Breakfast Delivery Warms Up ​“Tent City”

A West River encampment woke up to hot food and coffee after another crew of individuals experiencing homelessness arrived with frittatas and potatoes — plus the promise of second helpings and opportunities to grow solidarity across Greater New Haven’s unhoused populations.

That brief half hour of breakfast and conversation took place Tuesday at a ​“tent city” located off of Ella T. Grasso Boulevard. The breakfast dropoff takes place every Tuesday morning for the roughly 30 unhoused individuals currently living outdoors there. The weekly breakfast is followed by free lunch downtown during a regular ​“speak-out” against homelessness in New Haven. 

Both meals are organized largely by Mark Colville, who lives in the Amistad Catholic Worker House on Rosette Street and is currently welcoming people without housing to build shelter in his backyard.

“What is this, Uber Eats?” is the type of joke Colville cracks as he and his backyard neighbors distribute casseroles each week to wary-eyed New Haveners just waking up from another night of sleeping underneath blankets and tarps. 

For those 30 minutes, people camping out on Rosette Street and people camping out along the West River get a chance to hang out, share stories of what it’s like living outdoors in New Haven, consider what policy changes could better their circumstances, and eat.

One man staying at tent city mentioned while pouring a cup of pre-creamed coffee that he has stage IV lung cancer. Cigarette donations were requested, the lies of scarcity touted by capitalist elites were debated, pet dogs were played with, and rice and bean lunches were offered to anyone who passed by City Hall later that afternoon during the two hour-long rally held by the Unhoused Community Activist Team (U‑ACT).

In addition to simply bringing breakfast to a group of people who might otherwise go without eating, Colville said the weekly practice is also about ​“getting people talking to each other, hanging out for an hour or a half hour.” 

As a local organizer, he is hoping to hear from those staying at tent city about what would make their lives better. And as a person living just a few streets down from the encampment, he wants to build trust between neighbors. 

Tyrell Jackson, a 28-year-old whose green tent is the first you see when walking across the field by the West River Memorial Park car lot and slide between fencing and trees segregating the small city from the street, said that while those living around ​“try to be a community, it becomes cannibalistic at times.”

Jackson is the primary liaison between those living on the Boulevard and U‑ACT, a group of people experiencing homelessness and allied activists who meet and rally weekly to demand better treatment of unhoused residents, advocating for city-funded interventions like public bathrooms or storage lockers. Another key issue that the collective is pushing for is the legalization of tent cities like the one that exists off the Boulevard.

Currently, Jackson said, ​“it’s hard to maintain resources” because plenty of people who are not participating members of the encampment enter the space to steal for themselves. For example, days after Mark Colville dropped off a solar power phone charging station a couple years back, residents woke up to see nothing but torn up ground and their own cell batteries dying.

In addition to frequently physically fighting off people trying to steal from him and others, Jackson said that ​“real and rampant addiction” in New Haven poses other difficulties. 

“Most people here have vices,” he said of tent city, which he argued creates ​”tension between those who want to get out and those who don’t.”

“50 percent of people here are quite vulture-like,” he said. ​“You have to think for yourself.”

But, just like Jackson, many at tent city have families to protect. Jackson, a self described ​“Black Republican” who is originally from East Haven, said he was recently offered a bed at Columbus House, a nearby homeless shelter. But he doesn’t want to leave his 20-year-old pregnant girlfriend, who has yet to find alternative housing, alone in the encampment.

He said that in the meantime, he is hoping to negotiate a direct line of communication with the city such that those camping out know what to do and who to call when a neighbor overdoses or the community needs immediate assistance and attention. A portable generator to provide overhead lighting at night, he said, would also improve everyone’s quality of life at the encampment.

36-year-old Paul C., meanwhile, said he just hopes for local neighbors to bring by ​“wood, metal, nails, drills and screwdrivers” so that those within tent city can construct a more sustainable and protected way of life themselves. That would help fend off incidents like ​“racoon infestations,” he said, pointing to a hole in his tent created by a hungry critter.

