Housing authority chief Jimmy Miller returned to an elderly high-rise in Fair Haven for a status report three weeks after promising to make life better there. Amid some signs of progress, Ernie Brockenberry (pictured) told him: “These are our last years, and we shouldn’t have to live them in such close quarters with all these people with serious problems — drugs, alcohol, and prostitution. Sometimes it feels as if you take your life in your hands living here.”
A man with a face made happy by being the father of six girls and five boys and through them 10 grandchildren, many of whom want him to live with them, Ernie Brockenberry wants to live on his own as long as his health permits. But with conditions at Matthew Ruoppolo Manor on Ferry Street, well, he is just not happy, he said during the visit Wednesday from Miller, executive director of the New Haven Housing Authority (HANH).
“Everybody knows what goes on here, including the mayor. All those people act toward us as if they aren’t going to get old themselves. It’s just not right,” said the the genial 66-year-old, who had a construction business in New Haven.
Three weeks ago Miller came by Ruoppolo to visit Brockenberry and the other tenants. One of three high-rises housing a sometimes volatile mix of both elderly and disabled people, on Ferry Street south of Lombard, Ruoppolo had graffitied walls, chipping paint, the doors propped open permitting non-resident intruders to enter after climbing over the too-low stucco fence of the backyard, after which they perhaps squat illegally in an apartment.
And these were only the most visible signs that Ruoppolo was not passing Miller’s test: “I was raised by two powerful black grandmotherly figures, whom I adored, and I would not have brought them to Ruoppolo and certainly not let them live here. My grandmother and our residents deserve secure, clean, pleasant surroundings, and this was not it,” Miller said.
On Wednesday afternoon, some three weeks later, Miller returned. It wasn’t quite like MacArthur returning to the Philippines in World War Two. The problems of nuisance tenants, abuse of drugs and alcohol and even prostitution were not vanquished. But the walls and doors of the 114-unit building were freshly painted, the floors waxed, the elevator fixed.
Some three dozen people gathered in the sun-filled community room for Miller to hear what residents thought of the make-over and to introduce to them HANH’s new team that is determined to build on the effort.
These two tenants, who preferred not to give their names, echoed Brockenberry that drugs and prostitution unchecked are still their biggest concerns.
“I apologize to you,” Miller said to them and those assembled for Ruoppolo’s monthly Tenant Residence Council meeting. “No one should have to live under the conditions you were living under. And it will continue to improve.”
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In a continuing shift in HANH’s business model from being solely property managers to case managers of people in their buildings, Miller introduced HANH’s new staff: (from right to left) Cheryl Leeks, director of operations; Karen DuBois Walton and Sheila Bell, deputy directors of HANH; and Cheryl Cooper, the residence manager.
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Perhaps the two most critical people in the lives of Ruoppolo residents are Monica Wolfork, Ruoppolo’s property manager, and Michael Johnson, program director the building’s support service for Cornerstone, a health care provider that provides intensive social work services to 25 of the building’s most troubled residents. Pictured here with five-year resident Yolanda Daniels, who pronounced the place “much better,” Wolfork fielded complaints ranging from the trash chutes being clogged up, the Dumpsters overflowing, smoke from a non-smoking area drifting up and irritating badly allergic residents; there was the ongoing problem of the lobby bathrooms being locked at night because people were using them as rendezvous for sex, and the graffiting of the fourth-floor hallway.
p(clear). Wolfork took names, and numbers, and vowed dedication and follow up. Michael Johnson was at pains to point out that Cornerstone, while its contract with HANH allows for only 25 of the most difficult cases to be managed, it provides a wide range of services for the entire building. These include helping residents, especially the frail or confused elderly with the sometimes daunting paperwork involved in social security, SSI, and other applications for benefits, including recertification for HANH itself, which occurs every year. “We also organize dances and birthday parties,” he said.
p(clear). Miller was especially irate about the graffiting of “my paint job.” When someone said they could identify the person, a kid, Miller said, “Give us the name and I vow to you we will evict him.”
p(clear). “But he doesn’t live here,” someone said.
p(clear). “Then the family that his harboring him is in violation of their lease. The HUD lease says you can have a family member stay for 14 days, and no more. People must abide by their leases. Give us his name, as well as the name of the person on the fourth floor who is smoking crack, and we will deal with that. I promise you.”
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And what did Ernie Brockenberry think of all this?” “You’re just providing a temporary fix,” he said. “Like the elevator. The problem is elderly people living here with these other people. That’s not the way it should be.”
p(clear). “I’m sorry,” Miller answered him. “HANH didn’t make those rules. In the 1970s, the decision was taken to mix populations [ the elderly with younger people classified with disabilities, including drug problems]. If you’re 62 or over and want to live an elderly-only development, HANH has three— Katherine Harvey, Constance Baker Motley, or Newhallville Gardens. If you go to your property manager, Monica, she’ll help you make application.”
p(clear). Miller, who is coming up only on his first anniversary at HANH, exudes a missionary zeal about the shift in HANH. “These are people like everyone else. Only they’re poor. And the concentration in which they live is the reason why we have so many problems. Densely packed in a building, like Ruoppolo,” he said, “in apartments of about 500 feet square, which is not enough, really explains everything. That’s why we don’t do any of that concentration anymore; what a mistake, we learned. Here at Ruoppolo we must deal with that mistaken approach, and we are.
p(clear). “Look around at all the diabetes too among these minority people. We have to do more about exercise, about creating opportunities for that, and that’s why we have brought and are bringing more social work capacity on staff. So people can medical and psychological care. We make the buildings safe, we build up the size of that wall out there on the perimeter and do all the security enhancement that John [Prokop, head of HANH security] told people about, and then we enhance the life of the residents”
p(clear). So that it would be good enough for Jimmy Miller’s grandmother? “Exactly,” he said.
p(clear). And did Ernie Brockenberry ask Monica about transferring to another development?
p(clear). “I’ve got two applications already in my car,” he said, while eating a chocolate chip cookie and waiting for the elevator to go back up to his room. “I haven’t gotten around to deciding yet.”
