Laura Glesby Photo
Housing activists protest outside City Hall.
Camila Guiza-Chavez and Norm Clement lead the rally.
Fifty people gathered on the front steps of City Hall to call for New Haven to allocate a majority of the $115 million it received in federal Covid relief funding toward affordable housing.
The rally was organized by the Sisters In Diaspora Collective, a recently-formed group of immigrant and refugee women activists affiliated with the local restaurant and job training center Havenly Treats. Members of the Party For Socialism and Liberation, representatives from the city’s Affordable Housing Commission, and other activists joined the rally.
The protest reflected a difference of opinion between the activists and City Hall about how best to use the windfall of federal pandemic relief money: Whether to spread it out in smaller increments to address a wide range of pressing needs, or whether to make a bigger impact on a smaller number of challenges.
The activists called for the city to allocate a total of $62.5 million toward housing: $50.5 million to buy up properties and construct affordable housing, and $12 million to fund stipends for individuals and families on waiting lists for federal Section 8 rental subsidies and public housing.
“We won’t stand for a single person in our community not having a place to sleep,” said Sisters In Diaspora organizer and Havenly staff member Camila Guiza-Chavez. “We have the right to not have to fight to survive … What is government for if not to provide for basic needs?”
Guiza-Chavez stressed that while many rental subsidies require a social security number from applicants, the city should ensure that housing assistance is accessible to undocumented immigrants.
“We’ll never have an opportunity like this,” said Norm Clement, who led the protest along with Guiza-Chavez. “We don’t need more surveillance cameras,” he added, alluding to the city’s decision to spend $3.8 million of American Rescue Plan funding on policing video equipment.
Attendees of Saturday's rally.
Housing should be the primary Covid relief investment, activists argued, because housing is a basic necessity that makes other forms of economic and educational power accessible. Again and again, activists emphasized the difficulty of finding work, seeking healthcare, and earning an education without housing. From Havenly’s role as a job training center, “we know that job training isn’t enough,” Guiza-Chavez said.
A few Havenly graduates spoke up at the rally, saying that while they had obtained jobs, they still struggle to manage high housing costs.
One speaker, who wished to remain anonymous, said that after completing Havenly’s program, she secured a job at the University of New Haven. After she spoke in Arabic, University of Connecticut student Nour Al Zouabi translated her words into English.
“I love my job, but the income I earn is not enough to take care of my family,” the speaker said, a mother of four. If she were to increase her hours, she said, she would no longer be eligible for food stamps. She’s currently number 252 on the Section 8 waitlist — a waitlist she’s been on for five years.
Dina Tareq, whose statement was read aloud by Guiza-Chavez, described a similar experience. “My family applied for section 8 in 2015. Since then no one has contacted us regarding our application. I have called and emailed their office and no one has answered,” Tareq wrote. “Every time I ask them when I will be interviewed, they say they don’t know.”
“Why do we focus on housing? Simply because if we did not have to spend all our income on rent as we do now, then we could use the money we earn to take care of our children,” the anonymous speaker said.
Guiza-Chavez and Siham Osman read a statement Osman wrote: "Housing is important to us because of our children."
Rather than devote a majority of the American Rescue Plan funds toward a particular need such as housing, Mayor Justin Elicker has proposed splitting the funding among a variety of initiatives, including job training, energy efficiency, and early childhood programs. Elicker has allocated $10 million of ARP funding toward an “I’m Home Initiative,” including rent and homeownership assistance, as well as $4 million toward a Land Bank that would acquire and rehabilitate properties.
“We have to balance with many of the other things that we heard in the community input sessions around wealth creation, youth programming, early childhood education, and other program,” Elicker told the Independent after the protest. “If we only invest in one area, we will not be addressing other urgent and significant needs in the community.”
Laura Glesby Photo
Housing Authority Director Karen DuBois-Walton, center, as Nour Al Zouabi prepares to translate.
The Sisters In Diaspora Collective met with Elicker in October to share their message. On Saturday, activists expressed frustration with the meeting, saying they felt unheard. “It all was just speaking and talking, and we did not see any actions,” said one Sisters In Diaspora speaker. “$10 million is not enough for the amount of people that need it.”
Elicker told the Independent that he incorporated the Sisters In Diaspora members’ feedback into his ARP plans. “They emphasized the importance of direct rental assistance to people who are not being supported by the current system, and that is something we took to heart in the proposal,” he said.
The rally came as the state’s Covid rental assistance program, UniteCT, is set to stop processing applications next week. Evictions have been rising, and housing experts anticipate an uptick in homelessness without a comparable rental assistance program.
Jamarr Jabari, a member of the Party of Socialism and Liberation, pointed to the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles. “That can happen here any time.”
Karen DuBois Walton, the executive director of the New Haven Housing Authority/Elm City Communities, told the crowd that her agency has a waitlist of 17,000 families. One third of those families are from outside of the city due to a lack of commitment to affordable housing from neighboring areas, DuBois Walton said. She called on the city to heed the Sisters In Diaspora’s calls, and noted that state and federal government also need to contribute more funding toward housing on a regional level. “New Haven is not keeping pace with the need for housing,” she said.
Clement, a member of the Quinnipiac Nation, noted that “we can’t talk about housing” without talking about how “we are on stolen land.” He took a moment to recognize that settlers forced the Quinnipiac and Paugussett peoples from their homes in what is now New Haven.
What is government for if not to provide for basic needs?
Government exists to provide public goods, i.e., goods shared and used by everyone. These would include things like roads and national defense. Housing is a private good, since dwelling units are by definition not open to anyone in the public, and therefore not a proper function of government. Overall, these folks make a strong argument for deportation of illegal immigrants as they are a burden to others, being unable to provide even their most basic needs for themselves. Immigration should be limited to those who will make a positive contribution to our economy, rather than a burden.
Note, NHI is again pushing Clement's false statements that New Haven is on "stolen land". New Haven was purchased from the Quinnipiac in return for military protection from the Pequots and trade goods.