Housing Activists On New Report: Don’t Forget Homeless

Zoning reform is great. But don’t forget the homeless.

That message is at the center of the Room for All coalition’s to the Affordable Housing Task Force’s final report and 44 recommendations on how to make New Haven a place where low-income residents can afford to live.

The group of local affordable housing activists issued that response on Tuesday, less than a week after the task force voted on its final report and recommendations following half a year of public hearings and deliberations. That report now makes its way to the Board of Alders, which has to figure out which recommendations to turn into law.

Click here to read an article about the task force’s report.

The Room for All coalition’s full response follows:

A STATEMENT TO ALL RELEVANT CITY, STATE AND FEDERAL PARTIES BY THE ROOM FOR ALL COALITION IN RESPONSE TO THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING TASK FORCE REPORT APPROVED ON JANUARY 24, 2019

Addressing the affordable and accessible housing crisis cannot be done without creating homes for and in collaboration with our most vulnerable communities The City must center on those most vulnerable to housing instability. These groups include atrisk youth, people with criminal records, those with very low income, the disabled and the elderly. To resolve the affordable housing crisis, the City must center those most vulnerable to
housing instability: people with disabilities, criminal records, very low income, youth, and the elderly. Generating a wide spectrum of housing options, as the Task Force intends, requires housing interventions and supportive programming built around the distinct needs and obstacles
of these populations. Existing solutions, such as rapid rehousing, are insufficient for the large number of individuals who cannot work or are unable to find employment.

Overview

We write to you on behalf of the Room for All coalition, a group that includes Mothers and Others for Justice, CT Bail Fund’s Housing Not Jails Collective, New Haven Rising, Youth Continuum, Y2Y, Dixwell-Newhallville Watchdog Advocacy Committee, New Haven Legal Assistance Association (“LAA”) and Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven. We are drawing on a wide breadth of community knowledge, lived experience of housing instability, and advocacy and justice work in New Haven to respond to the Affordable Housing Task Force’s Report and Recommendations, issued January 24, 2019. Some recommendations are for consideration by the New Haven Board of Alders, but others must be carried out by other governmental entities in partnership with community groups. The Room for All Coalition is deeply appreciative of the care and expertise evident in the recommendations, and thanks the Affordable Housing Task Force for their commitment to seeking and incorporating public input. These recommendations are just the beginning of the critical process to make actual change.

Housing is a human right and a key determinant of the health and success of a community. Early interventions are especially effective; by committing public resources to housing and stabilizing youth experiencing homelessness, we avert the necessity for more complex and expensive interventions down the line and minimize lifetime engagement with the welfare system and criminal justice system.

Areas for Growth

The Affordable Housing Task Force has issued clear guidance on how the City of New Haven can optimize zoning laws, activate regional and state resources, and promote accountability among developers and landlords in order to expand access to affordable housing. The Task Force has flagged rental assistance, eviction prevention, and tenants’ rights programs to help New Haven residents become housed and remain housed. But, there are several key issues that require more attention.

In its recommendations, the Task Force has recognized that histories of incarceration heighten barriers to affordable housing and has pressed the city to collaborate with partner organizations to address youth homelessness, work that is being undertaken by Room for All Coalition members Housing Not Jails, Y2Y and Youth Continuum.

There are a few areas where we believe the Task Force’s recommendations can be improved.

• We believe that the Task Force’s recommendations would be more actionable if they named directly the community partners needed to bring about progress. We call on all entities responding to the Task Force recommendations to acknowledge the extensive expertise and experience that the Room For All Coalition and other community representatives has contributed to the recommendations. Individual members of the Task Force acknowledged the critical role that community voices played in the development of the recommendations generally. We , we urge the City to name the Room For All Coalition as a community partner in carrying out the recommendations that the Affordable Housing Task Force has made.

• We believe the Task Force should highlight the importance of opening Y2Y in a safe and appropriate location.

• We believe that the Task Force should highlight the importance of adopting the Homeless Bill of Rights and the Resolution to Decriminalize Homelessness.

• We believe that the Task Force’s recommendations would be more impactful if they made firm measurable commitments about housing the city’s most vulnerable, such as those with criminal histories, In the implementation of the recommendations, we ask that actual goals be set for such things as development of specific numbers of units for these populations and setting specific policies that will reduce obstacles to housing these populations.

• The Task Force’s recommendations about enforcement of the current housing code were encouraging and a step in the right direction. However, they failed to address improving the processes through which the city of New Haven issues a citation or order to a landlord and records that citation. A user friendly, publicly accessible source for landlord citations would greatly improve tenants’ ability to hold their landlords accountable.

• We believe the Task Force has missed an opportunity to leverage the knowledge, skills, and community infrastructure in the design of the Affordable Housing Commission as it currently stands. To ground the Commission in firsthand experience, we strongly encourage the Task Force and the Board of Alders to provide that at least five of the members of the Affordable Housing Commission have lived experience of housing instability, residence in subsidized housing, or history in the shelter system.

Conclusion

We urge all the relevant state and city agencies, and legislative bodies to act on the Affordable Housing Task Force’s recommendations with urgency to relieve the financial and social hardships imposed by New Haven’s deficit of affordable housing. We have generated a list of the recommendations that is organized by the entity that can act on the item that can be used as a guide for elected officials and other decision-makers. We also call for an open process with public hearings held after working hours and sustained engagement with the Room For All Coalition and other community partners in the implementation of the these priorities. The City and community have articulated ambitious, shared goals in the realm of affordable housing by working together, and we can only realize them by working together.