U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy boarded the Q bus at Chapel Street and immediately encountered the “trifecta” of constituent challenges — employment, education, and housing.
Murphy encountered those issues while chatting with three passengers on city bus Monday afternoon. He got on the bus to connect with his constituents as part of a series of bus-rides he’s been taking in order to talk to people he might never otherwise meet.
On the bus Monday, Murphy met a man who’s been unemployed for a year, a woman worried about her son being bullied at school, and a woman who can’t find an affordable apartment of her own. He promised to try to help each of them.
“That’s basically your trifecta,” Murphy said, after getting off the bus at Walmart on Foxon Road. He said he’s found the most common topics people bring up with him on the bus are jobs, housing, and schools.
Murphy boarded the bus at about 4:30 p.m. at Chapel Street, near the corner of Orange. He moved to the back and struck up a conversation with Cyrus Hedge, a 48-year-old union laborer who said he’s been out of work for a year. Hedge said his unemployment benefits have expired.
“We can help you get on Medicaid,” Murphy told him.
Hedge said he can’t afford to pay his union dues any longer, which means he can’t get union work.
“So it’s a downward spiral,” Murphy said. “I’m pushing hard to get more money into building roads and railroads.”
The next seat up, Murphy met Maxine Wilson, who was riding to Walmart with three kids. Wilson told Murphy about her 12-year-old son’s problems with bullying at John Martinez school.
“It’s one thing after another,” she said. Her son has had his pants pulled down in class, and two girls beat him up recently, Wilson said. The 6th-grader doesn’t want to go to gym anymore because he’s picked on so badly.
Murphy said he would talk to the superintendent about discipline at the school. He said bullying needs to be stopped early, before it escalates.
In the next seat, Awilda Oliveras was headed home to the apartment on Eastern Street where she lives with her sister. The apartment is too small for her and her sister’s family, Oliveras said, but she can’t find an affordable place to live.
Oliveras, who’s disabled, said she’s applied to move into Bella Vista, but hasn’t been able to get in.
“Housing is tough,” Murphy said. “There’s not a lot of affordable housing.” He said it’s something he’s working on.
After disembarking at Walmart, Murphy said his bus trips give him an appreciation of the “Herculean efforts” people exert to stay employed. He spoke with a man, for example, who commutes every day by bus and bike from New Haven to a warehouse in Orange.
“I wish my Republican friends would get on the bus occasionally,” Murphy said. The stereotype of the “47 percent” of people who are “takers” and not working is “shattered” when you talk to people on the bus, he said.