Church Street South Getting Cleared Out

A community that existed for nearly a half-century will soon disappear, as officials announced plans Wednesday to move all families out of the Church Street South housing complex and probably demolish it.

For tenants like Pablo Batista, that can’t happen soon enough.

“In a year,” said Mayor Toni Harp, she expects all the families in Church Street South ​“to be out.”

“It’s a nightmare. Something should have been done years ago. I’m really happy that the people who are in buildings that are uninhabitable will have a place to move.”

That process is to start immediately. The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) — which reimburses the complex’s owner, Northland Investment, for all the rent payments — has agreed to make vouchers available for potentially all the families living there to move elsewhere. The details of how that happens — important details — remain to be worked out.

Meanwhile, the city has identified over 50 families already whose Church Street South apartments are unlivable because of mold infestation, leaks, crumbling staircases and porous roofs. Northland has been putting some of them up at hotels. Officials said those families will get the first new vouchers to move.

“This a staged 100 percent relocation,” stated Northland Chairman Laurence Gottesdiener.

“We will repair the buildings that people are living in to make sure they are safe. We will try to relocate residents, if possible, into the best buildings and best units. Once we relocate all the families, we will demolish the existing buildings. “

Wednesday’s announcement reflected a dramatic step forward in a controversy that had been stalled for years: the decrepit conditions at the 46-year-old subsidized concrete-clustered 301-unit apartment complex across from Union Station.

City and federal officials were at a stalemate for years on efforts either to repair the place, or knock it down and build something new.

Then, in recent months, New Haven legal aid lawyers representing over 50 families (at last count) took Northland to court. Ensuing publicity helped convince HUD, which had previously approved payments for apartments that city inspectors had deemed uninhabitable, to make it possible to move families out.

It hasn’t technically been decided whether any buildings at Church Street South will be repaired in the short term to keep some families there. The city has been condemning dozens of apartments, ordering emergency repairs to others, and demanding that Northland repair or replace 17 out of 19 roofs at the complex. (Watch a water-logged ceiling come apart in city inspector Rafael Ramos’s hands in the above video.)

“I don’t know if they’re repairable” at all, Harp said Wednesday about the property, echoing previous remarks by Northland Chairman Gottesdiener.

Technically, HUD has made available ​“pass-through” leases for Northland to use to relocate tenants in new ​“temporary” apartments elsewhere in the area. HUD uses those pass-throughs in emergencies — like fires or hurricanes — with the expectation that families will move back to their original homes once they’re repaired.

But those pass-throughs don’t have time limits; they can last year. But they’re not permanent homes for the families. HUD has urged Northland to simultaneously accept ​“Section 8 (bb)” vouchers, which are permanent ​“project-based” certificates that require to Northland to find either new construction or existing buildings whose owners want to take over a 20-year commitment for large numbers of units. That means that the new apartment where a family moves has a HUD Section 8 subsidy; if the family moves, the subsidy stays at the apartment.

Gottesdiener said Northland agrees in principle with that plan. All parties agree the permanent Section 8 (bb) vouchers are the desired long-term solution, but pass-throughs are needed in the interim to get the process started. Once the 8 (bb) vouchers become available, tenants get to choose between accepting them or taking portable Section 8 vouchers.

“Northland has expressed their intent to pursue the Section 8 (bb) with the intent of having all of the tenants at CSS relocated in a phased manner. This process will take some time to accomplish,” stated HUD spokeswoman Rhonda Siciliano. ​“Right now everyone’s focus is on finding suitable apartments to begin moving tenants to.”

Therein lies a huge challenge.

Where to find 280-plus subsidized apartments in short order — including some with four or five bedrooms?

The Housing Authority of New Haven has agreed, at Northland’s request, to oversee that process: screen tenants, find out what they need, try to match them up with landlords.

Meanwhile, Northland Wednesday enlisted a local attorney to start making inquiries to landlords.

Pike International, one of the city’s largest landlords, agreed ​“immediately” to house 30 Church Street South families, including 18 at a complex at 1314 Quinnipiac Ave., according to the firm’s principal, Shmully Hecht.

