New Haven Independent

Winters has served as director of the housing authority, which manages New Haven’s public-housing projects, on an interim basis since a scandal (number umpteen for the agency) drove out her predecessor. She considered seeking the job permanently. She said she concluded that she couldn’t juggle running the agency with her private architecture job at the Fair Haven-based urban design firm Zared Architecture, of which she is one of two principals. People had told her that at least one of her predecessors managed to maintain a private legal practice, but Winters found the demands of the housing authority job a full-time proposition. She also concluded that she would have “way too many conflicts of interests” because of private clients who also do work for the authority.

“I really enjoyed working with people” at the authority, she said in a conversation at the Wednesday lunch-hour 10th anniversary celebration of the Community Fund for Women & Girls, at the Omni ballroom. “But my heart is in urban design.” She obtained her architect’s license in September.

Winters said 33 applicants sought the permanent job at the housing authority. The authority conducted six interviews, from which it drew the two current finalists. She declined to name the finalists.

Winters said she hopes the new person will be in the job, and she’ll return full-time to Zared, by the new year.

Her successor inherits an agency plagued by budget cuts, rundown projects, the legacy of corruption scandals, and a pressing need for new buildings. Some 1,800 families and individuals are currently on a waiting list for public-housing apartments in New Haven. It’s a pressure-cooker of a job.

“We’re getting less money each year from the federal government to do more work. And we have an aging housing stock,” Winters observed. “Without the financial support, it can’t happen as quickly as it should. I’ve learned that we as a community have a long way to go in terms of providing affordable, decent safe housing to the people most in need. It’s really going to take the cooperation of government, private enterprise and community leaders to make it work.”

The authority is in the process of trying to remake some of its older projects into less dense, more diverse communities. The plans are proceeding at Quinnipiac Terrace and Rockview, but a long-awaited plan for the Brookside projects has been put on hold.

Before forming Zared, Winters served as head of city government’s Livable City Initiative. Like the housing authority, LCI has seen its share of scandals. At both agencies, Winters managed to avoid scandals.

Winters was asked to name a good day she had as housing authority chief.

“I had a good day. What day was it?” she asked aloud. Then she remembered: In June, shortly after she took over, the authority rededicated the Constance Baker Motley Homes on Sherman Parkway. It was shortly before the civil-rights pioneer for whom the project was named passed away.