Homeless Take To The Streets

Cold, rain and a last-minute revocation of their ability to march on the street didn’t keep nearly 200 homeless New Haveners and their allies from rallying for more housing and the decriminalization of homelessness.

Chanting, ​“Housing. Not Jail,” the demonstrators marched through downtown from the intersection of Olive and Chapel streets during the late afternoon Wednesday to draw attention to the critical need for housing in the city. The march was organized by community organizer and homeless advocate Quentin ​“Q” Staggers and the Connecticut Bail Fund.

“We have to provide housing for all because no one should be sleeping on the street,” Staggers said.

Staggers, who had been homeless for the last six or seven years and just obtained a voucher for an apartment, has been sucker-punched in the gut and had trash thrown at him while sleeping outside in New Haven. He told the crowd Wednesday that he’d seen a lot of injustices happen to other people as well who have nowhere to stay. He cited examples:

• Women sheltering in dangerous situations where they are abused and assaulted because they have nowhere else to go.
• Men crowded into a bedbug-infested shelter with only two caseworkers to help dozens of them at a time.
• People being fined and risking jail for relieving themselves on the Green when they have no public bathroom to use.

“And Ray Roberson’s family still hadn’t been healed to this day,” he said of a homeless man nicknamed ​“Bobo” who was found murdered and dismembered in the summer of 2015 in a squatter’s lair off Crown Street. ​“That was risky shelter,” Staggers said. ​“No more risky shelter.”

Staggers called on Mayor Toni Harp and her administration to pursue the transformation of vacant and abandoned property into housing for the homeless. He suggested allowing homeless men and women with certifications in skills like roofing, plumbing, and electrical work to help make those places habitable. He also urged the administration to build new shelters, especially for women.

“They’re homeless but they have certifications,” he said of 61 people that he has identified with skills to do such work. Staggers said he has identified hundreds of pieces of property around the city that are vacant or abandoned that could be transformed into suitable housing for the city’s homeless. He said he has talked with owners who are willing to allow homeless people to stay on their property if they will help maintain it.

City spokesman Laurence Grotheer said in a phone interview that the Harp administration’s commitment to addressing homelessness is ​“ongoing and unwavering.” He pointed to the approximately $1 million that is allocated to addressing homelessness and noted that New Haven has dedicated more resources to providing access to services and shelter than any other municipality in the state.

Staggers called on the city to do more, including stopping police officers from harassing and ticketing homeless people on the Green and in city parks after dark when there is no safe place for them to go. He criticized the practice of offering forced community service or putting people in jail when they can’t pay fines, he said.

Police officers escorting Wednesday’s marchers found that they were receiving an extra level of scrutiny. About a dozen florescent lime green cap wearing ​“legal observers” with the National Lawyers Guild watched police interaction with the marchers and others on the street. March co-organizer Brett Davidson of the Connecticut Bail Fund reminded officers that they were being watched.

Davidson called attention to the fact that just minutes before marchers had been expected to take to the city’s streets, the marchers were informed by Lt. Wayne Bullock that they would be confined to the sidewalk. They were not allowed to march in the street, though their permit indicated it was OK for them to have one car as part of their march.

The marchers soldiered on past people looking out of storefronts and waiting for the bus on Chapel Street, made their way to City Hall and the courthouse on Elm Street and eventually to a community dinner that was held St. Thomas More Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale.

Bealton Dumas, who once worked at a homeless shelter and is now homeless, called on the police and the city to solve the problem of homelessness by caring about people and their plight.

“Let New Haven be the first city to be the most caring and the most loving,” he said.

While holding two fingers apart, almost touching he reminded people, ​“We’re all this close to being homeless.”

Click on the above audio file or the Facebook Live video below to hear the full WNHH FM ​“Dateline New Haven” interview with homeless organizer Quentin Staggers. The interview begins at the 27-minute mark