Pols Enlist In Church Street South Fight

The head of the Board of Alders Black and Hispanic Caucus vowed to monitor the future of affordable housing at Church Street South, while Connecticut’s two U.S. senators said they’re open to the idea of Congressional hearings into why a federal housing agency allowed a crisis to develop there.

Those were the latest developments Monday in an ongoing housing crisis taking place at the apartment complex across from the train station. More than 50 families previously living there have been moved to hotels because the city found their moldy, leaking, deteriorating apartments unlivable. Officials and Northland Investment Corp., the complex’s Massachusetts-based owner, have committed to moving all 288 families living there at the beginning of the crisis into permanent new homes within the year. A civil-rights lawyer is readying a class-action lawsuit.

Through their spokespeople, U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy expressed initial support for a call by New Haven Mayor Toni Harp for hearings into why the federal Department of Housing of Urban Development (HUD) kept sending millions of dollars to Northland, and to operators of a second failing complex in the city, while the developments fell apart.

Meanwhile, during a meeting at City Hall, the Board of Alders Black and Hispanic Caucus heard about the dire need to prepare for the potential loss of affordable housing in the city once Church Street South is torn down.

The caucus’s chair, Hill Alder Dolores Colon, said after the meeting that she plans to ask her colleagues to support the creation of a task force to monitor the current situation at Church Street South and make recommendations to preserve affordable housing stock. She made the comment after her caucus heard from a Church Street South tenant, Laynette Del Hoyo, whose complaints helped touch off an investigation into conditions at the crumbling complex.

Members of the caucus also heard from New Haven Legal Assistance Association attorneys who sounded the alarm about the danger of the city losing affordable housing once all of 288 families from the federally subsidized, 301-apartment complex are relocated and the existing building is, as planned, demolished.

“There’s been so much urgency and resources consumed establishing how bad the conditions are dealing with temporary location, that something that really has been lost from the conversation has been the long-term future of Church Street South,” attorney Amy Marx said. ​“There are 301 apartments spread over 19 buildings it’s a large site. That’s [potentially] 301 families that depend on what we call brick and mortar apartments — ‑actual housing stock. It’s a project based subsidy: the government pays for the units in that building. The question becomes when that building ceases to exist, which for now it is a functional matter of ceasing to exist, what happens to those 301 brick and mortar units.”

Marx laid out two possible scenarios: someone builds a new project on that site that still includes 301 federally subsidized Section 8 apartments as part of a bigger mixed-income development; or that Northland could transfer its $3.6 million Section 8 subsidy — which is tied to the apartments, not the tenants — to another development and sells the Church Street South property. (Northland has said it wants to demolish Church Street South and rebuild the project itself, with a smaller amount of Section 8 housing.)

Outside of public-housing developments run by New Haven’s housing authority, Church Street South is one of the few complexes in town with three- and four-bedroom apartments, which are in short supply, Marx noted.

“These are viable, decent, important options that would preserve our public housing,” Marx said. ​“We have a fairly serious concern that neither of these two things are being actively pursued right now.”

Members of the caucus — which includes two-thirds of the full Board of Alders — present at Monday’s meeting offered their support in making sure that not only do the current tenants get a fair shake, but that the city’s affordable housing stock doesn’t disappear along with Church Street South.

Colon (pictured) said Hill alders have long been united in a push to maintain affordable housing with apartment that have more than three bedrooms for any redevelopment of the beleaguered complex, and she said they remain united. She now seeks to unite her fellow alders.

“After hearing testimony from one of the tenants and the New Haven Legal Assistance Association, I want to ask my caucus colleagues to form a task force or ad hoc committee that will work closely with the tenants and legal aid to make sure that the tenants of Church Street South are treated fairly going forward,” she said after Monday’s meeting. ​“I hope that the full Board of Alders would support any recommendations of that committee.”

