Housing

Re-Entry Experience Sparks Housing Plan

by | Feb 29, 2024 4:19 pm | Comments (6)

Laura Glesby Photo

Ray Boyd at 43 Sylvan, planned transitional home for formerly incarcerated men like himself.

Ray Boyd knows what it’s like to come home after decades in prison without support or guidance on how to rebuild his life.

Two years later, he and his wife Jackie James are trying to provide a better homecoming for others — by transforming James’ childhood home into a transitional home for people re-entering society.

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WWJD? Church Tenants Form City's 5th Union

by | Feb 26, 2024 9:29 am | Comments (13)

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Nora Grace-Flood Photo

Tenants Kenneth Naito, Alex Kolokotronis, James Blau celebrate formal recognition of their new union at the Emerson (pictured at top).

The city’s fifth tenants union has formed, marking the first time New Haven residents have organized formally to bargain with a property owner that isn’t megalandlord Ocean Management. 

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Protest Targets Migrant Worker Eviction

by | Feb 23, 2024 9:43 am | Comments (6)

Laura Glesby Photo

Edgar Becerra protests with ULA outside MDF Painting and Power Washing.

We have human rights,” Edgar Becerra called into a bullhorn, speaking in Spanish. We have a heart.”

He was surrounded by over 25 immigrant rights activists outside the Branford headquarters of his Fair Haven landlord and former employer — who brought him to the U.S. as a temporary worker, allegedly fired him for work-related injuries, and is now trying to evict him a second time.

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Streater Tackles Housing At Street Level

by | Feb 7, 2024 3:33 pm | Comments (20)

Laura Glesby Photo

Alder Streater at the 180 Center, where he works overnight.

Troy Streater turned the key to the Lloyd Street apartment door, walked inside, and inspected the fresh gray paint job he’d recently commissioned so new tenants can move in.

Hours later, he arrived at the 180 Center to make his trademark hazelnut coffee for clients who have no apartment to sleep in.

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Will She Live In "Winchester Green"?

by | Feb 1, 2024 12:46 pm | Comments (53)

Laura Glesby Photo

Carlota Clark at Wednesday evening's open house at Science Park.

A rendering from Pine's presentation: Apartments up to $4,500 a month on Winchester Ave.

As Science Park developers presented renderings of a housing complex soon to rise on Winchester Ave., Carlota Clark wondered if one of the 283 apartments would someday be hers.

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Inspector Seeks The Heat

by | Jan 31, 2024 2:55 pm | Comments (3)

Dazauna Smith shows paint problems in her bathroom to LCI inspector Alvarado.

LCI Inspector Frank Alvarado paced around a frigid Cedar Hill bedroom with a mystery to solve: How could a bedroom have been built without a heating vent?

Another city inspector hadn’t noticed the problem the last time he’d visited the apartment. Now a judge had sent Alvarado back to check again.

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DESK Tears Down Wall

by | Jan 23, 2024 3:31 pm | Comments (7)

Alder Rodriguez makes a dent in homelessness.

Alder Carmen Rodriguez donned a hard hat and struck a sledgehammer into a wall — and urged her counterparts in other cities to break down metaphorical walls as well to support the cold, wet, and hungry.”

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Door Stays Open During Deep Freeze

by , and | Jan 19, 2024 1:40 pm | Comments (18)

Nora Grace-Flood photo

Monique Coleman bundles up inside Varick warming center: “There’s nowhere else for me to go."

Monique Coleman didn’t have to wait in line like usual to get into a warming center Thursday night.

She has a cot reserved for her and a guaranteed roof over her head throughout the predicted deep-freeze weekend — after the governor declared a statewide cold-weather emergency.

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Boss/Landlord Defends Booting Injured Worker

by | Jan 17, 2024 3:03 pm | Comments (24)

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Mark DeFrancesco: I treated tenants/workers well.

Mark DeFrancesco denied that he offered no beds to the 19 Guatemalan migrants working for him and living in one of his houses.

He denied that he deliberately locked out two of those tenants after they got injured at work. 

And he denied that the eviction he has launched against those two tenants is a way to avoid paying worker’s compensation.

I got them a 60 inch TV!” he testified in housing court. Two of them, in fact, he added at his lawyer’s prompting.

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