Okafor: Homeless Won’t Freeze

The city’s social-service chief said she believes she’s found enough beds to house the homeless this winter — assuming the zoning board says OK.

The chief, Community Services Administrator Martha Okafor, has been working to find extra beds for an estimated 100 or more homeless people expected to need shelter this winter, in addition to all those who already are served by existing facilities.

Okafor has arranged with the Columbus House emergency shelter to operate a 75-bed overflow shelter at the Marchegian Club on Cedar Street in the Hill. That is a block away from the Cornell Scott-Hill Health South Central Rehabilitation Center at 232 Cedar St., where Columbus House operated an overflow shelter in past winters. Hill Health is repurposing that space, so it’s no longer available.

The Marchegian plan requires zoning approval. The Zoning Board of Appeals is scheduled to take up the request at its monthly meeting Tuesday night.

Alison Cunningham, who runs Columbus House, said the overflow shelter could open the following Monday if approval is granted.

Meanwhile, the city has asked Columbus House to operate a ​“warming center” again this winter, to accommodate up to another 50 people. Unlike a shelter, a warming center doesn’t have cots. It offers a space for peple to get out of the cold from 10 p.m. until 6 a.m., drink coffee, chill out, and doze off. Last year Columbus House ran such a center at Church on the Rock on Hamilton Street. Cunningham said she needs to follow through the zoning process for the overflow shelter before concentrating on where to place the warming center, but she endorsed the idea.

The warming centers attract people who otherwise avoid homeless shelters but desperately need to get out of the cold, Cunningham said. ​“We saw people that normally will never come into a shelter. It’s low demand, fewer rules” than at a homeless shelter.

The city has also contracted with Bethel AME Church on Goffe Street to operate a warming center this winter.

Both Cunningham and Okafor said they believe these plans will accommodate the extra demand for winter beds, based on last year’s numbers. Okafor added a caveat: Because other communities don’t house the homeless, New Haven attracts people from all over the region who need shelter. So it’s impossible to know for sure how many homeless people will turn up. She said in cold emergencies the city requests that shelters use cots to make more lodgings available if needed.

“You don’t know how many people will be migrating here. They know we have the resources,” she said.

On Line At Grand Avenue

As officials and advocates have scrambled to find enough beds for the homeless this winter, questions have arisen about why some existing beds have gone unfilled at a permanent shelter, the 75-bed Grand Avenue homeless shelter (called Emergency Shelter Management Services) next to the Farnam Courts housing development.

This summer Okafor’s department cut its annual funding to the shelter from $513,138 to $383,250 because it took a census count and found that many beds were going unused. It was paying for 75 beds a night. Only 50 to 55 were filled on average, she said. (The city has raised concerns about the shelter’s operations for years; click here for a past example. Click here to read about a 2014 protest there.)

Homeless people lining up outside the shelter before it opened one recent day were asked why some people avoid the place. They complained of over-regimentation, lack of compassion, respect, and encouragement, a single hot dog for dinner one night, and an every-night fear of bedbugs. Some also praised the facility.

At 3:40, 20 minutes before opening, 30 men stood in a meandering, unofficial line. Some read papers. Some had bags; some didn’t. They were old and young, white and black. There was a lot of smoking and sharing butts going on.

At 4 p.m. a shelter staffer emerged. ​“Anthony Robertson,” he called out. ​“Anthony Robertson.” No one by that name responded. The staffer went back in, closed the door behind.

James Montz, a former Marine who said he did two tours in Afghanistan, arrived wearing impressively pleated trousers. He said he has stayed here before. He doesn’t like the place at all, he said. Drunken people are a danger, especially during the night, he said. He worries his stuff will be taken.

Several of the men chimed in, in agreement. They criticized the rule that when you arrive with bags, they get stored, and you can retrieve them only in the morning. If you forgot something in your backpack — say, shaving gear or a toothbrush — that was tough luck. And if you didn’t fetch your bags at 7 a.m., when you had to leave, it got thrown out, they said.

Vincent Celentano said that happened to him the previous day. He was fairly calm about it. He acknowledged that there have to be rules. His arms were full of new stuff, including a pair of sweatpants that he picked up earlier in the day. ​“I slept last night in my pants,” he said, and he hoped to sleep in the sweats this evening.

