Tiny Homes Hit With 2nd Violation Notice

The Elicker administration has sent a second letter demanding that six newly constructed mini-shelters be dismantled in a Hill backyard where 57-year-old Orlando Sanchez and roughly a half-dozen fellow unhoused people have moved in.

A state marshal hand-delivered that letter, dated Oct. 26, to Mark Colville this week in regard to the handful of one-room shelters now standing behind the Amistad Catholic Worker House at 203 Rosette St.

The letter calls on the housing activists to ​“vacate” those pre-fabricated homes, which are occupied by eight individuals, and either appeal the order or bring the project into compliance with local and state law.

Colville and his allies see the tiny home project as an effort to cut through bureaucratic tape in order to build shelter quickly for those most in need as homelessness increases and cold weather sets in. 

City officials see it as a worthy enterprise made potentially dangerous by Colville’s skirting of local zoning law and the state building code.

Read more here about the initiative — led by Colville, who owns the Amistad Catholic Worker House with his wife and fellow activist Luz Catarineau, with a crew of neighbors, volunteers, and people experiencing homelessness — to bring pre-fab bedrooms all measuring under 100 square feet into his own backyard.

This second letter arrived days after the Elicker administration’s city plan director sent a first cease-and-desist order to Colville last week, asserting that Colville must come into compliance with local zoning laws by applying for relief from the Board of Zoning Appeals if the Amistad collective hopes to keep the tiny homes intact. Otherwise, Colville would have to take down those structures to avoid risking litigation.

It also comes as Sanchez and the other unhoused people who have been living in tents outside Amistad House over the last year and a half have already moved into the small shelters, unpacking their belongings after spending anywhere from months to years sleeping in unstable conditions outside. 

“The city is uncomfortable because this place operates outside of the system,” Sanchez told the Independent. ​“But the city can’t claim nothing. This is a community. Here everybody is welcome. We’re family and we’re all in the same boat. We do as much as we can, we stay grateful, and we know it will grow.” 

Cease-And-Desist

The latest letter to reach Amistad House was written by city Building Official Robert Dillon. It focused on the project’s non-compliance with the State Building Ordinance.

Dillon’s letter states that an Oct. 27 inspection ​“revealed the following code violations: Several pallet shelters erected on property as well as noncompliant fence without the required permit(s) and approval(s). Concerns of fire resistant rated construction. Solid fuel heating sources without smoke or CO detection. No sanitation or WPCA approvals or services. No utility (electrical, mechanical, plumbing) approvals or hookups.”

The enforcement letter includes an order for occupants to ​“vacate” the code-defying shelters.

Dillon told the Independent his inspection hinged in large part on the finding that a heating lamp had been kept inside a wooden hut outside Amistad. Residents had removed that lamp upon request by a fire marshal, and no other violations had been cited at the time, according to both Colville and Mayor Justin Elicker. (Read about that here.) Dillon later said that a wood burning stove in that hut — which has been there for over a year — also constituted a safety violation.

He pressed the dangers of using the stove inside the roofed hut, which is built out of wood, especially now that there are shelters located within feet of that central structure where a fire could spread. 

Dillon added that the tiny homes themselves are illegal according to the State Building Code.

Dillon’s letter warned that anyone ​“who is convicted in court of violating any provision of the Connecticut state building code or for failure to comply with the written order of a building inspector” may be fined between $1,000 and $2,000 and/or imprisoned for up to six months.

“The office hopes to gain your cooperation and looks forward to working with you in the interest of building and life safety for a timely resolution of this matter,” the letter concluded. ​“This notice will be placed on the land records in the city clerk’s office and will not be removed until compliance is complete to the satisfaction of this office.”

Colville said that while he will continue working with the city, he does not plan to remove or empty the tiny homes, which he said are necessary to protect people who may otherwise be forced to sleep outside as winter sets in.

Dillon, meanwhile, noted that he was mandated by state law to report Amistad House’s actions so long as the structures remain up and non-compliant with zoning and building codes.

“I will continue to have constructive conversations to try to come to some kind of an understanding of the building code and how we can make a path for them to be in that building code,” Dillon said. ​“But I have to do my job, which is public safety. That’s a statutory thing.”

“I’m not trying to hurt people. I’m trying to be constructive,” he said.

He said his department is already planning to send another letter demanding the structures come down, at which point the Elicker administration will have to determine how to move forward with potential litigation against Amistad House depending on how Colville and company respond.

What's A Tiny Home?