Juan Salas-Romer, another major city landlord, also was contacted.

“We have 14 apartments in the next 90 days that could be made available for families at Church Street South,” Salas-Romer said. The apartments are in Fair Haven, the Hill, and West River neighborhoods.

“Our first priority at this time is the health and safety of all the families,” Northland stated in a vague release issued Wednesday. ​“Today, we learned that another 25 to 30 families will need to be relocated and Northland will begin to process those transfers immediately.”

Amy Marx, the legal aid attorney who forced the government’s hand, said Wednesday the plan to move out all families ​“makes sense” but at this point leaves out crucial questions such as:

• What if not enough apartments can be found soon? What will happen to the families?

• Will their new homes be close enough to jobs or public transportation, or their kids’ schools or to relatives?

• Will the new apartments have enough bedrooms for larger families?

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who asked HUD this week to make more vouchers available to move families, issued a statement calling Wednesday’s developments ​“encouraging.”

“Right now, our priority must be with the families who have been dislocated due to condemnation and those who are at serious health risk. I stand ready to support these efforts in whatever way I can. The families of Church Street South deserve nothing less,” DeLauro stated.

Another set of huge questions come next: What kind of mixed-use, mixed-income development will replace Church Street South? Will Northland build it, as it would like to do? (Mayor Harp said she is hesitant to say yes given the company’s track record managing the property.) How much affordable housing will a new development of, say, 800 to 1,000 apartments include? City officials are pressing for 30 percent.

But for now all focus is on a migration mini-crisis of sorts, the movement of up to almost 300 families who have no safe place to live.

Good Riddance

If Church Street South is indeed demolished and rebuilt into beautiful mixed-income apartment buildings, Laynette Del Hoyo said, she would never move back.

By then, said Del Hoyo (pictured), she hopes to be far away, ideally in sunny Florida where she can play outside with her children year round — and where the mold currently growing in her bathtub will be a distant memory.

In the past discussions have assumed that many or most families would want a ​“right of return” to a new Church Street South.

That wasn’t as clear in new interviews with families awaiting word on their fate.

Families interviewed offered varying answers about whether they want to live if their former homes are ultimately demolished. Some see a move out as a permanent escape ticket — in the case of Del Hoyo, all the way to Florida. Others wanted to hop over to West Haven. Wherever they go, officials said they’re committed to keeping some affordable housing at a new Church Street South and in preserving the total number of subsidized apartments somewhere in the area.

All the families interviewed said they wanted city and federal agencies and Northland to come to an agreement soon: they’re tired of waiting.

Del Hoyo motioned to her six-month-old daughter’s nebulizer in the shape of a puppy with a green mask attached. She wakes up at least once a night to the sound of her daughter’s dry cough and rushes to administer her asthma medicine.

(Click on the below file to hear her talk about moving her family to Florida.)

She said she hasn’t slept more than a few hours a night in at least a month. But she decided not to move to a hotel, not trusting Northland with her home and apartment. One day in late August, she went home from work to find her door unlocked, but no repairs had been done.

“I don’t want to leave the comfort of my home,” she said. ​“I know how sneaky they are.” She said she doesn’t believe a Northland-owned mixed-income apartment building would have room for every former Church Street South tenant wanting to move back. (Northland has said it would like to build the new complex; Mayor Toni Harp said she hesitates to agree to the idea because of the company’s record at the complex.) But the tenants should have priority for apartments at a new Church Street South, Del Hoyo said.

She said she would prefer a portable Section 8 voucher, which HUD has already said it will eventually make available for at least 50 families to use at other apartments in town (after an initial phase in which tenants get the pass-throughs). Northland currently receives $3.7 million in Section 8 rental subsidies from HUD. HUD is expected to approve many more than 50 vouchers in the end, possibly a full 288.

HUD inspectors began the re-inspection process for all Church Street South apartments Tuesday.

Though Del Hoyo has family members in Hamden, she wants to move down South — and convince them to move with her.

