New Haven Independent

Pickens (on the left in photo) responded to a call to reestablish a “tent city” for a night in order to raise the money to keep the overflow shelter on Cedar Street open through April. The city cut back funding for the 75-bed shelter earlier this year because of the budget crisis. It opened late, in November, and money’s needed to keep it going. (Click here to read about that.)

About two dozen tents popped up on the Green, representing non-profits and city agencies, all raising money so the city could keep its overflow shelter open through the winter.

At 5:30 p.m. on Friday, Kica Matos said the total amount raised had topped $30,000, but money was still coming in.

Gary Spinner runs the Hill Health Center, where many homeless individuals go for care. He’s on the board of Columbus House, the city’s largest full-service program for the homeless. And he’s overseeing a mayorally appointed effort to end homelessness. He compared this city-endorsed tent city to the one ten years ago.

“It’s not a protest, it’s a part of a solution to address, at least for the winter months, that nobody in New Haven should be out in the cold and be homeless in the wintertime without a bed and a warm place to stay.”

Thursday night’s event had a festive air, with food, hot cider, luminaria along the walkways, and entertainment from the stage. Two hundred people mingled around 25 tents that were set up, more as props than for sleeping, around which volunteers were collecting checks to keep the city’s overflow men’s homeless shelter open through the winter. Each organization or city agency was hoping to raise at least a thousand dollars.

Loretta Pickens said she’d been on the upper Green a decade ago, when homeless folks and their advocates spent several weeks camping out for real to protest a previous cut to homeless services. Unlike now, the homeless community and city government were at odds that time.

Pickens danced joyously Thursday night to the drumming provided by Michael Mills and members of the Bregamos community theater troupe — and was keeping warm in the frigid night air. She said she wasn’t sure what was accomplished last time, but said she’s grateful for support any time. She was especially grateful to Jacky Yu (on the right in the photo), who supports the homeless as part of the Agape Church on Orange Street. “She helps us out a lot,” said Pickens. “She does the boots, she does the snowsuits. I thank God for her.” Asked what she thought of the current tent city, she replied, “I think this is very nice. I appreciate it.”

Otis Ritter (pictured) said he came to New Haven from South Carolina in search of work. “The more you go out of state, you make a little more money job-wise, but since the jobs have dropped down, it’s kind of hard,” he said, adding that he’d worked as a landscaper. He’s been homeless since 2004, often sleeping in a tent with a few friends, steering clear of the homeless shelters during warmer weather, where he said there’s fighting and other problems. “So it feels more comfortable and free, sleeping out in a tent, and we’re like family.”

But he said he’d be glad to stay in a shelter during the coldest months of winter, so he hopes the fund raising is successful.

For Tom Ficklin’s photos of the evening, click here.