Thomas Breen photos
City Director of Community Resilience Carlos Sosa-Lombardo, with Community Services Administrator Eliza Halsey: This is a "game changer."
Thomas Breen file photo
Quinnipiac Meadows Alder Gerald Antunes: Not the right plan, not the right place.
The Board of Alders overwhelmingly approved the Elicker administration’s plans to spend $6.9 million in mostly federal funds to purchase the 56-room Days Inn hotel on Foxon Boulevard and convert it into a non-congregate homeless shelter.
Local legislators took that vote Monday night during the latest biweekly meeting of the full Board of Alders, which was held in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall.
In a 20 – 7 vote, alders approved an order authorizing the city to purchase the Days Inn hotel at 270 Foxon Blvd. for a total of $6.9 million; $5 million of that money will come from the city’s federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) allocation and the remaining $1.9 million from New Haven’s general fund.
The Elicker administration plans to turn that soon-to-be-publicly-owned Rt. 80 hotel into the city’s first non-congregate shelter, meaning that the hotel’s 56 rooms will be made available to unhoused individuals and families seeking more privacy and flexibility than allowed for in the city’s existing homeless shelters.
When complete, it will provide housing for upwards of 100 to 130 people at a time; it’ll be run by a city-hired contractor which operates the facility and provides case management and behavioral health services; and it will allow unhoused guests to stay for extended periods of time, likely up to around three months.
The Days Inn at 270 Foxon.
“During the COVID-19 public health emergency, the City, State of Connecticut and many service providers supported our residents who are experiencing homelessness through a ‘de-compression’ strategy whereby hotel rooms were rented at the Village Suites and LaQuinta,” Mayor Justin Elicker wrote in a July 31 letter to the alders urging their support for this proposal.
“This model proved an effective way to provide not only safe and stable housing but also much-needed services and human compassion. Although the program has now ended, the City wishes to continue working toward non-congregate settings and the Days Inn provides us with a turn-key shelter available in time for the upcoming winter weather.”
In a separate but related proposal newly submitted to the Board of Alders and listed as a communication on Monday’s agenda, the Elicker administration has requested $3.5 million to contract with the local behavioral health and homelessness services nonprofit Continuum of Care to run the converted hotel-to-shelter at 270 Foxon Blvd.
That contract, if approved by the alders, would extend from Dec. 1, 2023 to June 30, 2026. Continuum of Care would operate the shelter “on a housing-first policy, recognizing that stable housing is the foundation upon which individuals and families can regain their footing,” city Department of Community Resilience Executive Director Carlos Sosa-Lombardo wrote in a Sept. 29 letter to the alders.
“The program will not only offer a safe haven,” he continued, “it will also provide vital services such as case management, peer support, and access to critical resources such as behavioral health counseling, employment services, education, and healthcare services.”
After Monday night’s vote, Sosa-Lombardo, standing alongside Community Services Administrator Eliza Halsey, described the now-approved hotel-to-shelter plan as “a game changer.” Fifty-five percent of city residents are “housing-cost burdened,” he said. The city’s unhoused population is on the rise. This will allow the city to significantly increase New Haven’s shelter options for those who currently have nowhere else to go, all while providing direct supportive services with the goal of getting people into more permanent housing in the future.
"Are We Really Helping Them?"
Antunes: "Are we really helping them? Or simply housing them?"
While the hotel purchase and conversion proposal ultimately passed by a more than 2‑to‑1 margin, Quinnipiac Meadows Alder Gerald Antunes, who represents the ward that includes the Days Inn hotel, led a half-dozen of his colleagues in opposing the plan.
“I’m not against housing the homeless,” Antunes told his fellow local legislators as he urged them to reject the proposal. “But in this case, the city’s plan puts the homeless in a dangerous situation.”
He said that the six-lane thoroughfare that makes up that stretch of Foxon Boulevard is not a safe place to locate such a shelter. More than 38,000 vehicles pass by each day, he said. There are roughly 100 accidents on that road per year. “There are no crosswalks, no cross-lights, or even sidewalks.” Yes, it is a state road, and yes, the state has said it will be making pedestrian-focused improvements to that road. But those changes won’t come soon enough.
