Trowbridge Campaign Talk: Homelessness, & Homelessness

Marisol Pagan and Jose Lugo stood on the sidewalk beside Trowbridge Square’s wrought iron fence as they urged Mayor Justin Elicker to do something about the marked increase in homeless people staying, and publicly urinating, in the Hill public park.

On the other side of that fence, Greg Abraham took a break from sipping on a can of paper bag-held beer to pace out for the mayor just how small his last apartment was — and to explain how he couldn’t afford the room’s rising rent, and is now spending his nights at a Grand Avenue shelter.

Those two housing-focused, campaign-trail conversations took place Tuesday evening just a few feet away from one another in Trowbridge Square Park by Portsea and Salem Streets.

“It’s a homeless thing,” Abraham told this reporter when asked for his opinion on the most important issue facing New Haven today.

Elicker, a two-term Democrat seeking another two years in office, showed up to the Hill park with reelection campaign manager Shad Wojciechowski and incumbent Hill alders and fellow Democrats Carmen Rodriguez, Kampton Singh, Ron Hurt, and Evelyn Rodriguez.

Elicker and the four neighborhood alders met up on Tuesday to knock doors on Portsea and Dewitt Streets to remind voters of the Sept. 12 Democratic Party primary, to encourage them to support the incumbents, and to hear about top-of-list concerns in the city right now. 

The campaign outing took place a day before Wednesday’s deadline for three Democratic mayoral challengers — including retired police sergeant Shafiq Abdussabur, former legal aid attorney Liam Brennan, and ex-McKinsey consultant (and Republican endorsee) Tom Goldenberg — to submit 1,623 valid signatures from registered New Haven Democrats to try to make their respective ways onto September’s Democratic primary ballot.

Before the mayor had knocked on his first doors of the afternoon, he heard directly from a number of New Haveners inside and just outside of Trowbridge Park about how a rising tide of homelessness is their number one concern this election year.

“They’re pissing right here,” Lugo said from the sidewalk, gesturing towards the tree-lined greenspace replete with benches and a playground. ​“I tell them all the time” not to, but people who people who spend all day in the park sometimes treat it like a public restroom.

Pagan said that she’s lived in the Hill for 11 years after moving to New Haven from Bridgeport. She wants to stay (“We’re glad you’re here and we want you to stay here,” Elicker replied) but the current state of the park can make it difficult.

Elicker told Lugo and Pagan about the city’s non-cop crisis response team, COMPASS, which has social workers and peers with lived experience respond to certain 911 calls related to homelessness, mental health, and substance use. ​“We should have COMPASS more in Trowbridge Park to give support,” he said.

Surveying the greenspace, Elicker added, ​“And it does seem like we should have a Porta-potty.”

Citywide, the mayor said, his administration is looking to purchase the Days Inn hotel on Foxon Boulevard and convert it into a homeless shelter. That would add 112 beds to the city’s shelter network, he said, on top of the 50 emergency beds the city and Columbus House and Upon this Rock Ministries recently opened in the Hill just off of Ella T. Grasso Boulevard.

“A lot of people are in a tough situation,” the mayor said. His administration is trying to do what it can to help.

Kimberly DeBose also told the mayor that her number one concern about living next to Trowbridge park right now is the ​“influx of homeless people” she’s seen in the past two months.

She said she feels much less comfortable sending her five- and seven-year-old children to play in the park because of the increase in people sitting around, sleeping, drinking, and occasionally fighting in the park, not to mention ​“the shooting up over there under the trees,” she said. ​“It’s ridiculous.”

“I totally understand there’s a homelessness issue” that the city faces as a whole, DeBose said. And she had heard that an encampment off of the Boulevard had recently been shut down. But in her decade-plus living next to Trowbridge Square Park, she’s never seen it as bad as it is today. ​“That is my number one concern.”

