Thomas Breen file photo
Keith Petrulis, at DESK presser last December.
(Updated) Keith Petrulis, a 36-year-old advocate for New Haveners experiencing homelessness, was found dead Monday morning outside of the State Street soup kitchen where he was himself a client.
Thomas Breen photo
Outside of DESK on Monday morning.
Police Chief Karl Jacobson confirmed on Monday evening that Petrulis was the man whom city police found dead and lying outside of the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen’s (DESK) 266 State St. drop-in center earlier in the day.
City cops received a call about Petrulis’s body on State Street at around 5:22 a.m. Later in the morning, a black plastic curtain, yellow caution tape, and a handful of police cars blocked off the stretch of sidewalk in front of the soup kitchen and homelessness services hub as police investigated the scene.
“We do not believe it is a homicide, but it is being investigated as a suspicious death,” Jacobson said Monday morning. “The immediate investigation shows the person had medical issues.” He said an autopsy will be performed on Tuesday, and that police have notified Petrulis’s family about his death.
Petrulis was a leading member of the Unhoused Community Activist Team (U‑ACT), a grassroots group of activists and people without housing who have convened over the past year to push for protections against homelessness amid a growing crisis of spiking rents, apartment shortages, and evictions of people from public land.
The Independent first spoke with Petrulis in January 2022 while he was enduring a winter storm inside a Hamden community center, one of many uncomfortable nights he experienced since first losing housing at the onset of the pandemic.
Since then, while sleeping between shelters, Union Station, and on sidewalks, he became involved in organizing efforts, turning into an outspoken advocate for measures like public bathrooms, showers, and storage to support those experiencing housing instability.
Read about some of his activism here and here. “I try to work, but it’s hard for me to keep a job,” Petrulis, an out-of-work cook and security guard, said at a December 2022 press conference at DESK. Asked about the number one thing that would make his life a little easier, he said,“If I was able to have a steady place to stay.”
Steve Werlin, the executive director of DESK — a drop-in center that serves free meals and provides a host of social services for New Haven’s homeless population — provided the following comment for this article. He sent over this comment before Petrulis’s identity had been publicly confirmed:
“The person who passed away was a client at DESK. Our staff is assisting police in their investigation. No cause of death has yet been reported. We have no reason to believe that there was any foul play,” Werlin said. “This is incredibly devastating for our staff and clients, as we’re all struggling to process this tragedy. I ask that you please respect their privacy for now, especially at this early stage.”
David, a regular at DESK, stood in the tree-lined triangle across the street from the drop-in center, looking out at the taped-off scene in the pouring rain. He stood near a blue tent and a host of rain-soaked belongings. He said he was not the one staying in the tent.
“Things happen. What can you do?” he said despondently. He said he didn’t know who was under the sheet on the sidewalk, as the body remained covered up.
As he continued to get soaked while standing outdoors in the rain across from the police-blocked-off scene, David said, “They need to get them off the street.”
Condolences to the deceased and the family and friends.
Mark Colville of the Amistad Catholic Worker, who hosts fellow humans in his backyard on Rosette st. in the Hill, has previously published statistics demonstrating the link between being unhoused with a higher risk for serious illness and death.
This is a problem that can be solved.