Housing

Housing Horrors Haunt Hearing

by | Mar 18, 2024 9:53 am | Comments (5)

Thomas Breen photo

More of him please: LCI's Javier Ortiz checks out Vernon Street apartments.

Children urinating into buckets. Mice and mushrooms emerging from floorboards. Showering at Planet Fitness!

The first public hearing on the mayor’s proposed new city budget elicited such horror stories — as members of the public came out en masse to push not just for more affordable housing, but for better government oversight of living standards across existing housing stock.

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Local Landlords, Unite! vs. Eviction Bill

by | Mar 14, 2024 4:03 pm | Comments (40)

File photos

Local landlords Shmuel Aizenberg (top left) and Mendy Edelkopf (bottom left), 2 of 20 signatories of form letter opposing state bill; tenant advocates Sinclair Williams (top right) and Sarah Giovanniello (bottom right, with Amy Eppler-Epstein), in support of bill.

I am a part of a group of landlords in the area who help each other out by discussing issues and providing support and guidance to each other,” wrote Ocean Management’s Shmuel Aizenberg. 

Mandy Management’s Adir Chen wrote that too. So did Julian Cardona and Menahem Edelkopf and Alejandro Soriano and Menahem Lebenhartz and more than a dozen fellow New Haven-area landlords and property managers. 

Each wrote” those same words in individually signed form letters seeking to persuade state legislators to protect their right to evict rent-paying tenants whose leases have expired.

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State Pressed On "Historic" Homelessness

by | Mar 8, 2024 11:15 am | Comments (11)

Nora Grace-Flood Photo

Rolling up a mattress before bulldozers come in to demolish a Lamberton Street homeless encampment.

As executive director of New Haven’s Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen (DESK) and drop-in center, Steve Werlin has seen firsthand the state’s historic” rise in homelessness. He told state legislators about that — to urge them to find extra money this year to help front-line agencies like his save lives and work toward solutions.

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Re-Entry Experience Sparks Housing Plan

by | Feb 29, 2024 4:19 pm | Comments (6)

Laura Glesby Photo

Ray Boyd at 43 Sylvan, planned transitional home for formerly incarcerated men like himself.

Ray Boyd knows what it’s like to come home after decades in prison without support or guidance on how to rebuild his life.

Two years later, he and his wife Jackie James are trying to provide a better homecoming for others — by transforming James’ childhood home into a transitional home for people re-entering society.

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WWJD? Church Tenants Form City's 5th Union

by | Feb 26, 2024 9:29 am | Comments (13)

Paul Bass Photo

Nora Grace-Flood Photo

Tenants Kenneth Naito, Alex Kolokotronis, James Blau celebrate formal recognition of their new union at the Emerson (pictured at top).

The city’s fifth tenants union has formed, marking the first time New Haven residents have organized formally to bargain with a property owner that isn’t megalandlord Ocean Management. 

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Protest Targets Migrant Worker Eviction

by | Feb 23, 2024 9:43 am | Comments (6)

Laura Glesby Photo

Edgar Becerra protests with ULA outside MDF Painting and Power Washing.

We have human rights,” Edgar Becerra called into a bullhorn, speaking in Spanish. We have a heart.”

He was surrounded by over 25 immigrant rights activists outside the Branford headquarters of his Fair Haven landlord and former employer — who brought him to the U.S. as a temporary worker, allegedly fired him for work-related injuries, and is now trying to evict him a second time.

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Streater Tackles Housing At Street Level

by | Feb 7, 2024 3:33 pm | Comments (20)

Laura Glesby Photo

Alder Streater at the 180 Center, where he works overnight.

Troy Streater turned the key to the Lloyd Street apartment door, walked inside, and inspected the fresh gray paint job he’d recently commissioned so new tenants can move in.

Hours later, he arrived at the 180 Center to make his trademark hazelnut coffee for clients who have no apartment to sleep in.

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