“It is a challenge, and we’re doing a number of things” to try to address the homelessness issue citywide, Elicker said. He repeated much of what he had told Pagan and Lugo a few minutes earlier: that the city has a new COMPASS team with expanding hours, that the city recently opened 50 new beds near the Boulevard, that the city is looking to buy and convert into a shelter the Days Inn hotel. ​“Generally, with people using [illegal drugs], we want to provide services. If it’s dealing, it’s a different story,” he said. That’s when police should get involved.

Greg Abraham, meanwhile, told the mayor about how homelessness is also the top issue facing the city today for him, but from a different perspective — because he himself is currently without a stable place to live.

Abraham said he spends each night at the Upon This Rock Ministries shelter on Grand Avenue. ​“They roll out a mat” and provide some food and a bathroom and place to lie down indoors under a roof. ​“It’s not the best comfortable space, but it helps.”

Asked about the last time he had an apartment of his own, Abraham described a City Point rental that he said was too small — and too expensive. He walked forward, counting out seven steps, and then pointed nine or 10 feet to the side. That’s how large the apartment was, he said. And the landlord wanted “$600-something” in monthly rent. He couldn’t afford it, and now he’s at the Grand Avenue shelter.

But not during the day, Abraham said. During the day he goes to public greenspaces like Trowbridge Square Park, where ​“I drink me a can of beer once in a while” to relax.

Elicker spoke about his administration’s efforts to open warming and cooling shelters and bring more emergency shelter beds online citywide. ​“We need to do a lot more on affordable housing,” he added.

Abraham and his friend Victor Hyman left the conversation convinced of at least one thing: They’d be supporting the mayor in his bid for another term in office. ​“We got to keep him in,” Abraham said with a smile.

At The Doors: "The Rent Is Too Expensive"

At the doors and on the front steps along Portsea, Elicker heard again and again the housing costs are at the top of mind for Hill residents and voters.

Emma Lugo, who’s lived next to Trowbridge Square since 1982, said she too has noticed a significant increase in homeless people staying in the park in recent months. ​“The rent is too expensive, and there’s not enough affordable housing,” she said. ​“I feel sad” looking out at the people in the park. ​“I’m lucky that I have my house.”

Nevertheless, she continued, ​“it’s been quite a change” in Trowbridge Square since she first moved to the neighborhood four decades ago — and, largely, that change has been for the better.

“Before, it was kind of noisy and there was much trouble and fights,” she said. ​“Right now, it’s better.” 

She too told the mayor that she’d be supporting his bid for reelection. She thanked Carmen Rodriguez and Elicker in particular for making sure that a new sidewalk got put in on Salem Street just outside of her house. That sidewalk is much cleaner and easier to walk on, she said, even though her son recently had to clean up a whole bunch of ​“Pampers and needles” that were strewn along the grassy area between the sidewalk and the street.

Further down Portsea, Elicker caught up with mother-son duo Monique Quicksey and Reshawn Blue, who were sitting out on their row house’s front steps enjoying the late afternoon fresh air.

“I love seeing you in the neighborhood,” Quicksey said to the mayor with a smile.

“So,” she said, ​“what’s your game plan for our beautiful, messed up city?”

“We’re doing a lot on all fronts,” the mayor replied, zeroing in on the topic of homelessness before describing the city’s plan to buy and convert the Days Inn hotel. That hotel has 56 rooms, he said, and would add 112 beds to the city’s shelter network.

“That’s amazing,” Quicksey replied. Elicker agreed. ​“It will be a huge, huge help.”

“We have to care for our homeless,” Quicksey said. From what she’s seen, ​“some of them choose to be homeless.” But that’s not true for everyone. ​“You have others [where] life just knock them down.”

Elicker said that, for those willing and able to get help, the city is doing what it can, to provide shelter space, to provide on-the-street outreach through COMPASS, and by trying to promote the development of more affordable housing.

After talking for a few minutes more with the mayor about everything from the Kia Boys car-theft phenomenon to the coming rebirth of the Barbell Club, Quicksey told this reporter that Elicker had won her vote for another term in office.

He ​“inherited a lot” of problems in the city, she said. What she likes most about him: ​“He don’t just talk about it. He be about it. And he’s trying” to do the best he can to make New Haven a better place to live.