In the letter submitted to the caucus before the meeting, Marx and two of her legal-aid colleagues — who represent over 60 Church Street South families — urged alders to avoid an ​“affordable housing crisis” by insisting that the city and Northland ​“commit to rebuilding 301 units of affordable housing” either at the current site or in ​“an equally desirable neighborhood.” They argued any new mixed-income development built at Church Street South could ​“easily accommodate” all 301 subsidized apartments.

The attorneys argued against allowing Northland to give relocated tenants portable Section 8 vouchers and then be done with any commitment to providing 301 Section 8‑subsidized apartments. Right now Church Street South tenants have ​“project-based” Section 8 rental vouchers from the federal Department of Urban Development (HUD). That means the voucher stays with the apartment, not the tenant, if the tenant leaves. During relocation, HUD is allowing tenants to get portable vouchers instead so they can find new housing with other landlords; and allowing project-based certificates to be transferred to other landlords. The fear is that the project-based subsidies will be lost to New Haven, and with them the guarantee of 301 affordable apartment sin a gentrifying city.

Click here to read the letter.

Senators, DeLauro Open To Harp’s Plea

Meanwhile, Sen. Blumenthal is scheduled to confer this week with Mayor Toni Harp on the Church Street South crisis.

Harp last week, on WNHH radio’s ​“Dateline New Haven,” called for Connecticut’s senators and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro to seek to hold hearings in Washington on how HUD allowed conditions to deteriorate at both Church Street South and another crumbling development, Antillean Manor, even as it was providing landlords with millions of dollars of annual subsidies. Click here to read about that.

“He will speak with Mayor Harp this week, and if that is what she would like to pursue he will support it,” Blumenthal spokesperson Elizabeth Benton informed the Independent when asked about the possibility of hearings.

“If that’s a priority for the city, he’s happy to be helpful,” stated Laura Maloney, spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (pictured).

Republicans, who have a majority in both houses of Congress, would have to call those hearings. However, unlike with other issues in Congress, a Democratic call for an investigation into HUD could potentially cross a bipartisan divide.

DeLauro issued this statement through spokesperson Beverly Pheto: ​“I agree with Mayor Harp that our short term focus at Church Street South is to quickly and safely relocate the residents. That is why I wrote to HUD to approve an additional 100 portable vouchers to help in that transition. They responded by creating a mechanism that will allow all families to be moved expeditiously. I also remain in constant contact with HUD. We recently learned that HUD now plans to have the families moved by Thanksgiving. When the hard work of relocating the residents is over, I will convene a meeting with stakeholders so that we may better understand how we got here and prevent it from happening again.”

Previous coverage of Church Street South:
• Raze? Preserve? Or Renew?
• Church Street South Has A Suitor
• Northland Faces Class-Action Lawsuit On Church Street South
• First Attempt To Help Tenants Shuts Down
• Few Details For Left-Behind Tenants
• HUD: Help’s Here. Details To Follow
• Mixed Signals For Church Street South Families
• Church St. South Families Displaced A 2nd Time — For Yale Family Weekend
• Church Street South Getting Cleared Out
• 200 Apartments Identified For Church Street South Families
• Northland Asks Housing Authority For Help
• Welcome Home
• Shoddy Repairs Raise Alarm — & Northland Offer
• Northland Gets Default Order — & A New Offer
• HUD, Pike Step In
• Northland Ordered To Fix Another 17 Roofs
• Church Street South Evacuees Crammed In Hotel
• Church Street South Endgame: Raze, Rebuild
• Harp Blasts Northland, HUD
• Flooding Plagues Once-Condemned Apartment
• Church Street South Hit With 30 New Orders
• Complaints Mount Against Church Street South
• City Cracks Down On Church Street South, Again
• Complex Flunks Fed Inspection, Rakes In Fed $$
• Welcome Home — To Frozen Pipes
• City Spotted Deadly Dangers; Feds Gave OK
• No One Called 911 | ​“Hero” Didn’t Hesitate
• ​“New” Church Street South Goes Nowhere Fast
• Church Street South Tenants Organize