Del Hoyo got pregnant when she was 18, ​“a baby with a baby.” She moved in with her cousin in Church Street South when her son was two years old out of desperation. Now she’s a receptionist a medical office in Fairfield but she finished school to be a paralegal in 2014.

“I don’t want to be in a minimum wage job all my life,” she said.

The main challenge standing between her and a higher-paying paralegal job: more than 200 hours of practical experience. Recently, one of the clients at the medical office offered her an opportunity to knock out some of those hours at his criminal law firm.

By the time Church Street South is razed and rebuilt, ​“my career will be set and I won’t be low-income anymore,” she said.

Yomaly Rivera, too, is hoping to use a Section 8 voucher to get out of New Haven, but she can’t go too far. She shares custody of her children with their father and has to stay in state.

With five kids, the main concern is space. She and her five kids have been living in one room at Premiere Hotel & Suites, sharing the two beds and couch. When they don’t have school, her older children head back to wander around Church Street South, bored and cooped up in the hotel.

A former machine operator, Rivera now works in in-home nurse care, a ​“more stable” occupation. She wakes up early in the mornings to get her kids breakfast and get them on the school buses, before driving to work.

Rivera has been on the wait list for Section 8 housing in West Haven for eight years. She is still at around 200 on the list. Her priority is finding a quiet home, with good schools for her children. (Listen to the audio file above to hear her talk about this.)

“If they give me Section 8, I will look for a house so my kids could have a yard to play,” she said.

Like Rivera, sisters-in-law Roxanne Bleau and Natalie Gonzalez want to head to West Haven. Bleau grew up there, down the street from the beach, and remembers it as ​“peaceful and quiet.”

In contrast, ​“New Haven is just like …” Bleau began.

“… ghetto,” Gonzalez finished. But she said she would move back if Northland or the city rebuilt the apartments. ​“This is where my kids grew up,” she said.

Bleau applied to move to Church Street South in December 2009, because she didn’t know of any other subsidized housing nearby. Now both households have both been evacuated to the same hotel, Premiere Suites on Long Wharf.

Both spend their days searching for local retail jobs. Bleau worked at Stop & Shop in North Haven, but had to quit because the bus schedule didn’t align with her work schedule, she said (proof of the results of this NAACP?Data Haven study). The last bus left for New Haven at 9:57 p.m., but her shift ended at 10 p.m. (Listen to the below audio to hear them explain the job search.)

Bleau is looking for a job that will allow her to work at night so she can take care of her four children and her appointments during the day. Her sister watches her children at night.

“Whatever job comes first,” they will take, said Gonzalez, who is caring for four children as well as a fiancee who has pneumonia.

They own almost nothing, because the mold ruined most of their furniture and larger possessions. ​“My kids’ beds are all gone,” Bleau said. ​“I had to throw away four to six bags of clothes.” Wherever they move next, they will have to start over, they said.

For Pablo Batista, who is 61 years old and on disability, the priority is being close to the train station so he can hop on a bus or train or taxi anywhere he wants. His girlfriend lives in New York and he frequently visits her there. He speaks Spanish and little English.

Batista wants to stay nearby but does not want to live in Church Street South until it is rebuilt. He would also consider living in Stamford, because it is ​“populated” and provides easy access to New York, he said. Batista fell down two flights of stairs 14 years ago and suffered brain damage. He has trouble with his memory.

Living close to the train station, he can get on a bus to go to the medical clinic.

All his family, including his father, his children and his grandchildren, are in the Dominican Republic, where he left them for the United States 27 years ago. When Batista made enough money after several years, he tried to bring his kids over to Connecticut, but he said their mother didn’t want to go and they wouldn’t go without her. (Listen to him talk about family and transportation in the below translated audio file.)

Now his sons want to come over, but he can’t afford to bring them over unless they agree to get jobs once they are here. The Dominican Republic is no longer his home; New Haven is. Eventually, once he gets U.S. citizenship, he will go see his family for a few months. In the meantime, ​“I live here,” he said.

Previous coverage of Church Street South:
• 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