Thomas Breen photo
Rodney Williams at Dunkin Donuts confab. Below: Mayor-Elect Justin Elicker (center) with Frank Parady and Martin Torresquintero.
A small-business contractor pitched Mayor-Elect Justin Elicker on an alternative solution to the city’s affordable housing crisis — well-paying jobs that allow New Haveners of all educational and economic backgrounds to earn enough money to live where they want.
Rodney Williams of Mr. Rock Drywall LLC articulated that vision Friday morning during an hour-and-a-half meet-and-greet that Elicker held at the Dunkin Donuts at 291 Ferry St. in Fair Haven.
“The lack of [job] opportunities always has us looking for affordable apartments,” said Williams, who currently lives in Newhallville and who raised his kids while living on Pine Street and, later, on Dover Street in Fair Haven. “The lack of opportunities is putting us in these corners.”
The Dunkin Donuts on Ferry Street.
The weekday morning kaffeklatch saw roughly 30 New Haveners from throughout the city crowd around one of the fastfood hub’s window-side tables to meet the incoming mayor and pitch him on what they would like him to focus on after he takes office on Jan. 1.
Just as he has done at the two larger transition team meetings held in Wooster Square over the past two months, Elicker spent most of the session listening — and emphasizing that he has spent the run-up to his first term actively seeking out earfuls of advice and informationfrom as many different layperson and expert sources as possible.
At Elicker’s Friday morning coffee meetup.
Just Thursday, he said, he met with the head of Yale New Haven Hospital and with the directors of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. He recently attended the Seminar on Transition for Newly-Elected Mayors put on by the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics.
And he planned on eating Friday lunch with Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim, and Waterbury Mayor Neal O’Leary to explore increasing collaboration between Connecticut’s largest cities.
“So,” Elicker said at the top of the meeting after each attendee had introduced themselves and said a sentence about why they were there, “do you have any questions on anything? Any thoughts?”
What are your top priorities upon taking office? one attendee asked. “What’s the first thing you’re gonna do?”
Elicker said that finding ways to develop, preserve, and expand existing affordable housing are towards the top of his list. Unlike when he ran for mayor in 2013, he said, the ever-increasing cost of safe and convenient housing was one of the top concerns he heard from constituents when knocking on doors.
That issue was also at the center of the new-mayor seminar he attended in Boston, he said. Roughly 20 mayors from throughout the country all spoke about how they’re dealing with similar challenges of long-time city residents being pushed out of their neighborhoods by rising rents resulting from increased investment in high-end real estate.
“There’s got to be inclusive growth,” Elicker said. “One of the way we can do that is through affordable housing,” and in particular through inclusionary zoning policies that require private developers to set aside a certain percentage of apartments in new buildings at affordable rates.
That’s when Williams, a supporter of Elicker’s opponent in the 2019 mayoral election, jumped in. He said he has lived in New Haven ever since 1978 when his family moved to the Elm City from Brooklyn.
He urged Elicker to focus as much on making sure that New Haveners have good-paying jobs with benefits as on making sure that the city has a surfeit of affordable housing. Much of the city’s existing private and public affordable housing stock is already concentrated in working-class African American and Latino neighborhoods like Newhallville and Fair Haven, he said.
What those residents need even more are opportunities to earn enough money and create a stable life for themselves and their families.
“If we get jobs we can afford to live where we want to live,” he said.
Elicker agreed. He noted that the Yale New Haven Hospital is about to invest nearly $1 billion in a new neuroscience center and expand St. Raphael hospital campus in West River and Dwight. “We have to make sure New Haven residents are getting into those jobs.”
The best way to do that, he said, is through establishing job training programs and close-working relationships between the city and large employers. He singled out the Connecticut Center for Arts and Technology (ConnCAT) as doing an exemplary job of not just providing job training for city residents who do not have college degrees, but also for tailoring their educational programs towards skills that specific employers actually need. That way, he said, when students graduate, they know they can get a job.
Beaver Hills resident Yashmun Filipczak-Morrisseau (pictured) said she would like Elicker to dig deep on building jobs pipelines for New Haven high school students.
“The career days for students can be better organized,” she said. The mayor and the Board of Education need to press the schools to bring in “minority professionals,” she said, so that the majority African American and Latino and Latina student body can meet engineers and carpenters and doctors and teachers who look like them.
“Even if it’s just graduate students,” she said, that could go a long way towards showing New Haven Public Schools students that they too can succeed in whichever field they hope to pursue.
Fair Haven School President Heriberto Cordero (pictured) agreed. “I’ve always had a pipeline dream,” he said, about making sure that city public school students of color are encouraged to stay in the Elm City and become public school teachers.
“How do we create that pipeline?” Elicker asked. One attendee suggested broadening the New Haven Promise program to direct some of its scholarship perks not just to public school students to go to college, but to public school students who ultimately want to become city public school teachers.
Clinton Avenue resident Lee Cruz (pictured) suggested one small job opportunity that could also show off the cultural and culinary and historical wealth of the city’s neighborhoods: Walking tours.
Cruz himself has led a walking tour of Grand Avenue for years. He said it’s become a very popular way to show off Fair Haven to people from other parts of the city who may not be familiar with all of the different primarily Latin American-owned bakeries and restaurants and businesses on Grand.
Dixwell Avenue and Shelton Avenue and Congress Avenue should all have similar tours in place, he said.
“It actually has become a money generator,” he said. Yale and other large local institutions pay him to lead such tours on Grand. While he reinvests whatever money he makes from that enterprise into the tours themselves, he said that this could also prove to be a fun and neighborhood-specific job opportunity that could be promoted by the city.
Madeline Fargeorge (pictured) directed a more pointed question at the mayor elect. She said she owns a garage on Lombard Street, and has had a very difficult time setting up her arts workshop because of the high hurdle of zoning regulations.
“My property is zoned as residential,” she said, “but there’s no way anyone could ever live there.” What could Elicker do to make it easier for aspiring small businesspeople get their companies off the ground?”
Two thoughts, Elicker said. People looking to start their own businesses shouldn’t have to go to three different city departments and get three different sets of permits just to get started. That process should be streamlined. There should be a one-stop shop at City Hall for such business owners to turn to.
Second, the city’s economic development department should include one staffer specifically designated to “champion” small businesses. That is, sit down with such entrepreneurs, talk to them about their goals and dreams, and direct them what they need to do next.
Was a very encouraging and illuminating opportunity to meet with the Mayor elect and with many other concerned and engaged citizens.... So many other issues were brought up as well as the ones mentioned in the article.... I am hopeful that together, along with our new Mayor, the people of New Haven can build a better community and future for everyone here. Democracy is NOT a spectator sport, get out of your little world, roll up your sleeves, get involved, volunteer, work with your neighbors, and the city, join your local Community Management Team, and together let's strive everyday to build a better city and community, state and nation.