An abandoned corner auto parts store (bottom left photo) at Goffe and Sperry streets will be reborn as a senior housing complex (top photo) as St. Luke’s Episcopal Church sets about improving life in its surrounding neighborhood.
The Whalley Avenue congregation decided it wanted to stabilize the blocks of Sperry, Dickerman and Goffe streets where many of its parishioners live, especially older parishioners. It’s a way for longtime members like William Spruill Jr. to return a favor to a community that nurtured them.
Spruill heads the St. Luke’s Development Corporation, which has secured more than $2 million to launch this 18-unit senior housing project. The group plans in March to demolish the auto parts building, which has been vacant for three years and once housed Dee Dee’s Dance Studio on the upper floor.
“I was confirmed in St. Luke’s Church, believe it or not, in 1947, when I was going to Troup School,” Spruill, who’s 71, said in a conversation in the church basement. “I grew up in St. Luke’s. They taught me a lot here.”
Spruill (in photo) grew up to serve as an affirmative action administrator with the state Department of Social Services. After his retirement in 1997, he decided to keep opening up opportunities for people as a community volunteer. He was an eager recruit for Father Victor Rogers’ call for St. Luke’s to become more involved in the fate of its neighborhood.
“For a variety of reasons, I have been very fortunate in my life,” Spruill said. “Working in the church and assisting in putting together the housing, I feel like I’m giving back. I feel good.”
The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in November approved giving St. Luke’s $2.3 million to build the project. To carry out the demolition and draw up the plans, the church group has attracted several hundred thousand dollars more in support from a host of community organizations: The Greater New Haven Community Loan Fund, Empower New Haven, Yale’s Office of New Haven and State Affairs, Yale Legal Services, the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, UI, the NewAlliance Foundation, and Citizens Bank. HUD required St. Luke’s Development Corp. to set up a separate not-for-profit arm, St. Luke’s Senior Housing Corporation, to oversee this project, including hiring a management firm to run it after it’s built.
The project will be geared to people over 62 years old; rent will be capped at 30 percent of median income. St. Luke’s hopes to begin construction this coming September and finish by the following September.
Unlike some other subsidized senior compexes in town, this one will not mix the elderly with younger disabled people such as recovering addicts. St. Luke’s made that decision after interviewing seniors at other New Haven complexes where the mix has left some tenants fearful of their safety, said Sheldon Rhinehart, the point person for the project as president of St. Luke’s Senior Housing Corp.
The housing development is one of what Rhinehart hopes will be many church efforts to help elderly parishioners. One of his “dreams”: Help elderly widows or widowers on Dickerman Street to rehab their two-family houses and convert them into two-unit condos. He envisions the seniors holding onto one unit while selling the other unit to their children. That way, even if they have to move into assisted living, they can pass along some of their wealth without giving up control of their own financial futures.
Rhinehart (in photo) says he’ll organize a party at St. Luke’s for seniors to celebrate the groundbreaking in March, then more parties as the project reaches more milestones.
The senior housing project at Sperry and Goffe will help people stay in their neighborhood and “live full and independent lives for as long as they are physically and mentally able to” instead of going to nursing homes, Rhinehart said in a pitch to funders.
“St. Luke’s has quite a few seniors. Most of them have been blessed with good health. Seniors in their late 70s, their 80s, 90s. They’re active. They come from all parts of the city,” he said in an interivew this week. “They seem to be thriving.”
At 75, Rhinehart is certainly active and thriving. He’s been a man on missions most of his life. He was a union organizer in the postal service, helping open jobs to both African-Americans as well as whites who lacked political connections. He later became the city’s first black postmaster. He has since retired. Like William Spruill, he continues to have plenty of work to do.