executive Director Serena Neal-Sanjurjo told the Independent Monday that HUD officials assured them in recent meetings that they are committed to helping the city find other money to help subsidize that plan.
But their job may have just gotten more difficult. Next month a Republican administration takes over the White House, including at HUD. No longer will a Democratic administration with political debts and a similar philosophical bent be controlling the purse strings. On Monday President-Elect Trump announced that he had selected Ben Carson as his HUD secretary.
Carson has equated HUD’s fair housing policies with communism. Not favorably.
Brian Slattery Photo
The price of HUD’s mistakes: Demolition.
Harp said during her latest appearance on WNHH radio’s “Mayor Monday” program that she plans to press ahead with efforts to convince HUD to support the Church Street South rebuild. Including appealing directly to Carson, a Yale graduate who served on the Yale Corporation.
“I try to deal with reality. If he’s what we’ve got, we’ve got to make it work,” Harp said.
First, asked by a caller about the Carson appointment, Harp she called it “unfortunate” because Carson, a famous surgeon, has more expertise in medicine than in housing.
But then, testing out her upcoming Church Street South pitch, she summoned a more positive spin on the appointment.
“‘Ben, it was [already] in the development phase,’” she pictured telling him about the rebuilding plan.
“I will tell him that the book [Gifted Hands] that he wrote — when my daughter was in high school [it] was the reason she became a doctor. So we can connect. He came and he spoke to a lot of high school kids at that particular time. I think he was on the [Yale] Corporation at that time. It really made a difference. He totally inspired her and my younger daughter. They’re both doctors today.”
That’s a start.
“The really good thing about Ben Carson is that he has been to New Haven. That he spent his formative educational years here. … I think he cares about New Haven and understands what it takes to make New Haven work,” Harp declared.
She warmed to the pitch the more she honed it.
“I believe he was doing his residency here when they built Church Street South. So he understands where it is. He’s a very bright man. He’s got to understand transit-oriented development. And how important in a city of New Haven it its to preserve” affordable housing, Harp averred.
She also noted that Carson spent some of his childhood living in public housing.
“Look,” Harp said. “If we’ve got a hook and we can get him to understand what it is that we need and use the considerable resources that he has on our behalf, that’s what we’ve got to do.”
Just in case the Trump/Carson HUD doesn’t run to send millions to New haven for the project, New Haven has also, according to Neal-Sanjurjo, talked to the state about possible funding for affordable housing in the rebuilt Church Street South.
Neal-Sanjurjo said she didn’t want to discuss any specific potential pots of money at this point, in order not to raise expectations. But, she said, “We’ve got a couple of ideas that we’re working on for state funding as well as a couple of meeting s that we’ve got coming up with HUD. HUD is not completely out of it.” She also said Northland has committed itself to trying to make the affordable housing part of the project work.
Asked for comment, Northland Chairman and CEO Larry Gottesdiener was noncommittal.
“We will have to reassess our plans going forward, particularly in light of the changes in the administration and HUD,” he wrote in an email message. He made a point of expressing his “appreciation” for “all of the excellent work that was done by our partners, the City of New Haven generally, and LCI, and Serena Neal Sanjurjo, specifically, to pursue the Choice grant. We were very disappointed that we were not selected.”
State Department of Housing spokesman Dan Arsenault said his agency “is certainly aware of the ongoing work to redevelop the Church Street South property, as well as the efforts to assist current residents with finding stable, safe, and affordable housing. DOH has an open door policy and as such we are always willing to discuss the potential for development.”
HUD spokeswoman Rhonda Siciliano said the agency did not have an immediate updated comment ready as this story was being published.
Click here to hear the full episode of WNHH radio’s “Mayor Monday,” including updates on economic development in town and efforts to help homeless people camped out in the woods off I‑91. The episode was made possible with the support of Gateway Community College and Berchem, Moses & Devlin, P.C.{media_5}{media_6}
Previous coverage of Church Street South:
• Church St. South Refugees Fight Back
• LCI Chief Seeks Hill Support For Church St. South Rebuild
• City Teams With Northland To Rebuild
• Church Street South Tenants’ Tickets Have Arrived
• Church Street South Demolition Begins
• This Time, Harp Gets HUD Face Time
• Nightmare In 74B
• Surprise! Now HUD Flunks Church St. South
• Church St. South Tenants Get A Choice
• Home-For-Xmas? Not Happening
• Now It’s Christmas, Not Thanksgiving
• Pols Enlist In Church Street South Fight
• Raze? Preserve? Or Renew?
• Church Street South Has A Suitor
• Northland Faces Class-Action Lawsuit On Church Street South
• First Attempt To Help Tenants Shuts Down
• Few Details For Left-Behind Tenants
• HUD: Help’s Here. Details To Follow
• Mixed Signals For Church Street South Families
• Church St. South Families Displaced A 2nd Time — For Yale Family Weekend
• Church Street South Getting Cleared Out
• 200 Apartments Identified For Church Street South Families
• Northland Asks Housing Authority For Help
• Welcome Home
• Shoddy Repairs Raise Alarm — & Northland Offer
• Northland Gets Default Order — & A New Offer
• HUD, Pike Step In
• Northland Ordered To Fix Another 17 Roofs
• Church Street South Evacuees Crammed In Hotel
• Church Street South Endgame: Raze, Rebuild
• Harp Blasts Northland, HUD
• Flooding Plagues Once-Condemned Apartment
• Church Street South Hit With 30 New Orders
• Complaints Mount Against Church Street South
• City Cracks Down On Church Street South, Again
• Complex Flunks Fed Inspection, Rakes In Fed $$
• Welcome Home — To Frozen Pipes
• City Spotted Deadly Dangers; Feds Gave OK
• No One Called 911 | “Hero” Didn’t Hesitate
• “New” Church Street South Goes Nowhere Fast
• Church Street South Tenants Organize