Melissa Bailey Photo
On the heels of a “traumatizing” walk through Newhallville, mayoral candidate Toni Harp came to the 10th-floor offices of the Chamber of Commerce to call on the city, local churches, and Yale-New Haven Hospital to pull together to revive the Dixwell Community “Q” House.
Harp (pictured, with supporter Matthew Nemerson in the background) made the plea Tuesday morning at an appearance before the Chamber at 900 Chapel St. Harp is one of five candidates seeking the Democratic nomination in a Sept. 10 primary to replace outgoing Mayor John DeStefano; the chamber has been inviting candidates in for interviews.
Harp’s proposal was inspired in part by a vote-pulling trip to Newhallville on Sunday in which she met with neighbors who feel “under siege by violence on the streets.” Her remarks came as neighbors, cops and property owners grapple with how to improve the neighborhood; click here to read some recent stories about that.
Speaking before a crowd of 20 Chamber members, Harp said she felt “traumatized” by her experience Sunday walking down Division Street, near where two recent murders took place. She described meeting two women who work at Yale-New Haven Hospital and feel afraid to leave their homes because of loiterers and gang members who perpetrate violence and intimidate people in the neighborhood. She said kids in the neighborhood need more constructive ways to spend their time.
She called on Yale-New Haven Hospital to help revive the iconic Dixwell Community “Q” House at 179 Dixwell Ave., which shut its doors in 2003 after serving as a community hub for over 75 years. The city now owns the property; activists have been trying to reopen it for years. Nearby alderwomen have recently been rallying around a new effort to reopen it.
Harp said she had not discussed the proposal with the hospital. Yale-New Haven couldn’t be reached for comment for this story.
She also called on churches to do more. In the same way that Yale makes payments in lieu of taxes, churches, which are also exempt from property tax, need to make greater contributions to the city, she argued.
“This is heresy,” she said, but churches need to step up. “Is it OK for them to sit in a community” and not do more to help people there? she asked.
After a half-hour question-and-answer session, Harp elaborated on her remarks.
She said she was deeply disturbed by Sunday’s walk through Newhallville: “This is no way for people to live.”
Her Baptist faith tradition has a strong sense of mission, she said. She suggested a new mission: Churches need to “adopt a block” of Newhallville and “help us revive our communities.”
“Given the fact that they don’t have to pay taxes,” she said, “we’re going to have to ask them for more.”
Harp called for setting up a new, not-for-profit board that would oversee the revival of the Q House. The city could act as a fiduciary before the group gets its official 501(c)3 not-for-profit tax status, she said. She said the community center could be reestablished, and offer some programming, in a matter of just three or four months.
She said the community center should be in Newhallville, but not necessarily in the Q House building. It could be in one of the schools, she suggested.
“We could find the money,” she said. “We’ve just got to get it going.”
In response to a question about the city’s relationship to Yale, Harp took aim at Yale’s development arm, University Properties, for its management of several properties on Audubon Street. Harp said she has heard complaints that Yale was driving out businesses with high rent.
“Is it really that reasonable to have high rent that creates vacancy?” she asked. “It seems more of a priority [for Yale] to bank some properties than to” have them filled by businesses, she remarked. University Properties couldn’t be reached for comment as of press time.
Matt Nemerson, a former Chamber president who dropped out of this year mayor’s race and subsequently endorsed Harp, accompanied her to Tuesday’s event. In her remarks, Harp echoed Nemerson’s idea of developing the city’s underutilized shoreline.
Harp was the latest in a series of mayoral candidates to appear before the Chamber. Fellow candidate Kermit Carolina (pictured), the principal of James Hillhouse High School, also appeared before the group Tuesday morning
Carolina cited violence as a main problem facing the city — and therefore deterring economic growth. He called for a “gang injunction” that would allow authorities to restrict the movements of alleged gang members. And he called for the city to hire more local cops.
He also criticized the police union for allowing senior members to rack up overtime pay, which then translates to higher pensions. “I don’t want to turn this into a police-bashing meeting,” he said, “but this is one practice that needs to stop.”
Carolina called for the Chamber to partner with high schools to teach kids to start their own businesses.
Henry Fernandez, who’s also running for mayor, spent the morning at police headquarters attending his first meeting of CompStat, the city’s weekly crime-statistics meeting. He is due to appear before the Chamber on July 18 along with fellow candidates Sundiata Keitazulu and Justin Elicker.
This is outrageous.
All this does for me is show...
A) How out of touch Harp is with New Haven. The fact that she needs to be shown around and that she has no idea how people live is enough alone to disqualify her.
B) More of the same "get other people to pay for what we want" bulls%$. Why should YNHH help front a community center in Dixwell? Why always come knocking at Yale's door?
C) Bad management skills! She's at the Chamber of Commerce, with it's president. Why not ask for help making a business plan to help fund Q House, instead of going begging or demanding it?
D) Disconnect with reality. These churches offer up a LOT of services that help the poor in New Haven...soup kitchens, shelters, drub rehab programs. Harp wants to pull money from these churches to run her own programs? That's THE OPPOSITE of charity. These churches can afford to ruin these services because they're not taxed, and they run better programs than the government ever would.
This just impresses on me yet again how Harp is all about taking money from people to give it to others, with no idea how any of this really works. Classic lifetime politician...promise the moon and rely on pressuring people to give you the money rather than creating a real solution. It makes me so sad that she's got so much support.
We don't need a politician in office, we need someone who can solve problems and craft new solutions to replace the old money-shuffling and favor-trading.