50 New Homeless Shelter Beds Open In The Hill

Fifty new emergency shelter beds came online in the Hill Friday to help provide a safe, clean, indoors place to sleep for the city’s — and the region’s — rising number of people without a home.

Those beds are located in a single-story industrial building-turned-dormitory at 209 Terminal Ln., just off of Ella T. Grasso Boulevard near the West Haven town line. 

The building is owned by the homelessness services nonprofit Columbus House, and has most recently been used as a winter seasonal ​“overflow” shelter for Columbus House’s main shelter nearby on the Boulevard.

On Friday morning, Mayor Justin Elicker, city Coordinator for the Homeless Velma George, Columbus House CEO Margaret Middleton, Upon This Rock Ministries Pastor Valerie Washington, and a handful of other city officials and social-service staffers announced that the space now has 50 beds that will be open for homeless adults in need between now and the end of October.

The shelter will be open from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. seven days a week, and will be staffed by three employees from Upon This Rock. Adult men and women over the age of 21 years old are eligible to stay there, though they must be referred to the shelter by first calling the statewide social-service hotline 211, The shelter will not accept walk-ins.

The city will be paying Columbus House and Upon this Rock a total of around $128,000 to run this 50-bed site for the next four months, city spokesperson Lenny Speiller told the Independent. That money will come in part from the city’s general fund, in part from its federal pandemic-relief American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) aid.

Mayor Elicker said that these 50 emergency beds add on to a network that, in New Haven alone, already includes 177 emergency shelter beds at four different sites, as well as 37 rooms for homeless families and 105 additional spaces at the city’s warming and cooling shelters.

He added that, according to the region’s Coordinated Access Network (CAN), as of June 30, there are roughly 537 individuals experiencing homelessness in the Greater New Haven region, as well as 90 families. 

“That number is staggering,” Elicker said. 

“It is no secret to everyone here that our nation is struggling with a housing crisis, our state is struggling with a housing crisis, and our city is struggling with a housing crisis.”

Middleton agreed. ​“The problem of unsheltered homelessness is absolutely a crisis in our community and in communities across the country.” 

She said that the number of ​“unsheltered households” in the region — that is, people are who not staying in shelters of any kind and who are ​“literally without a place to slep” — is up to 130. ​“This is a 68 percent increase from the same time last year.”

George said that these additional emergency beds should hopefully provide places to sleep for people who currently seek shelter at night at Union Station. She also praised Liberty Community Services for sending social workers twice a day to the train station to ​“engage the residents there and help them move to a different station in life.”

Washington said that the three Upon This Rock staffers who will be at 209 Terminal Ln. every night will help take each shelter guest’s name and date of birth at the door. ​“We’ll feed them a light snack and drinks,” she said. Guests will be able to take a shower, too. And in the morning, they’ll get coffee, water, tea, and a light breakfast.

While these emergency beds are important and a big help, Middleton said, the root-cause issue here is that ​“homelessness is a housing problem, very clearly a housing problem. And as a community … we must commit to creating enough deeply affordable housing for everyone in this community to have a place to call home.”

In that vein, Elicker said, the city has seen 900 units of new and rehabbed affordable and deeply affordable housing come online over the past three years, with 900 more ​“in the pipeline.” He said the city dedicates $1.4 million from its general fund towards supporting services around homelessness, its expanded winter season warming shelters to be open during the summer with the help of the state, it’s set up a security deposit assistance program for low-income renters, and it’s helped facilitate the creation of more tenants unions and greater use of the Fair Rent Commission.

See below for more recent Independent articles about homelessness, activism, and attempts to find shelter.

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• Parking Chief: Homelessness At Union Station Is A Housing Problem
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