Bus Tour Highlights Housing Contrasts

A bus full of affordable housing advocates drove by a new luxury apartment complex on Munson Street — as Antoinette Humes, mic in hand, told her fellow riders about her path into and out of homelessness.

That was one such housing-focused contrast among many that came to the fore Friday night during a bus tour led by the Room for All Coalition.

The two-hour tour saw 26 people — including members of Mothers & Others for Justice, New Haven legal aid, and the Board of Alders — stop by new housing developments in Newhallville and the Hill, all while talking about what it would be like if the city had more affordable places to live.

Even as the group drove by new high-end apartments like those at 201 Munson St., now called Axis 201, Humes spoke up about her struggle in recent years to find a safe, healthy, affordable place to live.

“There was feces on the floor,” Humes, a member of Mothers and Others for Justice, said about one recent apartment of hers. She said that she lost all her belongings due to flooding, twice, with no reimbursement from her landlord. Eventually, she ended up being housed with her son at the Hill’s Hillside Family Shelter by Christian Community Action.

Axis 201, meanwhile, is a nearly 400-unit development owned by New York investors. The developers had originally promised the Newhallville Community Management Team that 10 percent of the apartments would be rented out at below-market rates. They wound up breaking that promise.

Tour members on Friday said that the median household income for Black and Latino families in New Haven is $38,000 and $39,000, respectively, which means that affordable rent at that income would be $975 per month. The average rent for a 2‑bedroom apartment at this new complex, they said, is closer to $2,000 per month.

The bus tour also included stops at current apartment complex like Winchester Lofts and under-construction ones like Winchester Green. The group then headed down to the empty plot of land where once stood the 301-apartment Church Street South complex. 

Neva Caldwell reflected fondly on the community that dwelled there before the property fell into dangerous disrepair and was subsequently demolished. 

“This was the best community I ever lived in,” she said. ​“When it was first built, we had beautiful water fountains, boats, a laundromat, a daycare, a meat market, everything that we needed.” The privately-owned, government-rent-subsidized apartment complex was demolished in 2018 after years of neglected maintenance destroyed roofs and walls and poisoned kids with asthma. 

Community members on the bus on Friday collectively imagined what could be built on that Church Street South plot, after reminiscing on what it once was.

Lillie Chambers pointed out that the land is now owned by New Haven’s public housing authority, which plans to build an as-yet-unspecified number of new apartments. She said the authority is currently looking for more investors before making that new project a reality. The building across the street from Union Station will be ​“mixed use,” she said, meaning that the complex could have retail stores, a coffee shop, and even a grocery store, in addition to upper-level apartments, which will be rented out at affordable and market rates.

The bus then made a stop at the Beulah Land Development Corporation’s under-construction new 69-unit apartment complex at Dixwell Avenue, Munson Street, and Orchard Street. Eighty percent of the rental units at that new complex will be affordable, with 20 units reserved for residents who were formerly homeless. 

Humes, meanwhile, spoke of how, during her stay at the Hill homeless shelter, she was able to save up enough money working multiple jobs to move to a permanent residence. She has been a member of Mothers & Others For Justice ever since.

“Bring a friend. We need to build power, we need to build strength.” Merryl Eaton, the advocacy and education director of Christian Community Action, said during Friday’s tour. ​“We need to come together. If we don’t, New Haven is just going to be the new Brooklyn.”