He noted that the policing district that covers Quinnipiac Meadows, Fair Haven Heights, and the East Shore is the largest geographical district in the city. “Sometimes homeless persons have become victims of crimes,” he said, and yet there’s no plan to increase the number of police officers in the distrct.
Plus, Antunes continued, “what about the homeless encampments behind Walmart along I‑91 on Middletown Avenue? There’s no plan in place to house any of those people in the motel. They can only get in by referral. Would this plan reduce the number of homeless in the area, or increase it?”
The alder ultimately questioned the housing-first philosophy driving this proposal: that is, the idea that the first and most important intervention to help unhoused people struggling with the myriad of health, safety, and financial challenges that come with homelessness is ensure they have a place to live.
“Are we really helping them?” Antunes asked. “Or simply housing them?”
East Rock Alder Anna Festa also spoke up in opposition to the hotel purchase and conversion plan.
She criticized the Elicker administration for paying $6.9 million to buy this property, when the city tax assessor most recently appraise it as worth $2.3 million. “I just can’t wrap my head around why this administration wants to pay three times its appraised value,” she said.
“We have a crisis that should not fall on the shoulders of our small city,” Festa added. Doesn’t the city have empty buildings that could be rehabbed with this money instead? “We shouldn’t be paying a premium for this property.”
"A Tremendous Opportunity"
Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison and Westville Alder Adam Marchand (below) speaking up in support.
Their critiques ultimately lost out to a majority of their colleagues who argued that New Haven is experiencing an affordable housing crisis, and it is the city legislature’s moral, social, and political obligation to act.
“We have a problem in this city. We have a problem with the unhoused,” Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison said. “People aren’t unhoused because they want to be unhoused. They’re unhoused because of poverty. They’re unhoused because of mental health. They’re unhoused because of life. We have a responsibility to help all people in our community. We have a responsibility to do something.”
She said that the shelter plan before them on Monday night is about “helping people get on the trajectory of permanent housing.” It provides more stability than a shelter or warming center that calls on guests to leave at 7 in the morning and bring all their belongings with them out into the street each day.
“We have a responsibility for the unhoused,” Morrison added. “They have to go somewhere. They’re our neighbors. They have to go somewhere.”
As to why the city is looking to pay so far above appraised value for this property, Morrison said, “this is the hotel that would sell to us.”
“Please, please support the unhoused,” she concluded, “because if we don’t do it, where else are they gonna go.”
Wooster Square Alder Ellen Cupo, Downtown/East Rock Alder Eli Sabin, and Westville Alder Adam Marchand all agreed.
“I find it particularly appropriate that ARPA funds are being reallocated” for this proposal, Marchand said. “Because those federal dollars were intended to support economic and community recovery from the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic. The unhoused are part of our community and they deserve to be supported and included in this program of recovery.”
He concluded: “This is a tremendous opportunity to do something major on this issue.”
3 months isn’t enough time to help people treat their issues, help them find a job, save up enough money for rental deposits so they can rent an apartment. 6 months minimum would be more appropriate, with monthly check ins with their case worker for at least 6 months more after leaving the shelter.
The state can’t improve safety for pedestrians and bike riders fast enough on state roads like route 80. But I see people walking and crossing it every day to get to Walmart, bus stops, ShopRite, the many restaurants, convenience stores, pharmacies, etc. It would be good for the hotel shelter to strongly encourage residents to walk up to the intersection with Quinnipiac Ave where there are cross walks. There are well beaten dirt paths where sidewalks should be and the city should get the paths paved as soon as possible to keep people safe when crossing the street.
The folks staying here will be those who can’t be adequately served in traditional shelters, but we should be mostly eliminating the congregate shelter model in favor of supportive housing to get folks back on their feet.
The city has been undervaluing their real estate for years, and in todays crazy post pandemic real estate market, the city is stuck paying top dollar for any buildings that don’t need major repairs and remediation. This is a property that is ready to use and the seller could get top dollar for if they sold it to be converted it to apartments. The need for housing solutions is simply too desperate. This is not a permanent solution. It is a change to the approach to sheltering the unhoused. But our state must enforce the 10% affordable housing requirements in every city and town in the state. The state and federal government must incentivize developers to build affordable apartments for renters, and condos, townhouses, small starter homes on small lots for low and lower middle income households, and penalize landlords who exploit the low income rental market.