They Got Along — & Cleaned Up New Haven

Aumin Jones assumed he’d have to watch his back. He’s from Farnam Courts; he was about to spend his days wielding rakes and trash bags next to kids from rival projects, like Travis Perry from Q Terrace.

A different script unfolded over the past five weeks. More than three dozen high-schoolers from across New Haven worked alongside each other, all over town. They got along. They made some money. They made churches and streetcorners and courtyards sparkle.

Jones (at right in top photo), a rising Wilbur Cross junior, and Perry (at left), a rising sophomore, joined their coworkers at a celebratory cookout Friday marking the end of their city-funded summer program.

The party took place in the courtyard of the home base for the program, at the West Street Housing Cooperative, the one-story apartments spread along Congress Avenue, West Street, and Columbus Avenue in the Hill.

The coop’s management agreed to take 35 teens (like Cross junior Brittany Gurley, pictured at left doing Career High sophomore Francheska Jorge’s hair) from City Hall’s Youth @ Work program and find productive work for them to do. The kids mowed grass, filled trash bags, painted iron fences. They worked in the housing coop’s immediate neighborhood, and on streets and at houses of worship throughout New Haven. Despite their varied backgrounds, not one fight broke out between the young workers, according to Ann Boyd.

Boyd (at left in photo), a Project MORE staffer and the West Street public housing development’s longest-residing tenant, agreed to take charge of the kids. Boyd has worked with young people in the Hill for decades, since the Black Panther era. She knew this summer program could be a challenge, given the combustible mix of home turfs. Violent clashes break out regularly in New Haven between teens from different projects. So she addressed the issue of neighborhood rivalries the first morning. (Boyd is pictured with Hill Alderwoman Andrea Jackson-Brooks, preparing the food for Friday’s party.)

“Everyone was concerned because they came from different projects,” said Wanda Sweat (pictured), head of the private management company that runs the West Street coop and made space available for the program.

“We thought we could build bridges,” Boyd said. ​“We could mend the gap and send the message across the city that these kids could could work together. And they did. It took 12 hours. It was an oasis over here.”

Boyd recalls delivering a message to the teens that first morning: ​“I don’t know how the city got broken up into this street versus this street,” she said. ​“New Haven is New Haven. I am a resident of New Haven. Right now we’re a team working in New Haven. Stop categorizing yourself.”

At first, Aumin Jones said, ​“I thought they [the teens he recognized that first morning from other projects] were going to do something. I had to watch my back at all times.”

He found himself talking to the kids and getting to know them. He was ​“smiling” every day, he said. Travis Perry found the same; he said he expects he’ll be ​“going to parties” with his friends from around town this coming year.

The Boyds are the First Family at West Street, community organizers and volunteers who have lived through management, renovation and other changes at the development. Ann’s son Howard, who works maintenance at the project and assistant-coaches Hillhouse’s basketball team, spent his days volunteering with the 35 teens in the program. In addition to their clean-up duties, Howard brought in a TD North banker to talk to them about saving their money and a nurse to discuss how to pursue a career like hers. Howard (pictured during a break grilling the burgers Friday) also showed them how to put up sheetrock and how to fix faucet handles.

As the teens bid a fond farewell to their summer on neutral turf, the oldest among them looked forward to new challenges this fall. Ash-Shaun Boston (pictured), who grew up in the West Street coop and attended Hyde Leadership Academy, was days away from heading to Sacred Heart University to begin pursuing a psychology degree on a football scholarship.

Jordan Ringwood, who came to the West Street program from Ramsdell Street on the west side of town, has a basketball scholarship to Mitchell College in New London, where she plans to study criminal justice.

Daryl McIver, a Hillhouse grad who grew up in the West Street coop, plans to study electronics at Lincoln Tech. Beefing ​“goes on every day” in New Haven, McIver said. In the summer program, he was pleased to discover, ​“nobody bumped heads.”

Ann Boyd said she plans to follow up with the teens during the school year. She wants to keep the summer’s momentum going.