Laura Glesby photo
Alders recess as U-ACT protests at City Hall.
Should a nearly $5 million federal grant fund a couple dozen affordable housing units, or more humane infrastructure to help the city’s unsheltered residents survive the perils of living outdoors?
Elicker Administration staff pitched a plan to alders on how to use that money to chip away at the root cause of housing insecurity. They were countered by a group of activists and nonprofit leaders calling for more attention to the immediate, life-or-death needs of New Haveners living outside.
The grant at the center of debate is the HOME-ARP program, a $5 billion portion of the American Rescue Plan administered by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. HOME-ARP funding can be used to provide “housing, rental assistance, supportive services, and non-congregate shelter,” per the program’s description.
New Haven has been assigned $4.85 million of that funding. The city now has to submit a spending plan application, with the Board of Alders’ permission.
The city’s Community Services Administrator Mehul Dalal, Department of Community Resilience Director Carlos Sosa-Lombardo, and Anser Advisory consultant Nicole Lambert presented a planned breakdown of the funding at a joint meeting of the Community Development and Human Services aldermanic committees on Wednesday night.
The joint committee unanimously voted in favor of a resolution permitting the city to “apply for,” “accept,” and “execute” the grant — although alders and city officials had different interpretations of what exactly the committee’s favorable recommendation meant.
Carlos Sosa-Lombardo.
The city is proposing to allocate $4 million of the grant toward the development of “deeply affordable housing”; just over $500,000 toward “supportive services”; and $350,000 toward the administrative costs of implementing the funding. (Click here to read more about the city’s proposal.)
Once that budget is finalized and approved by HUD, the city would accept proposals from local organizations to use the funding for specific projects.
“This plan is by no means a silver bullet that will solve it all,” said Sosa-Lombardo. “However, we’re here tonight because it’s very important that we gather input that can be incorporated into the plan.”
"The Emergency Is Tonight"
Tyrell Jackson calls for a safe, decriminalized place for unsheltered residents to camp.
The city’s proposal was met with passionate calls from unsheltered city residents for a spending proposal more focused on their urgent, day-to-day needs — such as a sanctioned space for encampments, public restrooms, and permanent showers.
“The emergency is tonight for me and my community,” said Tyrell Jackson, a resident of a local encampment known as Tent City and a member of the unsheltered activist coalition U‑ACT. “While most of you get to go home to your families tonight, I’m going to a tent.”
Real estate broker and U‑ACT advocate Jacob Miller argued that $4 million is too little money to make a significant difference in the realm of housing development. If every apartment costs around $200,000, as Miller estimated, “we’re talking about maybe 20 apartments,” he said.
A permanent shower and bathroom, meanwhile, would cost about $40,000 for each unit, Miller said. “You could build ten of those for what you’ve allocated for administrative costs,” he said.
Kaysie joins U-ACT members to testify.
Fellow U‑ACT activist Brian Timko spoke out against the city’s policy of removing encampments on public space and confiscating people’s belongings. “They took people’s safes” and refused to return the funds, he said. “That’s someone’s entire life savings.”
A safe space for unsheltered residents is a matter of life and death, emphasized John Lugo, the lead organizer for Unidad Latina en Accion.
Lugo spoke of his friend Victor Vivar, a man who died last week and whose cause of death is contested. Vivar used to live behind 30 Orange St., Lugo said: “He was living there in peace. … Eventually, the city crushed his belongings.” Vivar moved to a more perilous location by the railroad. “His blood and his brains” remain on the train tracks, Lugo said, shaking as he testified.
Some U‑ACT members testified to the limits of New Haven’s current shelter system, which is generally structured around communal bedrooms for people who come to the shelter as individuals without kids and typically enforces curfews.
As Amistad Catholic Worker co-founder Mark Colville argued, “You give up your privacy, your agency, your property, your right to visit your loved ones when you enter a shelter.”
One 21-year-old testifier who identified herself as Kaysie noted that emergency shelters are not necessarily a reliable option for her. “Even if I get into a shelter, that isn’t a guarantee that I will get housing,” she said. “My 90 days will be up and I will be back on the street. I will have to wait on the street for another 90 days.”
Nonprofits Propose Another Budget
Mary Guerrera: In supportive housing, "a real community develops."
Meanwhile, leaders of Columbus House, Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen (DESK), Fellowship Place, and Liberty Community Services, all local non-profits serving unhoused clients, offered a counter-proposal to the city Wednesday night.
DESK Executive Director Steve Werlin sketched out this alternative proposal in his testimony to alders: $1 million could be combined with state funding to develop an emergency homeless shelter with individual rooms and bathrooms; $1 million could be used to rehabilitate existing housing units that have fallen into disrepair; $2 million could be used to develop single-room occupancy units (SROs) with close access to social services; and the remaining funds could help pay for expenses like security deposits and moving costs.
