Laura Glesby Photo
Erick Santiago cuts Alberto Reyes' hair on the Green Tuesday.
“I’m tired of being outside,” said Jazel Brown as he waited in line for a haircut. He’d had a stressful few weeks of missing medication, sleeping in hospital beds, and witnessing a violent attack near the downtown church steps where he typically sleeps.
In the middle of a hard month, Brown stumbled across a glimmer of kindness in Erick Santiago’s weekly volunteer barbershop in the center of the New Haven Green — where a “One-Stop Pop Up” provided him with a fresh cut, a place to charge his phone, a medical check-up, and the possible beginnings of a new friendship.
The “One-Stop Pop Up” emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic and now convenes three times per week at three different locations across the city. The event includes the Yale Community Health Care Van’s mobile primary care center, Liberty Community Services’ street outreach team, and, since March, a mobile shower van called Power In a Shower.
City officials and non-profit leaders gathered on the Green on Tuesday for a press conference celebrating the pop up events’ evolution.
Santiago, who works at Pury’s Barbers at 87 Grand Ave., began volunteering haircuts at the pop ups in July. He’s since provided about 75 free haircuts and facial cleanups.
Santiago has been a barber for 11 years. “I’m an artist,” he said. He said he especially loves seeing his clients’ smiles when they examine their new cuts in the mirror. “I like transformation.”
Power In a Shower, meanwhile, has provided over 500 showers since the city first contracted with the organization in March using American Rescue Plan funding.
Homeless Services Director Velma George, who coordinates the tri-weekly pop ups, praised Power In a Shower for treating clients with dignity, including by disinfecting showers in between uses. The organization provides clients with bags of t‑shirts, underwear, Bombas socks, and personal hygiene supplies such as soap.
Velma George, center, with Elicker (left) and Dalal at Tuesday's presser.
“Everyone in our city is deserving of compassion, respect, and receiving services without stigma,” said Community Services Administrator Mehul Dalal.
“If I’ve got a clean set of clothing, a shower… people are gonna respect me more. The personal pride and power I get from feeling clean is gonna give me more confidence,” said Mayor Justin Elicker.
As the press conference came to a close, Brown approached the tables and vans that made up the One-Stop Pop Up. Shaunette James-Marquis, a city staffer in the Community Services Administration, signed him up for a haircut; he was third in line.
His last haircut was a year ago, he said. He wanted Santiago to “shape it up, lighten it up.”
"It Makes You Want To Help Others"
Jazel Brown awaits his haircut.
When he doesn’t have an indoor place to stay, Brown sleeps on the steps of a church on the Green. There, his personal belongings vanish frequently when he wakes up.
He said that someone had recently rifled through his bag and stolen his heart medication; as he waited for his turn to receive a haircut, he checked in with a doctor at the Community Health Care Van and called his pharmacy, hoping to receive a new bottle of pills.
Brown has been on and off the streets for a few months, while intermittently checking into substance use treatment programs, he said. He feels unsafe sleeping outdoors. The other night, he said, he witnessed the stabbing of an acquaintance in the middle of the night; the victim walked by the Pop Up on Tuesday, raising her shirt to reveal a deep scar.
An outreach worker informed Brown that he could join the tent city by Ella T. Grasso Boulevard, where he might be able to find more privacy as he slept. Brown sounded hopeful as he shared the news with a friend of his.
Meanwhile, a gradient began to form on the back of Alberto Reyes’ head as Santiago trimmed and shaved.
The request that Santiago receives most often, he said, is for a fade cut. That’s what Reyes asked for.
Reyes couldn’t recall the last time he’d received a haircut. At over 50 years old, he’d only recently stopped shaving his head bald, eager to “show my age” in gray strands.
Reyes left pleased with the “excellent” and “beautiful” results. A resident at a Columbus House shelter, Reyes said he would spread the word about the One-Stop Pop Up event. The resources he found on Tuesday were “inspiring,” Reyes said. “It makes you want to help others.”
Will Fusco on his way to a fade.
Soon, Brown returned to a bench by Santiago’s station, where Will Fusco was also waiting for a cut.
Fusco swiftly told Brown that he’d recently left the tent city on the Boulevard after someone stole all of his belongings there. For the past month, he’s been sleeping on a bench on the Green. “This is all I own,” he said, gesturing toward a small bag.
Fusco informed Brown that he hadn’t been able to receive a tent for free when he first joined the tent city; he said he spent about $200 on the tent before it got stolen. He advised Brown to go to the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen’s Drop-In Center at 266 State St. to inquire about a tent.
The pair shared advice on how to balance a desire to stay out of fights with a need to protect themselves on the streets, to not seem “weak” enough to make themselves a target.
Fusco hadn’t felt safe in the tent city, he said, and he echoed Brown’s message that “it’s not safe here on the Green.”
They also exchanged dreams of escaping homelessness soon. Both said they’ve connected with case workers to try and find housing.
Fusco said he hopes to have a family with kids. “I don’t want to be rich,” he said. He just wants a “regular job.” Brown murmured his assent.
Soon, Santiago called Fusco up to the barber’s seat, draping a red sheet over Fusco’s shoulders. Fusco asked for “a fade, but not too high.”
“This is to make me stronger,” he said as Santiago reached for the scissors.
The One-Stop Pop Up meets at the following times and locations:
- On the New Haven Green (with barber services) on Tuesdays from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
- Outside Fair Haven Library at 182 Grand Ave. on Fridays from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
- Outside Oasis Hill S.D.A. Church at 189 Union Ave. on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Thank you to Erick Santiago’s free haircut salon on the Green and to volunteers and donors participating in the “One-Stop Pop Up” event including the Yale Community Health Care Van, Liberty Community Services and Power In a Shower.
These services are invaluable to proving dignity, care and an opportunity to get feedback from the unhoused and housing insecure folks on the street.
We need more housing for the the unhoused, especially for addicted and mentally ill folks who find shelters with their rules and noise and crowding are not a good fit for their needs, or folks who need to take jobs with shifts that don’t work with shelter hours, or families with young children who need more privacy and access to kitchenettes to feed and care for their children, or people who have pets they don’t want to abandon.
We should have more hotel suite style housing with kitchenettes and in unit laundry machines, and we should have small shipping container tiny houses with kitchenettes, composting toilets and grey water recapture showers, solar panels for energy, mini-split heating/cooling units to replace tents to create secure, humane and lockable units that can house the addicted and mentally ill and other perpetually unhoused who can’t live in group settings.
Instead of informal tent encampments, unhoused could be assigned a shipping containers in tiny homes parks could have a community center/common room to house pay laundry facilities, a daily welfare check in, a park supervisor/handyperson, the One Stop Pop In services, a food pantry, to accommodate those who need more flexible living situations. This would enable the chronically unhoused to access secure housing, services, and resources.