While New Haven was finding homes for all its chronically homeless veterans, the number of homeless young women with children was growing. Winter arrived; young families slept in motels, cars, in one case an unheated back porch. That family included a seven-month-old baby.
That was the situation in January. Two hundreds families were on a waiting list for shelter. It took four weeks to make it to the top of the waiting list and get help.
Fast forward three months. The number of families on the waiting list has now plummeted from 200 to 26. The waiting time has dropped to one week.
An agency that runs homeless shelters focused on women and children — New Reach — oversaw that successful effort with the help of around $100,000 in grant money from the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven and the state Department of Housing. It hired an outreach worker, helped people with security deposits and first months’ rents, set up ongoing assistance to prevent them from falling back into homelessness.
It was the latest example of how New Haven homeless agencies have worked together toward a goal of wiping out chronic homelessness — meaning people who go months or years without homes. The city (and state) have reached a goal of ending chronic homelessness among veterans. By the end of the year New Haven is working toward a goal of wiping out chronic homeless for single adults, period; 128 chronically homeless individuals remain in town at last count.
Meanwhile, the remaining face of homelessness in New Haven has become that of a woman under 24 years old with young children, said KellyAnn Day, who runs New Reach.
Day spoke about the successful three-month effort as well as broader trends in addressing homelessness, on an episode of WNHH Radio’s “Dateline New Haven.” She was joined by Steve DiLella, who worked on homeless issues as a staffer with the state Department of Housing. Click on or download the audio file at the top of this story to listen to the full show.