Tent city is ​“a decent experience as far as homelessness goes,” he said. Before he and his wife found the area months back, he said he was living in abandoned cars and houses, getting busted by the cops every other night.

On Tuesdays, Paul eats Colville’s potatoes and then takes off to try to ​“panhandle” a few dollars that he can use to buy his wife, who was recently diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, something with a little more fiber. He said that his wife currently gets a disability check for $850 a month, which could be enough to rent a cheap room, but that the pair have struggled to find housing because landlords frequently require a substantial security deposit that’s ​“impossible to get together.”

Previously a mechanic with stakes in his family’s business based in the Valley, Paul said he has been working two jobs in a pizzeria and local auto body shop after having a falling out with his brothers. 

“I came out here because it’s a better ecosystem,” he said, noting that he is originally from Waterbury. In New Haven, there’s more to do; more opportunities and support for those who may be unemployed or unhoused; more people trying to better their circumstances, he suggested. In addition to Colville’s weekly breakfast, outreach workers from Cornell Scott and Columbus House, among other agencies, were spotted by this reporter in weeks past dropping off warm clothes.

At the same time, Paul said that no matter where he goes, he can’t escape the names and insults hurled at him by passersby judgmental of the fact that he would ask those around him to pass on a couple of dollars. “‘Go fuck yourself, get a job,’ that’s what I’d hear all day long,” he said of standing on the streets, despite the fact that he already works shifts with two different employers. He shared a memory of when an outreach worker (of an unnamed organization) he recognized from tent city saw him holding a ​“homeless, please help” sign on the streets and threatened to stop bringing resources to the Boulevard if he continues asking the public for money.

To so many people, Paul reflected, those without housing are just ​“another statistic.”

Paul said that Mark Colville, on the other hand, is an example of someone who sees those staying at tent city as full people — as neighbors who have expressed need of a hand up.

“It’s all about trust,” Colville maintained as he heard similar stories Tuesday from individuals disillusioned by some of the in-fighting that does take place at tent city.

“That kind of culture is a result of the way the city does things,” Colville urged. ​“The people at the bottom all have to fight each other” for supposedly scarce resources, when the issue is one of how those at the top are failing to distribute an abundance of goods.

The eight-person encampment growing out of his own backyard, which you can read about in more detail here, is an example of what tent cities could look like, he said.

“It’s what a tent city could be if there was actual support,” he continued. For instance, at his 203 Rosette St. home, he is able to provide electricity to those staying outside. A central building in the middle of the encampments provides a place for everyone to find heat, food and someone to talk to. 

“Where you put out a tent, that’s your land, your piece of land,” Colville said. ​“I’m not a cop. I don’t have permission to go into your piece of land.”

Rather, the rules governing the encampment are simple: ​“This whole thing gets shut down if people talk badly about it.”

In other words, Colville is not an authority figure. He is a trusted neighbor. And, so far, the property owners living on either side of him have not complained about the new neighbors cooking festive Thanksgiving dinners, like Donna Abate, joining their community.

That doesn’t mean the Amistad tiny neighborhood isn’t without its own problems. But, Colville said, ​“those issues are handled as they come up,” with care and immediacy that might not be possible without the kind of confidence Colville and his neighbors have in one another.

By 9 a.m. on Tuesday, Colville and company were ready to move on to City Hall, where they passed out free lunches of ​“Irish rice and beans” and chicken breast while taking signatures for a petition described on pamphlets as telling ​“the City of New Haven to stop evicting, hassling and arresting unhoused people for exercising our HUMAN RIGHT TO USE PUBLIC SPACE.” You can sign and/or read more about that petition here.

“Last call, we gotta go!” Colville shouted out towards the long stretch of tents. ​“I’m too cold to stay here. Anyone want seconds?”

“Yeah!” came the collective response, echoing across the cold, blue river.

See below for more recent Independent articles about homelessness, activism, and attempts to find shelter this winter.

• Warming Centers Open, While City Looks To Long-Term Homeless Fixes
• ​“Human Rights Zone” Grows In Hill Backyard
• Homeless Hotel Plan Scrapped. What’s Next?
• Election Day Rally Casts Ballot For Housing