Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Mehul Dalal this week at the West River Tent City.
Among the most difficult choices city officials need to make relate to clearance of encampments. There are no immediate or easy solutions to homelessness. The outreach teams which comprise of city staff in my department and established agencies are experts in engaging, building relationships, and connecting with unhoused individuals. They (and we all must) recognize the right of individuals to not engage with services if they are not ready – this is a core principle of “meeting people where they are.” We aspire to lead with compassion, honoring the dignity of individuals who are often in highest times of need. Yet when conditions warrant, helping people transition from encampments, particularly when the encampments are found to be as hazardous as the one we cleared this week at the West River Memorial Park is consistent with a compassionate approach.
My staff and I – and Mayor Elicker — have received many calls advocating for the homeless and those in the encampment. I welcome this advocacy and it pushes us as public officials to reflect, improve, and do better. I have said it before and I’ll reiterate – we approach this work humbly and we are always open to constructive dialogue. However, given perhaps the intensity of feeling around this issue, there have been aspects of this process that have been misrepresented or not well understood – and I hope to offer some clarifications here from my vantage point overseeing the Community Services Administration for the City of New Haven.
My team, along with agency partners have been engaging with individuals at this encampment for many years, but more intensively in the last six months as we’ve seen growing signs of hazardous activity including open burns and fires, installation of permanent structures, extensive debris, and regular reports of syringe litter. Some issues were corrected temporarily but many recurred. In recent weeks we saw the installation of a permanent shower, evidence of human waste on site, and worrisome signs that propane heating was being used in, and in proximity to flammable tents.
It became clear that the encampment was not, and could not, despite repeated attempts be made appropriately safe and we had an obligation to act.
To this end, on Feb. 24, the city issued a clean up order which was largely complied with, thanks to the many helpers that worked on the site. We were hopeful this would remedy this situation, yet safety concerns returned the very next week –once again including evidence of open burns and fires, continued use of propane tanks, and building up of additional pallet-based construction. At the same time, outreach workers redoubled in engagement and services to make every effort to help the encampment dwellers to transition more immediately to safer conditions and, importantly, on a pathway to stable short-term and long-term housing.
After continued attempts to try to remedy these issues and come alongside the individuals at the encampment — the city made the decision that the site needed to be vacated. On March 10, the City issued a notice to vacate the site by Wednesday, March 15 at 1 p.m., and we stepped up our engagement efforts even further to support individuals with the transition.
On Wednesday, March 15, at about the 1 p.m. deadline, I visited the site. At the time, there were about six encampment dwellers and 30 – 40 outside supporters, advocates, and members of the media. My team’s focus was on engaging directly with encampment dwellers to see what additional supports were needed and to offer them opportunities to store belongings. There were no law enforcement officials on site and interactions between the encampment dwellers and outreach staff were cordial and productive.
On Thursday, March 16 a little after 7 a.m., I along with the city’s coordinator for homelessness, an outreach staff and a handful of officers, two which are crisis intervention officers trained in negotiation entered the site. Outreach staff were the first to approach the dozen or so tents to identify which ones were occupied and greet those who were still there. Among the tents, only four were occupied – three were individuals who regularly encamped there, and one activist was there in solidarity with them. The three individuals all agreed to leave the site voluntarily. Outreach staff, which later included the COMPASS team, worked with individuals on site and offered support, transportation, storage, and services and stayed with them if they needed. All were, once again, offered an option of a bed in a shelter. One individual accepted an offer of a bed, one said he secured housing with a friend, and one did not share his arrangements.
The activist was arrested for trespassing without incident, and by his own account, was treated respectfully and professionally. There was no “swarm of officers” into the encampment site while the smaller group was working to help the remaining individuals with their transition. Heavy equipment remained at a distance and did not come in until the service team gave an all clear, over an hour after our first engagement with the individuals that morning.
My team and I acknowledge that this displacement can be a vulnerable time for individuals – and that’s why we are committed, along with our agency partners, to follow up intensively with them and continue to offer support and services to those that accept.
Homelessness can seem to be an intractable problem, yet I want to offer an optimistic note: many individuals and families that fall on hard times are, in fact, being helped by hardworking frontline staff –coming alongside them to navigate complex situations and find stable housing. In fact, since the pandemic begin, over 1500 individuals and families facing housing crises in the New Haven area have been housed. For the unhoused, the City of New Haven offers warming centers at night, navigation hubs and drop-in centers during the day with showers and laundry facilities. We also offer shelter beds. At all these locations and in our pro-active engagement across the city, we seek to connect every individual with healthcare, harm reduction services, employment, educational opportunities, and more. In fact, the City of New Haven proudly invests $1.4 million annually into homelessness services.
But we need to — and can do — more, from expanding short-term shelter capacity to more long-term investment in affordable, deeply affordable, and permanent supportive housing. And New Haven cannot do this alone, it needs to be a regional and state-wide effort. On this, I believe we can all agree, and I look forward to collectively working together to making stable housing a reality for more of our residents.
Mehul Dalal is the community services administrator for the City of New Haven.