There is currently admitted confusion on the parts of city officials regarding exactly what to call those six shelters, other than ​“atypical,” as City Plan Director Laura Brown put it during an interview.

Because people are living in the shelters, Dillon said the structures should be able to measure up against the state’s minimum standards for ​“habitable dwelling units,” which he said, among other provisions, require all homes to include a kitchen and a bathroom. City Economic Development Administrator Mike Piscitelli told the Independent that municipal and state building codes were developed around ​“the turn of the [20th] century,” when new public safety efforts sought to increase sanitation by requiring and overseeing utilities like clean running water.

A 2019 effort by New Haveners to add language allowing tiny homes into the local zoning code failed to ever gain headway. The State Building Code did adopt language from the International Residential Code of 2021 last year to allow for tiny homes. However, those tiny homes are still categorized as ​“dwelling units,” albeit with a smaller total square footage. So while the shelters outside of Amistad House have been referred to as ​“tiny homes” for convenience, including by this reporter, they do not meet the state definition, which would still require internal plumbing. 

The homes outside Amistad House, however, are more like pre-fab sheds. They include beds and the capacity to provide heating and electricity (though utilities have yet to be operationalized pending zoning approval and the obtaining of building permits). The residents are able to use a communal bathroom and kitchen inside Amistad House itself.

The units, which were purchased and installed for about $20,000 a piece from a company called Pallet, replaced tents that were previously spread throughout Colville’s backyard. Read more about Pallet and their work building ​“rapid-response” shelter villages here.

Other residents are still living in tents on a plot of land immediately adjacent to the backyard, a neighbor-created ​“Human Rights Zone” operating on vacant city property behind a community garden on Rosette Street. Those tents have not come under scrutiny from the city or state; only the central hut and surrounding shelters have been the recent point of criticism from the Elicker administration.

Dillon said Colville could apply for a modification waiver from the state to try to circumvent the state regulations concerning what counts as a ​“dwelling unit.” A representative from Amistad has yet to apply for relief from the state or the city.

Brown also told the Independent that Colville must apply for variances from the Board of Zoning Appeals, which would likely include zoning relief for use and bulk requirements in an RM‑2 zone, which refers to areas zoned for high-middle density.

“We will need to gather more information from Amistad regarding the intended permanency of the shelters to determine the best path forward for relief,” Brown said. She added that it is up to a representative of the project to define its intent in order for the city to help determine how the project does or does not comply with local laws. 

City officials suggested that Amistad House hire a code consultant to hash out those details in lieu of available city staff. She noted that Pallet, the company that sells the shelters and has helped build villages of the structures in over 100 communities, could also serve as an applicant on the Amistad project, but that she has yet to broach that possibility with the organization.

Asked what work the city has been proactively doing to try to up the amount of not just affordable but alternative housing types, officials all pointed to the administration’s efforts to add accessory dwelling units, or ADUs (an effort which has been critiqued as functionally establishing no new housing) into zoning law in order to try to increase denser housing stock across the city.

Mayor Elicker spotlighted that effort as an example of why he thinks following a legal process matters. 

“In that process there was a lot of community pushback when we proposed even one additional unit, so we dialed back that proposal and phased it out, where the first phase was only homeowners could add an ADU,” Elicker said. ​“We proposed to the alders a second phase that would allow non-homeowners to have an ADU, but the community at-large has a lot of views on this and that’s the importance of the public process in guiding our zoning code.”

“For a group to just violate the zoning code after there’s been a lengthy public process to create it is not fair,” he concluded.

"These Words Aren't A Game"

“We’ve been trying to collaborate with the city” ever since Brown sent a letter back in September, said Jacob Miller, a housing finance expert who is also Colville’s next-door neighbor and son-in-law. In that letter Brown expressed her desire to work with Colville in order to ensure the potential tiny homes project was done in conjunction with city health, safety and zoning standards.

“We are here to help ensure that your undertaking aligns with legal requirements and safeguards the interests of your community. We appreciate that this is a wicked problem that will take a lot of creative thinking and working together,” that initial message from Brown read.

“We do want to work in conjunction with them to find a path forward,” Miller stated, but the current problem is that no clear route exists to legalize the project, and would inevitably be a lengthy one while the winter season is already setting in. 

Despite their non-compliance with city definitions of ​“habitable dwellings,” Miller argued, the shelters are intentionally designed for the Amistad House community. He said building those homes around communal facilities like a kitchen and bathroom was key in establishing transitional housing for people suffering disproportionately with mental illness and addiction: ​“They force you to leave your personal space and interact with the people around you.”

