Bella Vista Alder Renee Haywood Dies

Renee Haywood, a long-time Bella Vista resident and advocate for the disabled who represented Ward 11 on the Board of Alders for nearly six years even as she underwent dialysis, died on Friday. She was 60.

Haywood was first elected to the Board of Alders in 2017, when she won a contested Democratic primary and then an uncontested general election. 

Click here to read more about Haywood, who was born and raised in New Haven, previously worked as a New York City horticulturalist, lived at the Bella Vista senior apartment complex on Eastern Street for more than a decade and a half, and long struggled with serious health complications stemming from when a mosquito bite became so infected that it spread to her left hip and ultimately impacted her kidneys.

“I had a lot of people who helped me. I’m on dialysis. They supported me when I was weak. I’m so grateful,” Haywood said in September 2017 after winning the Democratic primary for Ward 11 alder in her first run for local office.

Haywood was in the middle of running for her fourth two-year term in office. She was slated to appear on the Nov. 7 general election ballot this year as the Democratic candidate for Ward 11 alder, running against Republican challenger Gail Roundtree.

DTC Chair Vinnie Mauro said that the committee is taking a pause to mourn the loss of a friend and colleague before deciding what to do next. The Ward 11 co-chairs must now pick a new Democratic candidate to appear on the Nov. 7 ballot in Haywood’s stead, he said. Ward 11 Democratic Ward Committee Co-Chairs Joe Fuce and Kurtis Kearney could not be reached for comment by the publication time of this article.

One of Haywood’s two adult daughters, Djenaba Haywood, told the Independent in a phone interview Monday evening that Haywood was born and raised in West Hills. She said she moved to New York, where she got married and had kids, and then moved with her husband and two daughters back to New Haven at around 2007.

“Unfortunately, she had gotten sick” when the family moved back to New Haven, Djenaba said. ​“Through some housing challenges, we were blessed to end up in Bella Vista because she was in disabled. Being in Bella Vista and being one of the younger people here and being disabled, her fight was to speak for people who were disabled and elderly.”

She said Haywood started off in Bella Vista as the president of Building 315’s social club, organizing community events and bingo nights and Christmas parties. She then met Dottie Harper, who helped her and coached her to get into politics.

Djenaba said that Haywood’s family threw her a big 60th birthday party this year in Bella Vista’s Victoria Room, celebrating a woman who spent so much of her life focusing on the needs of others. She stressed just how much Haywood loved being a grandmother, and how organizing Grandparents Day at a park on Quinnipiac Avenue was one of her favorite times of the year.

In a Monday afternoon phone interview, Quinnipiac Meadows Alder Gerald Antunes, whom Haywood described in 2017 as a friend and mentor, said that Haywood’s passing was ​“devastating to hear. Very surprising. I knew her health wasn’t well, but I didn’t know it had gotten to that point.”

“We worked very closely together,” he said. ​“Sometimes when she wasn’t able to make meetings in her ward, I’d attend for her” and they’d catch up afterwards. 

Local 34 staffers and New Haven Rising local labor organizers Jess Corbett and Eddie Camp spoke in a separate interview on Monday to how Haywood was a tireless advocate for seniors and the poor, even with her long-standing and serious health complications, and even when Covid-19 seriously limited her political work outside of her home. 

Corbett served as a Democratic Town Committee ward co-chair from Beaver Hills at the same time in the mid-2010s that Haywood served as a ward co-chair from Bella Vista. He remembered her as ​“always making sure the phone calls got made” to help her neighbors, and help elect Democrats to local and statewide office.

“She was definitely on the New Haven Rising program” regardless of whether or not New Haven Rising existed, he said. She cared about ​“access to good jobs for seniors and young people. If working people or poor people were fighting for something,” she was there at their side. 

He referred to her through tears as the ​“Queen of Bella Vista,” and remembered how she had called him just this past Wednesday, letting him know that she was back at the hospital and wanting to check in. Over the roughly seven years that he knew Haywood, Corbett said, he was struck by ​“how much she cared about people, especially folks who had it harder.” He also spoke about how she brought her granddaughter seemingly everywhere she went, and how she had an impeccable sense of style. To be complimented on one’s outfit by Haywood, Corbett said with a smile, was serious praise.

“Despite all of her personal struggles and the hardships she had, she continued to fight for a better world and do it with joy and grace and imagination,” Camp said, describing drives for vaccines and masks and testing kits that she organized at Bella Vista during the pandemic. Hers was ​“a really remarkable story,” and a life well lived.

It is now up to Mayor Justin Elicker to pick a replacement to fill out the rest of Haywood’s term, which ends at the end of this calendar year. The city charter requires him to pick a replacement of the same party affiliation as Haywood, meaning a fellow Democrat, and he must pick from a list of three names submitted by Ward 11 Democratic Ward Committee.

In a statement provided to the Independent for this story, Elicker mourned Haywood’s death. His spokesperson said that he has not yet picked her replacement.

“I was very sad to hear of the passing of Alder Haywood who was a champion for the community and her beloved Bella Vista neighbors,” Elicker said in an email statement.

“Alder Haywood was small in stature but had a big heart and she incorporated her lived experience and health challenges to inform her advocacy on behalf of others with medical issues, with disabilities and the elderly. Unfortunately, Alder Haywood had been struggling with declining health for some time and her passing is a sad day for the Elm City. I extend my deepest condolences to her family during this difficult time, as they both grieve her death and celebrate her life and service to the City of New Haven.”