New Haven Independent

Fellowship Place serves 500 people each year, many of them homeless. People come in every day to wash up, hang out, and through therapy, life skills classes, and job training, get back on their feet. The non-profit agency is also known for its poets, wacky ceiling paintings, and hoppin’ neighborhood festivals.

The center lies behind a cheerily painted Elm Street storefront that used to be a grocery store. The café in front serves grilled cheese and chocolate chip cookies. Other rooms hold a computer center and classrooms for group therapy and arts.

The complex at Elm and Dwight Streets— a storefront building plus a paved back lot with old barns — just isn’t big enough for all the activities, says Director Fred Morrison. Sometimes classes are held in the middle of hallways. And members, lacking a welcoming outdoor hangout, often lounge around on the sidewalk, where they get heckled and don’t have a place to sit. New plans would address those needs with a centralized, modern campus.

“The whole aim is to turn this into a campus walk,” said Morrison. Having people hang out by the street is a “safety issue.” The new plans would “pull them back into more of a village setting, so it’s not so stark.” So members can sit at these picnic tables (pictured) in comfort and peace.

So far the plans have drawn nothing but support. Plans went to the Board of Zoning Appeals Tuesday — for lot coverage and setback variances — without complaint. Alderman Ed Mattison, who directs the South Central Behavioral Health Network, chimed in, calling Fellowship Place an ‘excellent facility’ beloved by the neighborhood. Member David Firestone spoke of how the center “enables many people to better ourselves creatively.” It’s “like a family to many of its members, including myself. It gives us access to many more choices as to what we really want to do.”

William C. Celentano, Jr., sent in a letter of support. Born on that corner in 1931 in what is now the Celentano Funeral Home, he’s watched the block develop through the decades. “I used to go play in the barns back there,” when the Hald family ran a construction company where Fellowship Place is now. He saw the block grow into a full-blown red-light district in the ’80s, with a motorcade of customers circling the streets all night. In 1985, when the area was on the upswing, Fellowship Place moved in.

“They’ve kind of helped us stabilize the neighborhood.” So did the nearby landlord at 260 Dwight who turned a long-abandoned convalescent home into a polished, modernized apartment building. Celentano says Fellowship Place has been nothing but a good neighbor. When a member named Maurice passed away, the Celentanos held his funeral. “He was a gifted poet.” Celentano would like to see his “interesting and exciting” neighbors’ complex revitalized.

The $3 million, five-year project is still waiting for the state bonding commission to approve $2 million towards the project. But Morrison hopes to start the early phases within the month. That means giving this streetfront a facelift, with a canopy and better lighting. The café will be relocated from the storefront to an off-street location. He hopes the barns, which once served as stables for wagon-bearing horses, can be torn down in the summer.