In the meantime, he said, amidst bureaucratic stalling and a growing number of people sleeping on the streets as rents spike and housing stock remains scarce, those working with Amistad have managed to raise private money to establish a village of small homes costing just over $20,000 per shelter to establish. (Read more about that breakdown here.)

“This should be something the city appreciates,” Miller argued. ​“This is a free social service on private property, and it’s cost effective.” The city recently purchased a 57-room hotel to create shelter space for residents for $6.9 million. ​“For that amount,” Miller said, ​“we could probably do 250 units with shared amenities, laundry facilities and bathrooms.”

“This is really a problem the city needs to solve, because unfortunately traditional ground-up development is not gonna solve the affordable housing crisis. It’s mathematically impossible,” he said.

Colville said that he wants to work with the city to legalize the homes, and hopes the city will start replicating the alternative housing model across New Haven as an in-part solution to the affordable housing crisis.

“I’m wondering where the city is really at with this, because while they’re doing these public threats and insisting that we vacate, people in City Hall are privately working with us diligently to find a path forward,” Colville told the Independent.

“Here’s the poorest neighborhood in New Haven. We have decided the need is so great that we have to do something about it. And the first thing we do is get condemned,” Colville said.

Most of those living outside Amistad, he noted, are camping out or staying in the structures because they’ve already been removed from encampments on public land by the government. ​“These words aren’t a game,” he said. ​“Our people are genuinely uptight; they’ve been evicted and had all their stuff destroyed. All this public blustery affects people and scares people.”

"All We Can Do Is Open A Door And Let Them Go Through"

Suki Godek has lived in a tent outside Amistad with her partner Todd since April, when the city bulldozed a homeless encampment just off the Boulevard where they’d been living. She said their new shelter structure makes her feel like she finally lives ​“in an actual home.”

“You feel more ownership here,” she said. ​“The tents we stayed in only last so long because of wear and tear. And here you don’t have to worry about all your stuff getting soaked and smelling like mildew.”

Those who live in the tiny homes, as opposed to those seeking refuge in tents on adjacent property to Amistad, said they have agreed to volunteer with the Unhoused Community Activists Team advocacy group and serve breakfast to the community.

She criticized the city as locating all shelter, like the upcoming conversion of the Days Inn hotel on Foxon Boulevard into emergency housing, ​“on the edge of town as opposed to in the neighborhood.”

Sanchez, a newcomer to Amistad House, said he cares less about securing his spot at Amistad than he does about ensuring that the community is able to survive the city’s threats.

“This is something new,” he said of the tiny house project. ​“It’s a breaking point. When my time comes, I want to look back here and see that the work is still growing. I want to use my skills for the community.”

Sanchez, who works in construction management, was living between abandoned houses for more than two years before coming to Amistad. He said that at one property, the pending owner allowed him to stay in exchange for doing chores and work to maintain and improve the house, but that the city ultimately found him on site and instructed him to vacate.

During that time, Sanchez was visiting Amistad on a regular basis for meals, while cleaning out the bathrooms and scrubbing the stove to give back to the place that fed him.

Sanchez said he’s always struggled to operate ​“normally” within the system. Born in Brooklyn, he returned to the states after a childhood spent in Puerto Rico when he dropped out of school in the tenth grade. He became disinterested in his studies because of the arbitrary rules that he said seemed to govern education: ​“I was the kid who always said, sure there’s ​‘a’ and ​‘b,’ but what about ​‘c’?”

Since moving into a tiny home, he said, he mainly feels freed from fretting about his physical safety and health. But he still says the new space is just like any other he’s inhabited since losing housing during the pandemic: ​“It’s all temporary.”

Working odd construction jobs in the gig economy, he said, he’s unable to keep a regular income. He gets a hotel room when he can afford to, but has consistently found himself out on the streets when employment is scarce. 

He said he’s most interested in investing in Amistad House to ensure a space exists to care for those who have it harder than him, for those who need more support to survive the day to day as they struggle with issues like substance abuse or severe health concerns. 

He said he doesn’t see the Rosette Street situation as ​“about the ​‘crisis’ or ​‘the system.’ It’s about human beings themselves.

“There’s nobody on this earth who has the power to change a person, “ he said. ​“All we can do is open a door and let them go through.” 

Click on the video to watch a discussion Tuesday about the Rosette Street shelters with Mark Colville and Colleen Shaddox, on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven.” Click here to subscribe or here to listen to other episodes of Dateline New Haven.

See below for more recent Independent articles about homelessness, activism, and attempts to find shelter.

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