Werlin and fellow non-profit leaders spoke of a dire shortage of emergency shelter beds. “New Haven is in desperate need for more shelter,” Werlin said. With the recent closure of the Grand Avenue shelter, he said that the city has lost 110 beds.
Testifiers advocated for a non-congregate shelter model, and not only because it would fall under the parameters of the HUD grant. A shelter with individual rooms for each resident would offer “a level of dignity, safety, control, autonomy, and privacy that we all want and deserve,” said Columbus House CEO Margaret Middleton, whose organization is currently the only emergency shelter provider in the city for those who do not qualify for family shelters.
Meanwhile, Fellowship Place Executive Director Mary Guerrera spoke of the benefits of supportive housing programs like the one her organization runs for people with mental illnesses.
Guerrera said she’s seen many clients of her organization obtain housing after a period of homelessness, only to leave after finding their apartments to be overwhelming or lonely. A supportive housing model, where social services are provided onsite or nearby, means that “everyone who lives in the building has a similar history,” Guerrera described. “A real community develops. They congratulate each other in good times. They help each other in bad times.”
In an interview after the meeting, Sosa-Lombardo responded to the alternative proposals raised by testifiers. “There are a lot of issues that this plan is not going to address,” he said. “We will consider what was said and make necessary modifications.”
He noted that the Department of Community Resilience is accepting public input until March 3. He encouraged the public to email thoughts to Velma George at [email protected].
Meanwhile, alders unanimously voted in support of the proposed resolution.
When it came time for them to deliberate, Beaver Hills Alder Brian Wingate said, “We have to take into account what we heard from the public. … Hopefully, we will have more discussion.”
What Exactly Did That Vote Mean?
Sarah Miller.
Before voting on the matter, Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller asked for a clarification. “We’re not voting on the specific plan they put for the $4 million, we’re just voting on the application?” she asked, and received nods from her colleagues before the unanimous vote.
When asked to clarify on the phone on Thursday, however, Dalal told the Independent that alders may have in fact voted on the contents the plan.
“My understanding was that this was the authorization to apply for the money, but that they would be coming back with a proposal after the money was awarded,” Miller responded in a separate followup interview with the Independent.
She said she would not have voted to favorably recommend the specifics of the plan. “We heard a lot of compelling testimony for doing things a little bit differently,” she said. “I think [the plan] needs to be amended.”
In a text, Human Services Committee Chair Darryl Brackeen offered an explanation similar to Miller’s initial understanding of the process. “We advanced applying for the grant which would include them submitting their initial proposal,” he wrote, “but we have the power [to] amend their plans at any point before and after submission as we wish.”
Dalal later emailed the Independent with the following response to Miller’s and Brackeen’s comments, indicating that future changes to the city’s plans would likely need to be approved by the federal government: “Should the City wish to amend the plan after submission, the City would be subject to HUD’s rules for grantees which, in this case, may require submission of an amendment for their (HUD’s) approval. Should such an amendment be sought, the Community Services Administration would work closely the Board on the process.”
The resolution now heads to the full Board of Alders for further debate and a potential final vote. If the full Board of Alders votes to approve the resolution before them, the city will not necessarily have to return to the legislative body for permission to spend the money in a certain way, unless a multi-year contract is involved.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Community Services Administrator Mehul Dalal was initially uncertain about whether alders had voted on the substance of the plan.
See below for more recent Independent articles about homelessness, activism, and attempts to find shelter.
• Surprise Drop-Off Turns Bottle Man East
• State Lands $18M Homelessness Lifeline
• Tent Citizen By Choice Builds Community
• Shelter Sought From Cold-Weather Emergency
• Homelessness Advocates Brace For “Tidal Wave”
• Breakfast Delivery Warms Up “Tent City”
• Warming Centers Open, While City Looks To Long-Term Homeless Fixes
• “Human Rights Zone” Grows In Hill Backyard
• Homeless Hotel Plan Scrapped. What’s Next?
• Election Day Rally Casts Ballot For Housing
Real estate broker and U‑ACT advocate Jacob Miller argued that $4 million is too little money to make a significant difference in the realm of housing development. If every apartment costs around $200,000, as Miller estimated, “we’re talking about maybe 20 apartments,” he said. A permanent shower and bathroom, meanwhile, would cost about $40,000 for each unit, Miller said. “You could build ten of those for what you’ve allocated for administrative costs,” he said.
But you can Also do what they did in Newark N J.
Newark unveils homeless shelter made from converted shipping containers.
The facility consists of seven shipping containers with 20 dorm-style rooms that feature a bunk bed, a heater and a small dresser. Two structures on site have shower rooms.
https://www.nj.com/essex/2021/03/newark-unveils-homeless-shelter-made-from-converted-shipping-containers.html