“First, of all, please,” Nancy Ahern said. “This is not a race issue. I have grandchildren the color of Barack Obama.”
Ahern showed up at the Housing Authority of New Haven’s (HANH) Orange Street headquarters Wednesday to speak out against the last of 183 “scattered-site” homes being purchased around the city.
She was one of only two speakers, and the only one blasting the program. She did spark one last debate about the merits and drawbacks of a controversial, drawn-out effort to create an alternative to clustering poor families in dense high-rise ghettos like the old Elm Haven high-rise projects, which the city demolished.
Ahern lives on West Rock Avenue, around the corner from 571 Central Ave. The HANH plans to buy the Colonial home at 571 Central to rent to a public-housing family. It is the third house on the block the authority will have purchased under the scattered-site program, which is designed to spread out public housing in small pieces in neighborhoods across town. HANH previously thought it had finished buying properties for the program, but one sale fell through. (Click here for an account of hte previous “final” public hearing and a review of the program’s arson-touched history).
Nancy Ahern was a Republican alderwoman from 1992 to 2003. She rose at Wednesday morning’s hearing to oppose the purchase.
She cited what she called perennial neglect of HANH scattered-site properties in her area. 571 Central will bring to three owned by HANH, including the one adjacent to and across the street from it.
Karen Dubois-Walton, the new executive director of HANH, recommended the purchase in part because it would be the grouped with two other houses in the area and make for easier maintenance.
Ahern wasn’t impressed.
“You can always tell a HANH property because the grass isn’t cut and the snow is not shoveled,” she charged. “What this program amounts to is what I call ‘demolition by neglect.’ Other people from the neighborhood would be here, except they weren’t notified, including the owner of the property himself.”
Then she called attention to the taxes lost in the program. “571 pays $10,000 in city taxes. Who will make up for that, and the hundreds of thousands lost from the other properties? We all will have to.”
Then, after citing HANH tenants’ alleged behavioral issues, such as the playing of loud music late in the night and unfriendliness, she made two suggestions: First, HANH should have a social integration and training program so clients learn how to be better neighbors. Second, the kids who move in should attend the local schools.
“I met my best friend at Edgewood [School] parent meetings,” she said, “but it’s a magnet school [now] and most of the spots are taken. The authority should work with the school system on making spots available. That would help. It also would make sense of these scattered-site rentals were a step toward home ownership.”
HANH board Chair Bob Solomon and Dubois-Walton listened respectfully but silently.
The second speaker, Maureen O’Sullivan, was more supportive — of scattered-site housing being in Westville rather than where she lives across town.
“I like the fact that scattered-site units are being put in the west of the city,” she said, “because our area, the north east of the city, particularly, Quinnipiac Meadows, has had more than our fair share.”
She criticized scattered-site housing amid condos, which is the case around St. Anthony’s Street, off Quinnipiac Avenue, because the kids don’t have enough backyard area to play.
“Lots of condo owners come to our management team meetings with issues about the behavior of kids from the area . Repeatedly, we’ve asked HANH representatives to come to the meetings.”
O’Sullivan, who is active in the management team and also the Foxon/Essex block watch, said she was pleased that Dubois-Walton pledged to come to the upcoming management team meetings to hear out neighbors.
For a response to Ahern’s critique, HANH’s legal counsel, Rolan Joni Young, referred a reporter to Shelly White, litigation director for New Haven Legal Assistance. White represented some of the clients in the 1993 court decision that paved the way for the program. She just happened to be in the lobby of HANH headquarters with Maria Velez, a paralegal colleague.
“I pronounce,” she said, “the scattered ‑ite housing program a tremendous success. It is a rental program. It was never intended to be for home ownership; that’s a good goal, but that’s another separate tack HANH is pursuing. To turn the 183 into homeownership units, you’d have to go through a crazy process with HUD [federal Department of Housing and Urba Development], and then, to replace each one, HANH would probably have to purchase another property.
“As to ‘social integration,’ please! According to the ruling, we treat people who move into this housing like anyone else, like any neighbor. And they can send their kids to school anywhere they want. Some kids might have special needs. Having said that, I know HANH keeps a special separate list of candidate families for scattered site housing who are screened; they know what’s expected of them.”
And what about the loss of city taxes issue?
“First of all, of the 183 units, there are far fewer actual properties, and many of these were built on open land, where taxes were not being paid. Maybe 25 percent — I’m not sure of the figure — are in pre-existing houses. In addition, I think there is some kind of PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) that HUD does indeed reimburse the city.”
Was Ahern mollified as she left the meeting? “They’re going to buy the house anyway,” she said. “The owner put his place up for sale as soon as the house next to it was purchased by HANH. He would have been here but he didn’t know about the meeting. What are you going to do?”
Commission Chairman Solomon indicated the proper formal notice had been placed in the Register. (The Reg also ran a news story in advance of the hearing.) The sparse attendance at this meeting, as in the previous, was perhaps due to legal requirements per the 1993 court decision not to notify neighbors specifically in order to integrate new residents in the neighborhood without calling attention to them.
Solomon and the commissioners thanked the speakers, and adjourned the meeting.