Nora Grace-Flood Photo
City crew Thursday bulldozing the Boulevard Tent City.
Three people were escorted out of tents at a homeless encampment in New Haven Thursday.
Meanwhile, 30,000 households are on a waiting list to obtain a public-housing apartment.
Those numbers are related, in the view of Karen DuBois-Walton, who runs the Housing Authority of New Haven, which maintains that list.
“I get calls every day, without exaggeration, [about] our wait list with folks in really urgent need. ‘I’m about to be evicted.’ ‘I’ve been evicted.’ ‘Where am I gonna go?’ All of these things are tied to the number of families we see [unhoused], doubled up. Living in difficult conditions,” DuBois-Walton said during a conversation on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
She said the encampment reflected the broader housing crisis in Connecticut, with too few affordable homes and a growing number of homeless people. This is a moment requiring statewide action to build new affordable housing on a large scale, she said.
That’s why she was up until 2 a.m. Thursday watching the latest hearing of the state Planning and Development Committee on the progress of bills she and other affordable housing advocates are monitoring this legislative session.
The bills include proposals to invest $50 million more into addressing homelessness, limit how much landlords can charge for security deposits, increase fines for housing code violations, bar discrimination against prospective tenants based on sexual orientation, and establish a “fair share bill” aimed at pushing suburbs to approve more affordable housing. She also favors a “work-live-ride,” “transit-oriented development” bill to ease approvals for new housing near train stations.
One potential such site sits across from New Haven’s train station: the former Church Street South subsidized apartment complex that was torn down because of dangerous conditions. It has sat vacant for five years. Its owner and the Elicker administration are at an impasse over pursuing a mixed-income, mixed-use development there.
DuBois-Walton said the housing authority has always been interested in partnering with the city and the owner on that project. The authority still is. The idea was combine that project with a rebuilding of the authority-owned Robert T. Wolfe apartments on adjacent land.
“Let it be known that we are happy to be a development partner on that and to step in, in any way that would be useful,” DuBois-Walton said.
“If we can’t see some movement, though, at Church Street South, then I think we’re going have to go it alone” and rebuild Robert T. Wolfe by itself, “because we can’t leave our families in limbo.”
Despite the challenges DuBois-Walton and colleagues statewide have encountered seeking reform in the suburbs, she said she remains optimistic about the prospects of addressing the affordable housing crisis.
“I’ve seen things transform in my lifetime, things that I didn’t think would move. And I’ve remained rooted in in great faith. I think everything big that we’ve taken on has required some some dreamers, some believers, and some folks who wouldn’t let go.”
Count DuBois-Walton in the first two categories.
Click on the video the watch the full conversation about New Haven’s and Connecticut’s housing crisis with Karen DuBois-Walton on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.” Click here to subscribe to“Dateline New Haven” and here to subscribe to other WNHHFM podcasts.
Say what you want about Dr. DuBois-Walton, but she gets stuff done for people who are the most vulnerable. she has delivered as the chair of the Ct State BOE, and she has transformed the inhumane projects to beautiful reimagined domiciles. She deserves to be heard. She is offering solutions to the housing crisis that directly go against the massive increase in luxury apartments in New Haven that literally displace long term New Haven residents. How about solutions that welcome new comers and include New Haveners, who cannot sustain living at those rents?
Keep pushing Dr Dubois-Walton!!!
P.U.S.H. (Push Until Something Happens)