Social Services

On Orchard, Shelter Night Ends, Then School Day Begins

by | Dec 5, 2023 1:03 pm | Comments (4)

Maya McFadden Photos

Orchard St. shelter client Tony Briggs: "Whether it's mats, pads, or the floor, it's better than freezing your ass off."

Career student Aleika Pizarro: The new shelter is "actually a good thing."

Just before sunrise, Tony Briggs stepped out of the city’s newest overnight warming center” at a former school on Orchard Street — roughly half an hour before Career High School senior Aleika Pizarro arrived early for classes right across the street.

Briggs left the shelter grateful for a warm place to spend a cold New Haven night. Pizarro arrived at school with compassion and understanding that all city dwellers deserve a safe place to lay their heads.

Continue reading ‘On Orchard, Shelter Night Ends, Then School Day Begins’

Overdose-Prevention Grant Heralded On Grand

by | Nov 21, 2023 2:49 pm | Comments (25)

Thomas Breen photo

Mayor Elicker (at podium) and regional health leaders on Tuesday.

Roughly $10 million in federal aid will flow to the New Haven area over the next five years to help municipal health departments take a regional approach in combating the opioid epidemic through the hiring of 10 case-management navigators” and the cross-town sharing of overdose data.

This aid comes as the number of overdose deaths in 2022 reached 490 in New Haven county, including 128 in the city itself.

Continue reading ‘Overdose-Prevention Grant Heralded On Grand’

Atwater Thanksgiving Brings Fair Haven Together

by | Nov 21, 2023 11:01 am | Comments (6)

Nora Grace-Flood photo

F.A.M.E. Middle Schoolers from dance Cumbia with their senior citizen counterparts in Fair Haven.

Fair Haven school kids filed into the Atwater Senior Center to keep their senior counterparts company in advance of Thanksgiving — and to dance cumbia with New Haveners like 73-year-old Yvonne Sheppard, who said the celebration was less a loneliness intervention than it was a special occasion among a vibrant city full of friends.

Continue reading ‘Atwater Thanksgiving Brings Fair Haven Together’

Columbus House To Build New 80-Room Shelter

by | Nov 20, 2023 4:23 pm | Comments (19)

Thomas Breen file photo

Columbus House CEO Margaret Middleton: Bracing for “silver tsunami of people experiencing homelessness.”

A leading provider of local homelessness services is tearing down its one-story office space — and building 80 bedrooms in its place in order to better accommodate a changing landscape of unhoused New Haveners.

Continue reading ‘Columbus House To Build New 80-Room Shelter’

Neighborhood Q: How To Spend State Cannabis Cash?

by | Nov 16, 2023 8:28 am | Comments (11)

Nora Grace-Flood photo

Jacqueline James-Boyd at Newhallville meetup: Cannabis cash meant to address "all the issues we have in Black and Brown communities.”

Millions of dollars in cannabis-legalization money are slated to trickle back into New Haven’s neighborhoods most negatively impacted by the War on Drugs — and residents are responding with programmatic pitches to put those funds towards community revitalization, from serving the homeless hot meals to mentoring Black billionaires in the making.

Continue reading ‘Neighborhood Q: How To Spend State Cannabis Cash?’

Youth Shelter Planned, But Not For Hazel St.

by | Nov 10, 2023 12:25 pm | Comments (16)

Nora Grace-Flood photos

Mt. Calvary Deliverance Tabernacle Pastor Robert Smith (right), with Youth Continuum's Tim Maguire: "The community is hurting."

A local homelessness services nonprofit is looking to open the city’s first warming shelter exclusively for young adults — but is still searching for a location after scrapping a Newhallville church partnership in the face of community opposition.

Continue reading ‘Youth Shelter Planned, But Not For Hazel St.’

GED Classes Come To The Q House

by | Nov 3, 2023 2:31 pm | Comments (1)

Maya McFadden Photo

Toni Thorpe, Royce Hatfield, Richard Cowes, Sara Gonzalez, Latoya Armstrong, and Stephanie Paris-Cooper.

Every day last spring, Latoya Armstrong dropped her daughter off for camp at the Q House. 

One day in April, on her way out she scanned a flyer QR code to learn about the programs at the Dixwell community center and found a perfect fit for herself: GED classes by the New Haven Adult & Continuing Education Center.

Continue reading ‘GED Classes Come To The Q House’

Childcare, Early Ed Get $3.5M City Boost

by | Oct 25, 2023 12:50 pm | Comments (4)

Thomas Breen file photo

At Georgia Goldburn's Hope Child Development Center in October 2022.

