Housing Authority OKs New Stimulus $$$

The housing authority OK’d a new infusion of federal stimulus money — which officials said would mean not just new dollars, but new jobs for blacks and Hispanics.

Two minority contractors, Yul Watley and James Perkins (right to left in top photos), attended a special meeting of the Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH) Tuesday afternoon. Watley (on the right) has contracts with the authority. Perkins would like to.

In the fall HANH successfully competed for chunks of the federal Housing and Urban Development Department’s economic stimulus plan. All told HANH won $30 million. Those funds are now available and included in HANH’s cash flow.

At Tuesday’s HANH board meeting, contracts were awarded and amended for a number of ​“shovel-ready” projects funded through the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), otherwise known as ​“the stimulus.”

The approved items include a contract worth $124,337 for asbestos and lead paint abatement and vacancy preparation at the Farnam Courts and the Winslow-Celentano housing developments. The contract is with L.A. Homes.

Kitchen and bathroom upgrades were approved for three more units at the McQueeney tower on Orange Street, increased from 18 to 21 units. That contract is with Crystal Property managers and totals $879,375.

Over at Newhall Gardens on Daisy Street, Continental Flooring Company will receive $99,000 in HANH-approved stimulus money to replace the flooring.

HANH deputy director Jimmy Miller said he saw such projects as well as the larger, from- the-ground-up projects in the pipeline, as economic engines serving New Haven and its minority communities.

“Our goal is to insure maximum participation of minority contractors,” he said.

He pointed to the Phase One pre-construction infrastructure preparation of the first 121 homes at the Brookside projects as an example. Of the $5.7 million portion of this phase ($4.7 million of which is stimulus money), a third has been awarded to minority, and in this instance, African- American sub-contractors including ACT and Leo Construction. ACT is owned by HANH resident Yul Watley.

Resident business owners, such as Watley, receive preferential treatment in the bidding process, as long as they are qualified. All told, he has nabbed about $1 million of HANH contracts thus far.

And in three months, Miller said, if the gods of real estate and finance line up, $90 million more will begin to be spent. That includes $42 million for the next phase at Brookside, $35 million for the W.T. Rowe site, and $13 million for the last batch of homeownership units at Quinnipiac Terrace. Those funds are a combination of stimulus, state, city, and HANH’s own money.

Such spending by a housing authority is unprecedented in Connecticut and constitutes an economic engine that will benefit New Haven citizens and its minority workers and contractors, said Miller.

Such facts didn’t impress James Perkins. He rose at the meeting, bemoaned black unemployment in the city, and charged that HANH favors unions. Especially during the economic downturn, unions, which historically have been white-dominated, go where the money is, namely, to HANH, he argued.

Result: a lessening of opportunities for smaller minority contractors. So Perkins charged.

“People working in the community need to reflect the community,” he said. His company, J.P. & Sons Construction Management, has been in business since 1991 but never had a city or HANH contract.

HANH board chairman Bob Solomon replied, ​“We have the best minority contracting [record] of any agency in New Haven, but we need to get better.”

“There’s only one horse in town,” said Perkins.

Perkins said he had attended a meeting the previous Tuesday of minority contractors interested in the upcoming W.T. Rowe project. He said notice was too late and he was blindsided by the deadline for proposal submissions, the end of January.

Miller promised that he and the W.T. Rowe implementation committee, which advises on such issues and which was formally approved at the HANH meeting, would respond to Perkins’ concerns within the next week or two.

Solomon made sure the staff had Perkins’ phone number.