New Haven Independent

James performed the symbolic act at a “ribbon-cutting ceremony” Thursday at 93 Putnam St. The ceremony marked the completion of two new homes on Putnam, in a self-contained stretch of the Hill near the train station known as Trowbridge Square.

The two-family homes were completed on vacant lots thanks to a strategic alliance between neighbors, City Hall, and Mutual Housing, a not-for-profit builder. Working together, they managed to stay a step ahead of speculators responsible for keeping down neighborhoods like Trowbridge Square.

A group called Trowbridge Renaissance has for 10 years worked to bring the historic area (founded in the 19th century as a model integrated neighborhood centered around a green) back from the devastation of the crack and real-estate bust scourges of the 1990s.

Concerned about rundown homes and vacant lots, the group has shown up at auctions of foreclosed properties with tax liens. It has bid against outside speculators. Such speculators have a track record of either flipping properties (sometimes in illegal mortgage scams) or merely soaking them for rents through absentee ownership, in both cases without investing in improving conditions.

Trowbridge Renaissance has beaten out the speculators on 10 properties at these auctions. It turned around and sold the two Putnam Street properties to Mutual Housing, which built attractive new 2,400 square-foot wood-frame two-family homes. They are energy-efficient, complete with front porches and bay windows. (Mutual Housing chief Seila Mosquera is at right in the photo, next to Helen Martin of Trowbridge Renaissance. At the rear is Father Jim Richardson, another stalwart of the neighborhood group.)

Mutual Housing then turned around and sold the buildings to first-time homebuyers, who will live on the second and third floors and rent out their first floors.

The idea is that having owners on site will promote neighborhood stability more than the absentee landlords did. With more a stake in the place where they live, the owners would keep up their homes better and take more of an interest in their surroundings.

The James family is certainly excited about moving in — “excited, anxious, proud, all kinds of different emotions,” Shantell James, a medical secretary, said at Thursday’s ceremony.

While awaiting the move to their new house, the family has been living with the children’s grandmother. She is shown at rear in this photo with Shentell, son Tory and daughter Brittiny. (Missing in the photo but present on the porch: father Otis, a custodian at Yale’s medical school, and son Otis Jr.)

The house cost quite a bit: $275,000. But that figure’s deceiving. It includes a “soft” second mortgage from the city, which the Jameses won’t need to pay back if they stay in the house. They received a lower-than-market interest rate through another affordable-housing program. And the rent from the first floor will help meet the mortgage, too.

One Mutual Housing board member found poetic significance in the fact that the “ribbon-cutting” featured not a ribbon, but yellow construction tape marked “caution.”

“We’ve cut through caution with a bold move forward with affordable housing in New Haven,” he said.