New Social Services Chief’s Appointment Advances

The founder and long-time executive director of a Blake Street public charter school is one big step closer to becoming the city’s next head of social services, after winning a vote of support from a key aldermanic committee.

That was the outcome of Monday night’s Board of Alders Aldermanic Affairs Committee meeting, which was held in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall. 

The committee alders voted in support of advancing Mayor Justin Elicker’s nomination of Eliza Halsey to serve as the city’s next Community Services Administrator. She is looking to step into the role after Mehul Dalal resigned from the position earlier this summer for a policy advisor job in state government. City Health Director Maritza Bond served as the interim CSA administrator after Dalal’s departure and before Halsey’s formal appointment. 

Some of the branches of city government that Halsey’s prospective new role oversees include the Department of Community Resilience, the Department of Elderly Services, the Office of Housing and Homelessness Services, and, as of July 1, the New Haven Free Public Library.

“This community means a lot to me,” Halsey said on Monday. ​“I’ve built my life here.” 

The committee’s favorable vote on Monday means that Halsey’s appointment now advances to the full Board of Alders for further review and a final vote.

Halsey was born and raised in New Haven and has lived in the city for much of her life. She told the alders that her first summer job was tutoring New Haven Public Schools students and that she spent much of her 20s involved in community service. Halsey’s first job after graduating from Yale in 2001 was working at Leadership, Education & Athletics in Partnership, LEAP. While working at LEAP, Halsey also joined the Democratic Town Committee where she was mentored by former Hill Alder Dolores Colon and long-time Hill resident Helen Martin-Dawson. 

“I learned the power of organizing and how to engage with residents and listen to the needs of the community, so I am grateful for their mentorship,” Halsey said. 

After LEAP, Halsey joined Public Allies Connecticut, an organization that hosts an apprenticeship program for people between the ages of 18 to 30 and helps them learn about the important work done by nonprofits as well as about how to navigate their careers. Halsey helped launch Public Allies in three Connecticut cities including New Haven and Hartford before moving to the national office. Halsey worked at Public Allies from 2006 to 2013. 

In 2013, she started working in New Haven again, taking over as the city’s director of All Our Kin, an organization that supports family childcare providers in the city. Halsey told alders that one of the reasons for moving to this new role was the birth of her first child, which led her to think a different way about the needs of young people. 

“When my daughter was two, we were looking to navigate the public preschool system and found that was really challenging to do even for somebody who’d grown up in New Haven and felt relatively connected,” Halsey added. ​“So what do you do when you’re an organizer at heart, how do you bring people together? You bring parents together, [you] listen to what the needs are really out of that organizing group.” And so ​“we launched Elm City Montessori.” 

Elm City Montessori is the first and only local public charter school in Connecticut. The school has been open for the last nine years, and has a focus on anti-bias/anti-racism practices.

Halsey told alders that she would bring her experiences from all of these roles, both from her work in Connecticut and across the country to the social services administrator’s job at City Hall. Complimenting Dalal’s tenure in the role, Halsey said that she hopes to build upon his accomplishments and to continue to collaborate with the city’s alders. 

Halsey’s key priorities for the role include supporting the unhoused, investing in early childhood education, and working with seniors. 

She told alders that she hopes to build upon the recent push to secure the 56-room Days Inn hotel at 270 Foxon Blvd., which will be converted into a non-congregate homeless shelter. She is also planning on having a regional approach when working on housing in the city. Halsey added that she hopes to continue to harness American Rescue Plan Act funds and city investments in childcare as the CSA administrator, and she hopes to expand Youth Connect in the role as well. She also hopes to grow the current $1.4 million budget for senior services. 

Edgewood Alder Evette Hamilton asked Halsey what her specific plans for fighting homelessness are in the role. Halsey told alders that she hopes to wrap mental health services into the fight against homelessness in the city as well as build a partnership with developers and organizations that will create affordable housing in New Haven. 

Dalal also spoke in favor of Halsey’s nomination saying that he would not have been able to serve as CSA administrator without the ​“mentorship or support of Halsey.” 

The full Board of Alders will meet to here her nomination on November 9.