New Haven residents: Spend federal funds on housing, jobs, youth services

NEW HAVEN — The voices coming from the audience couldn’t be clearer.

Many if not most of the more than 100 people who turned out this week to tell the Board of Alders how the city should spend the $53 million Phase 3 of federal American Rescue Plan Act funds believe New Haven should prioritize using the funds to promote affordable housing, access to jobs, affordable child care and youth services in the city’s neighborhoods.

“The youth of Newhallville have been abandoned by the city,” resident Flordia Baskin told the Board of Alders’ Finance Committee during Monday’s public hearing. “Our young people have nothing to do and nowhere to go, except to hang out in the streets.”

Newhallville “needs a safe place for our youths,” Baskin said.

Finance Committee Chairman Adam Marchand said alders will hold additional meetings on the proposal before making any decision.

Many of the things people called for already are included in City Hall’s proposal: $10 million for youth engagement and early childhood programs; $10 million for the “I”m Home Initiatives” related to supporting home ownership and affordable rentals; $10 million to support wealth creation and the city’s economy; and $8 million for vocational and technical initiatives.

The proposal also includes $5 million to mitigate climate change, $6 million for public health and infrastructure and $4 million to create and seed a “New Haven Land Bank” to buy open space.

Mayor Justin Elicker said Tuesday that “there’s significant alignment between what we heard last night, what we have heard during many listening sessions and what the proposal before the Board of Alders includes.”

The plan in its current form includes “significant investment in youth through youth engagement, the expansion of community centers and investment in early child care program,” Elicker said.

It also includes support for housing through the

“I’m Home Initiative” and, on the jobs front, “we have a wealth creation component that promotes business ownership, with a focus on Black and brown business owners,” he said.

Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli said that some of the concerns people expressed called for measures that already have been included in past rounds, such as creation of the city’s new Community Resilience Department.

Many of the speakers were connected in some way to New Haven Rising, a community organization with ties to Yale’s unions that seeks economic, racial, and social justice — and did its own survey to gauge the community’s priorities.

“Newhallville has been chronically underfunded for decades,” said Claudine Wilkins Chambers, a North Carolina native and former president of the Board of Education’s paraprofessionals union who lives on Starr Street. She said it was “no surprise that it looks the way it looks today.”

“You have a chance to invest in neighborhoods that have been ignored for far too long,” Chambers said.

Rebecca Moore, program director for the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, made a pitch for more community arts funding, saying, “Arts is one of the reasons why we’ve been able to survive the pandemic.”

Nicole Mealey, who lives on Francis Hunter Drive off Dixwell Avenue and is affiliated with New Haven Rising, said, “I think it’s important for New Haven residents to have a say” when it comes to how the funds are spent.

She said housing is the top issue because “purchasing a home is out of reach for most poor people.”

Dixwell residents also want to see more children’s programs, she said.

Camilla Chavez of Chestnut Street said 57 percent of New Haven residents are burdened by housing costs — and was one of several speakers who urged the city to spend $50 million to buy housing within the city and preserve it as affordable housing.

Scott Marks Jr., whose father, the Rev. Scott Marks, is New Haven Rising’s director, said youths and safety were among the top priorities in the organization’s survey.

“All I’m asking from our elected officials is to stand by our community,” Marks said. “Stand by us and stand with us.”

Pond Street resident Barbara Vereen, organizing director for Yale’s Local 34, said, “Providing youth with more opportunities will keep our neighborhoods safe . ... We worked hard to construct a Cherry Ann Street park so our children would have a place to go.”

She also said “jobs are always a major concern in Newhallville.”

Walnut Street resident Charlie Taylor, who works with New Haven Rising’s job campaign, said people already were squeezed by the pandemic and now are being squeezed further by rising prices. He ranked adequate, affordable housing, good transportation and child care among the highest priorities.

Several speakers mentioned climate change as a concern.

Exchange Street resident Abby Feldman, who works with New Haven Rising, said it’s important “to ensure that this funding benefits New Haven neighborhoods.”

The top priorities, according to the survey, were affordable housing, jobs and youth programs. “Those are the top three priorities in all city neighborhoods, except for West Rock, where safety also made the top three,” she said.