City of New Haven
Recommended CDBG distributions voted on by the Joint Community Development/Human Services Committee
Childhood literacy and affordable housing came out on top Tuesday night as an aldermanic committee voted on how to divvy up over $8 million in annual federal grant money.
The Board of Alders Joint Community Development/Human Services Committee took that vote Tuesday during its last of three committee meetings on how to divide up $8.2 million in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money and other federal dollars allocated to the city.
The meeting took place online via the Zoom teleconferencing app. The item grant distribution decision now advances to the full Board of Alders for a final vote.
The committee alders voted to distribute $50,000 to Dixwell faith-based affordable housing developer, Beulah Land Development Corporation.
The mayor’s office had not proposed sending any CDBG funds to Beulah in its initial recommendation to the committee. Beulah had requested that the alders send them $75,000 in CDBG money.
Zoom
New Haven Reads Executive Director Kirsten Levinsohn at a previous CDBG meeting.
The committee alders also voted to send $42,500 to the local literacy tutoring nonprofit New Haven Reads. Executive Director Kirsten Levinsohn said in a previous meeting that the nonprofit expects donations to dwindle during the Covid-19 recession. She said that the nonprofit’s leaders were considering closing a site in that context.
And the alders voted to send just under $1.37 million towards the development of a worker-owned commercial laundry at the former state Department of Social Services (DSS) building on Bassett Street, by $62,000 less than the amount initially requested by the mayor.
Westville Alder and Committee Chair Darryl J. Brackeen, Jr. said that all of the votes for the various amendments Tuesday night were unanimous.
Read about pitches from city departments and nonprofits here and here.
And read the mayor’s proposed division of the funds here.
Beulah has a great plan, and a strong record of performance. New Haven reads is a great programs, too. But what is the plan for the laundry? Have Yale and YNHH committed to it at levels that will make it profitable? Is teh city not throwing good money after bad?