Housing HOPE Emerges For Homeless Families

When Bobbie Cheri McDonald was a struggling single mother of two facing homelessness, a local housing program helped save her family — on two separate occasions, seven years apart. 

McDonald joined a crowd at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Saturday for the opening of the New H.O.P.E (Higher Opportunities, Purpose, and Expectations) Housing Program — a revamped version of the Stepping Stones housing program that first helped McDonald to get back on her feet 17 years ago.

New HOPE, like the former Stepping Stones program, is run by Christian Community Action, Inc. (CCA) in partnership with the housing authority.

CCA’s New HOPE Program is a ​“moving to work program” at 660 Winchester Ave. the former Ivy Street School, which was later transformed into CCA’s Stepping Stone Transitional Housing Program in 1998 until 2018.

CCA Executive Director Rev. Bonita Grubbs thanked the program’s donors, staff, volunteers, board members, and the community for helping her to reintroduce the supportive housing program to the many New Haven families facing homelessness. 

In an opening prayer, she expressed the hope that ​“God’s peace, power, preservation, prosperity will be with us.”

Stepping Stones closed amid a shift in priorities among funders who were no longer as focused on case management and other on-site help for families seeking to establish long-term housing. CCA managed to find new funding to support retooling and reopening the program with that same mission.

The new program the will help to provide unsheltered heads of households with case management, an employment specialist, financial training, and a family coach, CCA Board President Lynette E. Johnson said. 

“Today activates a unique housing program that will help families and future generations to come,” she added. 

Each of the 18 apartments at the reopened faciltiies is stocked with donations of new ice trays, measuring cups, pots and pans, and dish soap. 

Some apartments overlook the building’s courtyard and playground, which will soon be revamped to honor the late Yale clinical scientist Kathy Carroll, who worked closely with CCA and made significant strides to improve substance abuse treatment.

The apartments will come fully furnished for families, with utilities included. Amour Propre Fund provided donations of the furniture and household goods. 

While providing a tour to the community, CCA Director of Housing Services Shellina Toure said, ​“The only thing a family will need is their clothes.”

Former Stepping Stones residents Cheryl Mason and McDonald shared their testimonies at the Saturday celebration. 

McDonald, a New Haven native, first heard of CCA’s program through a family member who was enrolled in the program while she was a child. 

In September of 2005, McDonald was evicted from her first apartment and lost her job and car all in one day. At the time she was 20 years old and a single mother of two daughters. 

She applied to become part of Stepping Stones and was approved soon after. 

“CCA gave me stability so that I could get back into school, time to find another job and a new apartment,” she said. 

For six years, McDonald found stability on her own. Then in 2012 she experienced homelessness again. ​“This time was very tough,” she said. ​“I had a bachelor’s degree and I tried so hard to be stable, but I didn’t yet understand how to secure my independence.”

In October 2012 she was accepted into CCA’s Hillside Family Shelter to ​“once again put the pieces of my life back together.” 

In December 2012 she found an apartment and worked two jobs to get it. In 2016 she went back to school to get her master’s degree in social work. 

McDonald said she has now secured her master’s degree, her oldest daughter is in her second year of college, and her second daughter just graduated high school. In 2021 she got married, became a homeowner, and recently had a third daughter. 

“So many years I was enslaved in my mind, stuck in a cycle of bad habits and self sabotage,” she said. ​“In putting Jesus first and center of everything, I found me. I found my freedom. I found the strength to need to break free.” 

While in the program, families will strive to reach financial goals and personalized benchmarks every three months. Families are expected to remain in the program for 24 – 36 months, then advance to live on their own. 

Toure added that the program’s main goals are to help families to increase their income to eventually be self-sufficient. 

Each home is provided with a work area and desk, which philanthropist Lindy Lee Gold insisted families be given. 

Two floors of the building are made up of apartments, while the first floor will house staff offices, a library, community room, and computer lab. 

Also housed in the 660 Winchester Ave. building will be a branch of the Little Scientists youth program, which has provided early childhood, elementary, and middle school hands-on science education since being founded in 1995. 

Gold is the president of the Amour Propre Fund, which secured and donated the funds to renovate and furnish all 18 apartments in the building.

Lt. Governor Susan Bysiewicz thanked the project’s champions including Grubbs, Gold, and Karen DuBois-Walton. 

“If you want to make something happen, you should ask busy women,” Bysiewicz said.

The CCA collaboration with Housing Authority of New Haven/Elm City Communities allows for 18 approved families to be given federal Section 8 rental vouchers tied to the apartments at 660 Winchester. The program vouchers will cost $280,000 total a year. 

Families will pay 30 percent of their annual income while in the program. 

The one-bedroom apartments allow for single or coupled parents to live with one child under 3 years old. Two- and three-bedroom apartments allow one to four children. 

DuBois-Walton said the program will allow struggling families to go from ​“surviving to thriving.” 

So far more than 30 applications have been submitted for the program. Of those, 11 are currently being looked over by Elm City Communities. (Click here for more information about applying.) 

Bysiewicz said the revived housing program will help the state to continue to address its affordable housing crisis. She highlighted strides like the new state minimum wage of $14 per hour as of July 1 and a one-time child tax rebate of $250 per child. 

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal described the opening of the program as ​“undefeatable hope.” 

He compared New Hope’s commitment to rebuilding the community to the ​“restoring and rebuilding of lives” that he witnessed less than 24 hours before the ceremony while visiting Kyiv, Ukraine. 

He awarded CCA with a certificate of federal recognition at the Saturday celebration. 

“It’s a new day, new dawn, new hope,” U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro said. 

Mayor Justin Elicker said he looks forward to the program offering families with affordable and ​“loving” homes that are also beautiful inside. 

Newhallville Alder Devin Avshalom-Smith agreed with Elicker and said he looks forward to the apartments providing families with a sense of pride and belonging.

He added that he hopes the New Hope program will give the city inspiration to bring more resources to the neighborhood. 

“This will bring some new hope to Newhallville,” he said. 

Community members celebrated the ribbon-cutting Saturday with cake, home cooked food, popsicles, and tours of the apartments.