Thomas Breen photo
Legal aid’s Elizabeth Rosenthal, tenant Ruth Nelson, legal aid’s Melissa Marichal, city attorney Kevin Casini in court Thursday.
The city has agreed to continue to pay for a fire-displaced tenant’s hotel room for another week as city and legal aid attorneys finalize securing her family a replacement apartment at Seabury Cooperative Housing.
That was the result of a court appearance Thursday morning in the third-floor housing court of state Superior Court Judge Claudia Baio at 121 Elm St.
The case in question is Ruth Nelson v. City of New Haven.
It’s one of two similar complaints filed by the New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA) against the city last week regarding the latter’s allegedly inconsistent policy of providing relocation benefits to tenants burnt out of their homes.
In court on Thursday, city Asst. Corporation Counsel Kevin Casini confirmed that the city has agreed to pay for Nelson and her daughter’s hotel room at La Quinta Inn at Long Wharf until the case’s next court hearing on Dec. 19.
By that time, he said, the city, Nelson, Nelson’s legal aid attorneys, and Seabury co-op’s attorneys should be able to finalize an agreement for Nelson and her daughter to move back in to a comparable apartment at the Elm Street complex. The only hold-up right now is that the city has not been able to reach Seabury’s attorney to close the deal.
“Whatever’s in place now remains status quo until next week,” he said.
Seabury Cooperative Housing at 400 Elm St.
Nelson, 52, and her 17-year-old daughter had to leave their fifth-floor apartment at Seabury’s 400 Elm St. apartment complex in July because of a fire.
The 52-year-old New Havener has been living out of La Quinta for the past few weeks, ever since the city agreed to put her and her daughter up as a “courtesy”’ after she filed for relocation benefits with the city Livable City Initiative (LCI).
“It’s been different,” she said about constantly shuttling between her hotel room and her mom’s apartment. “I just want my home back. A place to call home.”
Nelson said that Seabury threw out almost all of her furniture and possessions after the fire, even though not everything should have been scrapped.
She said lost her couch, her clothes, her shoes, her bed. She was able to salvage two televisions and a television stand, she added, as well as a collection of black figurines she had inherited from her grandmother.
“I just want to go back to living a normal life,” Nelson said.
During the seven-minute hearing before Baio, legal aid Fellow Melissa Marichal asked the judge for a continuance in the case. “We have the basics for an agreement” with the city, and are just waiting for a signature from the landlord before they can settle the case, she said.
“I want to thank everybody for their collaboration on this matter,” Baio said. She set the next hearing for the case as Dec. 19 at 2 p.m.