Montz, however, was exercised about the policy of stuff being thrown out. He did some Dumpster-diving, he said, to retrieve some of it.

Celentano (at left in photo), who said he had just come out of a rehab program in Middletown, reflected with some of the other men, fellow graduates of East Haven High, on bad deeds he’s done: ​“The thing I regret [most] is taking my grandmother’s jewelry. Years and years ago when I had a dope habit. I walked out of there with $1,600 of jewelry. I got $1,000 for the diamond.”

The subject of bedbugs arose.

“They are bad,” Celentano said, ​“but they did wrap the mattress. They wash the mattresses, but you can’t leave your stuff here. That’s one of the rules. But what do you do? We have no lockers. What do you do?”

At 4:15, the doors finally opened. Three men were admitted. The doors did not open again for at least another 15 minutes. Celentano and the others said that’s because everyone who enters has to shower. You’re allowed up to six minutes to shower.

As a former Marine, Montz said, he was used to showering in three minutes. He pointed out several large men who didn’t move quickly. Six minutes was not sufficient, Montz argued. He said if you took longer or gave lip, you were told summarily to take a walk.

Several of the men reported that the facility has six showers, only five of which work, and none has a curtain. ​“We’re all men, but this is unfair. You should have some privacy,” Montz said.

As the waiting in line continued, three guys at a time were admitted every ten minutes or so. Some, meanwhile, were leaving, looking red-faced and cleaned up.

Several cars pulled into the driveway adjacent to the shelter plaza. Women emerged bearing large foil-wrapped trays of food. Noticing this, Celentano, who was positive in general about food at the shelter, said he expected to eat well this evening.

The men still waiting said some people hesitate to come to the shelter because they’re asked if the have income when they register — and if so, they’re charged $8 a night to enter.

Anthony Folsom, who said he was just out of jail and two years clean from drugs, estimated that if you could find work at $10 an hour for 40 hours a week, you made $400 a week and after taxes took home about $280 or so.

If you took a bed at the shelter for $8 a night, figuring 31 days a month, that would be $248 a month. ​“That lets you have two or three paychecks to put in the bank,” Folsom concluded.

Another young man joined the circle and disagreed with the criticisms of the shelter. He called conditions ​“much better than it used to be. It used to be buck wild here. Overall it’s cleaner than it was. I wasn’t disappointed.”

At 5:30, Folsom’s name was called. He went inside. He reemerged moments later.

“He threw me out,” Folsom reported. ​“He said, ​‘Go home to your mother!’”

“The way they treat you here is pathetic,” said Montz.

Others chimed in about how the staff had disrespected them — a common word in the vocabulary of the homeless men waiting on this line — at the shelter.

Shelter Director Responds

Okafor (pictured) said she’d heard the complaints about the $8 charge. The shelter is allowed to charge some people the fee if they can afford it, she said. But the shelter is not supposed to charge anyone at all to stay in the 50 beds the city pays for. And many nights there are only 50 or so beds filled. So no one should be charged.

Her staff has inquired about the complaints, she said. ​“That shouldn’t be happening.”

The shelter staff reassured her no one is charged to stay in those 50 beds, she said. ​“We need to collect data” on the shelter’s performance, she added. That will happen as soon as she hires a homeless coordinator on her staff, who’ll perform more oversight of the agencies contracting with the city.

Arnold Johnson, the Grand Avenue shelter’s emergency director, told the Independent that his staff does follow the rules and reserves the 50 beds free for people. ​“People who have high documented incomes” must pay the $8 for other beds, he said.

Johnson said he felt the city’s budget cut was unfair, because he said the shelter beds fill up in cold weather. During the most recent cold spell, the census was already in the ​“high 60s,” he said. Other warmer recent nights saw around 50 people staying there. Even people who paid in advance for beds sometimes chose not to come in on warmer nights, according to Johnson, because they preferred not to have to come in by a certain time, for instance, or abide by rules. A third of the beds could be unfilled sometimes.

Cunningham said that Columbus House’s beds are filled year-round.

In the above video, Johnson explained in 2014 why he wouldn’t allow the media to observe conditions inside the facility during the day before people arrived to stay there.