nothin Fighting To Save Home, Mom Adds Voice To… | New Haven Independent

Fighting To Save Home, Mom Adds Voice To State Of City”

Markeshia Ricks Photo

Gloria Council and her daughters Deja and Courtney.

Helping New Havers find decent, affordable housing and fight predatory lenders took center stage during the Board of Alders Black and Hispanic Caucus’s annual State of the City” address.

Furlow and Colon delivered a joint state of the city address.

Caucus members Hill Alder Dolores Colon and Beaver Hills/Amity Alder Richard Furlow tag-teamed the address at City Hall Monday night. They addressed the shortage of affordable housing in New Haven as well as the continued press for jobs for local residents with the city’s major employers and the need to fight childhood hunger.

Read their address here.

Westville resident Gloria Council, who was invited to speak as part of the address, held the full aldermanic chambers riveted as she talked about how being hit by a truck ended her long career working for the state as a psychiatric nurse. She bought her home on Yale Avenue back in 1994 by working overtime and saving.

I raised two daughters in that home and was proud to be a homeowner in a beautiful neighborhood,” she said. But losing her job and trying to navigate the red tape of disability payments and worker’s compensation ultimately put her behind on her mortgage. During that time, she also was diagnosed with stage-three cancer. Her mortgage company foreclosed on her house while she was in the midst of chemotherapy.

In what she saw as a half-hearted attempt by the mortgage company to help her keep her home, she was sent a mortgage modification that did nothing to lower her interest rate and extended her home payments to 40 years. She received that offer on a Friday; she was given until the following Monday to sign it or be evicted.

I had one weekend to decide and no opportunity to get a professional to consult with,” she said. I had a daughter to take care of and nowhere else to go, so I signed the agreement.”

That was in 2014. Her house ended up back in foreclosure because she couldn’t sustain the plan with no income.

I’ve got tens of thousands of dollars in equity still built up in this house from years of steady payment,” she said. I’m still at risk of losing it even though I will soon have an income from disability payments. I’m not asking for a handout. I only want my mortgage company to treat me fairly and not use my personal misfortune as an excuse to try to seize my house and drain my savings.”

Furlow.

Furlow said that quality, affordable housing is part of what it means to have a healthy community, and every New Havener deserves access to quality housing. He identified three barriers that keep residents from better access to decent housing: mortgage loan servicing companies like the one Council described; a lack of truly affordable housing, and the amount of substandard and blighted housing in the city.

He pointed out that foreclosure had been initiated on more than 700 homes in the city last year; more than 200 New Haven families lost their homes to foreclosure.

Last year there were more foreclosures initiated against homes in New Haven than any other city in the state,” he said. We need to ask: Are residents being pushed into foreclosure when it could be avoided? Can we be doing more to help people keep their homes — homes that are a key part to building up savings and wealth in our community? The answer to these questions is yes. This is a crisis in our city.

It points to the need for ongoing government support for mortgage modification, more regulation of mortgage servicing practices at the federal and state level, and more scrutiny of companies engaging in foreclosures,” Furlow added.

He also cited the crisis at Church Street South, where unlivable conditions have forced officials to scramble to find new homes for close to 300 families because of unlivable conditions.

Battles Won, War Rages On

Jose Soto went from underemployed to hired.

The Black and Hispanic Caucus also called for more progress on linking New Haveners to living-wage jobs. Working with local unions and activists, the city was able to get a written commitment from Yale University to not only hire 1,000 New Haven residents over the next three years, but to make sure half of those hires come from neighborhoods of need.

Mayor Toni Harp put the city on the bubble about practicing what it preached to local businesses when it came to hiring, and Jose Soto has benefited from that. He spoke at last year’s Black and Hispanic Caucus state of the city. With the help of the placement service New Haven Works, he was able to get paid, on-the-job training with the city, and temporary work at Yale. He now has a permanent position with the city providing IT support for various departments including police and fire.

I am happy to say that I can finally breathe again, not having to worry where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing the following week,” he said at Monday night’s speech. A great weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I can now look at my kids with confidence and say, Yes, I can get that for you.’ Now, I can make plans. I have choices. And I can save for retirement.”

Colon.

Colon said the city is grateful for Yale stepping up, and called for Yale-New Haven Hospital to do the same. (Yale-New Haven says it already hires many local people.) She said other wins for the caucus and the Board of Alders have included two successful elections of non-voting student members to the Board of Education; the continued push for violence prevention tools such as mentorship and job training; and the forthcoming construction of the Dixwell Q House and The Escape teen center.

With these two important facilities coming into our city, more young people growing up in New Haven will have a better chance at a good quality of life,” Colon said.

But she said the city has to dig deeper into addressing the problem of child hunger. Thanks to canvassing, the city’s Summer Meals Program was able to provide more than 42,000 additional free meals to children throughout the city. The success of that effort resulted in the city being chosen to receive money that allows it to serve dinner at four out of five centrally located schools during the school year. The fifth school will start in the next couple of week. And the caucus has committed to doing another citywide canvass in June to remind people about the summer program.

The Black and Hispanic Caucus will work to make sure that every hungry child can get dinner at a school near where they live,” Colon said. The caucus will not stop pressing on the issue until all five sites are open for dinner.”

I imagine a New Haven in which everyone has access to a good job and a decent home, and our young people grow up feeling fully supported, with a big vision for their future,” she added. We are calling on all of the stakeholders in our city to step up, and do more to achieve this reality.”

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