Visionary Returns, Feted

They celebrated buying, rehabilitating, and selling scores of homes to first-time homeowners and in the process revitalizing a stretch of Newhallville that many had given up on.

Not on the agenda but very much part of the event was also celebration of the return to action of the man who has lead that effort for decades: founder and executive director of Neighborhood Housing Services, who has returned from a life-threatening stroke to be the very model of optimism and resiliency.

Both those achievements were hailed with a standing ovation Tuesday night as 175 people gathered at Anthony’s Ocean View Restaurant in Morris Cove to mark the 38th annual meeting of NHS, a not-for-profit housing renovation outfit, and the return to action of Paley.

A champion of affordable housing and empowering low-income people to invest in their homes and neighborhoods since 1980, Paley was felled by a stroke in November last year — ​“30 hours after Trump was elected,” he said as he greeted attendees and well-wishers Tuesday night.

A humble man who began a career of activism in the Civil Rights Era helping to sign up voters as an undergraduate in rural Tennessee, Paley made sure not to make himself the center of attention at Tuesday night’s event.

Still, a grateful staff and colleagues from bankers to community organizers hailed Paley with a lifetime achievement award. Bridgette Russell, the managing director of NHS’s HomeOwnership Center, noted that Paley initially lost his speech, all ability at math (this for someone who is famous for brilliantly juggling spreadsheets with varying colored lines of income flows!), and mobility. In his recovery, Paley demonstrated responsibility, resourcefulness, and resilience, Russell said.

Those very traits are embodied in NHS’s work bringing back the city’s most fragile neighborhoods.

“He’s passionate about what he does. It’s what enabled him to get well,” said Paley’s wife, clinical psychologist Sharon Paley.

Longtime friend Noel Heimer was a city economic development staffer in the Biagio DiLieto era when Paley began as the sole employee of NHS, which now has 20 staffers. Heimer recalled that when she went to visit Paley during his recovery, it wasn’t so easy to get in: ​“I had to wait a half hour to visit because he was managing a staff meeting in the rehab center” — NHS’s staff meeting, not the rehab center’s.

“Jim is a very remarkable man, and humble as the day is long,” Heimer said.

“It was an unfinished job at NHS that motivated me, and that’s why I’m here,” Paley said in his formal remarks to the crowd.

“Here’s a quiz,” he said. ​“When I came here and you said Chapel and Howe to people, what’s the first word that came to mind? The answer: prostitution. Yet on that same corner [today] the Novella recently sold for close to $40 million.”

He praised Mayor Toni Harp, who offered keynote remarks, and Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson for helping to revitalize downtown. But ​“the neighborhoods, where we work, have lagged,” he said.

Paley reviewed NHS’s work in those neighborhoods over the decades, particularly a shift, beginning around the time of the Great Recession, to work not only on individual houses but on clusters of houses in the same areas in order to create a sufficient mass of activity to keep away predatory landlords and motivate new and established homeowners to step forward.

He particularly hailed the focus on Newhallville where since 2007 NHS has purchased 41 homes, completed work and sold 25 of them, with two under lease-purchase, two more waiting for closings, two under construction, and ten waiting for construction. NHS’s strategy is to do high-quality rehabs (including new roofs and HVAC systems) of historic homes, partly with the help of tax credits that keep the prices affordable, then find and train community-focused homeowners who’ll be able to maintain the properties and hand them down to their children.

“Newhallville is coming back. We have renewed confidence in the neighborhood, and that’s something we can be very proud of,” he added.

Paley, who has a PhD in economics from Cornell, said the challenge of creating new kinds of financial entities to advance the basic mission of NHS keeps him going. These include three distinct corporations under the umbrella of NHS: the HomeOwnership Center (HOC); an HOC Realty company, the very first non-profit real estate agency in the state (the profits from sales go right back into the HOC’s work); and a recently incorporated HOC Lending institution.

Longtime NHS Director of Design and Construction Henry Dynia underlined a point that seemed to be universally accepted around the room: ​“If you hadn’t come to New Haven, this work wouldn’t have been started. It won’t ever be finished, but your passion has brought it a long way.”

Dynia said that in his career in the construction business he has seen a lot of financial hanky-panky, but never with NHS or Paley: ​“In Jim I’ve found a person of exceptional integrity. You are one of a kind.”

Well, there’s no other way to describe it: the evening was a well-earned love-fest for a child of the 1960s who continues to make it happen today in the tough world of affordable housing and first-time home ownership projects.

In addition, the evening featured the election of members to the boards of directors of both NHS and HOC. As always, the slates included residents, city officials, lenders, and others from the business community.

For the second year, the proceedings also featured the bestowing of ​“Champions For Change Awards” recognizing people whose values in revitalizing New Haven mirror those of NHS.

The evening’s awardees included Dan Jusino, the executive director of EMERGE, CT, a group that helps the formerly incarcerated get employment, counseling, and education, and other supports to stay out of jail. The second awardee was Leslie Radcliffe, a Hill community activist who wears many hats including being currently vice chair of the City Plan Commission.

Radcliffe bought her first home eight years ago in the Hill— from NHS. She still lives there, and makes a difference.