More early childcare providers, higher wages for those teaching the city’s toddlers, and better help for parents struggling to find the right daycare or pre‑K for their kids.

Those are some changes that could happen here in New Haven, now that the city has committed $3.5 million in federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act to help its struggling childcare system — so long as providers come through with proposals about how to spend the money. 

Continue reading ‘Childcare, Early Ed Get $3.5M City Boost’

EMTs To-Be Learn To Lend A Helping Hand

by | Sep 5, 2023 11:58 am | Comments (5)

Maya McFadden photo

Saving a gun shot victim at the Shack during a Yale EMT training program.

Aspiring Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) Andreanna Adkins, Iijonnia White, and Kimah Davis kneeled down to aid a plastic-dummy gun shot victim” on Elm Street — inside a West Hills community center, as part of their training to save a real life down the line.

Continue reading ‘EMTs To-Be Learn To Lend A Helping Hand’

Metro Class Readies For Restorative Justice

by | Aug 31, 2023 1:00 pm | Comments (3)

Maya McFadden photo

Metro's restorative justice boots on the ground: Connie Catrone, Nyla Johnay Conaway, Briana Harrington, Courtney Maddox, Tienna Guadarrama, Daymary Lopez, and Stephen Staysniak.

In a bid to expand its restorative justice practices, Metropolitan Business Academy has put together a class for the second year in a row that focuses on helping high schoolers learn that there are other ways to deal with harm.” 

Continue reading ‘Metro Class Readies For Restorative Justice’

Unhoused Activists Mourn One Of Their Own

by | Aug 10, 2023 9:05 am | Comments (7)

Nora Grace-Flood photo

A memorial made by passerby on the steps where Petrulis passed this week.

Kaysie Mire felt scared, alone and lost the first time she visited a homelessness drop-in center — until Keith Petrulis, who’d been without housing for two years, took it upon himself to tell Mire, Hey, you’re okay.” He showed her around the space, offered her some snacks, and introduced her to her future boyfriend.

Eight months later, Mire and her partner have secured an apartment and are expecting a child together — while their best friend, Petrulis, is now dead, after his body was found on the State Street sidewalk where he’d been sleeping for the last two weeks.

Continue reading ‘Unhoused Activists Mourn One Of Their Own’

77 Nonprofits Receive $2 Million In Grants

by | Aug 3, 2023 3:48 pm | Comments (5)

The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven’s largest grant program has funneled more than $2 million to 77 local nonprofits — funding programs in Greater New Haven that help kids thrive after school, unhoused people find beds to sleep in, artists create with more financial security, and childcare organizations survive a struggling yet essential industry, among a wide range of services.

Continue reading ‘77 Nonprofits Receive $2 Million In Grants’

Safe-Use Hearing Shines Light On Overdoses

by | Jul 31, 2023 11:48 am | Comments (29)

Nora Grace-Flood photo

Ex-social services chief Mehul Dalal: "There's no secret plan."

Loved ones of lives lost to overdoses stepped out of the shadows and into City Hall to express both support and skepticism towards medically supervised injection and drug consumption sites — and to slam a mayoral candidate’s public opposition to such harm reduction centers as politicizing and polarizing opioid addiction.

Continue reading ‘Safe-Use Hearing Shines Light On Overdoses’

Benefit Brings Cooking & Singing For Child Advocacy

by | Jul 26, 2023 8:34 am | Comments (0)

Contributed photo

Chynna Sherrod, Claire Criscuolo, and Josiah Brown.

Connecticut CASA, a New Haven-based nonprofit organization, submitted the following account of a recent event held on its behalf.

On July 20, Connecticut Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) held a Cooking for CASA Benefit with Chef Claire Criscuolo and a musical performance by Chynna Sherrod. 

Continue reading ‘Benefit Brings Cooking & Singing For Child Advocacy’

Safe-Use Debate Enters Mayoral Race

by | Jul 24, 2023 6:56 pm | Comments (74)

Nora Grace-Flood photo

Goldenberg: "New Haven should not be an experiment for the state."

The Elicker administration is in the early stages of looking into medically supervised injection and drug consumption sites as a local strategy for combating opioid overdoses — while a mayoral challenger is pushing back against those tentative plans as a tactic for bashing the incumbent.

Continue reading ‘Safe-Use Debate Enters Mayoral Race’