New Haven Independent

The ground-breaking was for Whalley Terrace, a three-story complex near Edgewood Park where elderly disabled people will have “permanently” affordable homes.

The complex is being built by the corner of Pendleton Street, where the builders just finished demolishing a once-beautifully restored commercial building that was gutted by a fire.

Home Inc. and Columbus House emergency shelter are putting together the new complex. It will have 22 apartments on the second and third floors. Currently homeless low-income seniors with disabilities will live there. Stores or offices will occupy the ground floor. The project is a result of negotiations with neighbors opposing an original plan to house people of all ages at the complex.

The seniors will pay on average $100 to $150 a month, according to Home Inc. CEO Brett Hill. The actual cost of the apartments will be more like $600 to $700 a month. The difference will be made up with federal rent subsidies, Hill said. A variety of government agencies — including the Connecticut Housing and Finance Authority and the state departments of Social Services and Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) — are throwing in money and tax credits.

Several of those agencies were represented at Friday morning’s ground-breaking. The ground-breaking was scheduled to take place at the site, of course. Planners erected a tent because of the rain. But the rain fell harder than expected, flooding local streets and making mud out of the dirt. So organizers shifted the event to a room at Columbus House on the Boulevard.

“We have a nice floor to hammer our shovels into,” Hill (pictured) said.

“This is one of the best examples of collaboration that I can imagine,” DMHAS Deputy Director Peter Rockholtz said when it came his turn to speak. People who work with addicts have come to recognize how important stable, safe, drug-free housing, backed up with onsite counseling and other services, is to the recovery process.