Mental-health, addiction causes housing complex conflicts

HARTFORD — Helen Matulavage was 95 when she was assaulted in 2015 by a younger resident at the Callahan House in Seymour, where she lived.

The attack inflicted multiple injuries that required surgery, her daughter Gail Sokolnicki said in testimony before the General Assembly in 2017. She lost much of her mobility and had nightmares about the event, before she died in January 2017.

Stories like Matulavage’s prompted legislators to ask in 2017 whether the elderly and younger, disabled individuals should continue to live together in state-funded housing. The General Assembly directed the state Department of Housing to study conflict between these two populations residing together.

The Connecticut Fair Housing Center, which was contracted to conduct the study, found that both the disabled individuals, and the elderly are responsible for starting tensions.

Speaking to staff at these residences, they also identified a likely source of the problem.

Undiagnosed and untreated mental health and addiction is the cause, said Erin Kemple, executive director of the Connecticut Fair Housing Center, who presented the study’s findings at the Capitol on Thursday. “They all agreed that the problems have gotten worse as mental health and addiction services have been cut.”

The survey was taken with the help of Brookfield, Wallingford and Manchester Housing Authorities, which mixes the populations housing of various sizes.

The findings suggest the state may maintain its housing policy, which currently allows elderly and disabled populations to live together, instead of dividing them in separate housing. Mike Santaro, a community development specialist at the Department of Housing, said Thursday the Department is “generally supportive” of study’s conclusions.

The state provides funding for 6,451 elderly/disabled housing units in 182 buildings around Connecticut, the Fair Housing Center’s report said.

Exactly which towns have elderly and disabled people living together fluctuates as residents move in and out, said Lisa Kidder, director of communications for the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, which oversees the state’s housing portfolio.

In Fairfield County, Bethel, Danbury, Darien, Monroe, Norwalk, Ridgefield, Shelton, Stratford and Trumbull have elderly facilities where the disabled may sometimes live, said Kidder. Stamford and Greenwich also have elderly/disabled homes, the Fair Housing report said.

Westport and Fairfield have residences where elderly and non-elderly disabled people live together because the demand for affordable housing is so high, said Carol Martin, who is executive director of both towns’ housing authorities.

“I really don't think ‘age’ in any apartment complex is the issue when it comes to behavior/conflict,” Martin wrote in an email. Other factors that do increase conflict are the type of housing (high rises versus units with individual entrances), availability of on-site services and the absence of a state department with protective services for disabled people, she said.

The Fair Housing Center presented their findings and took feedback in East Haven on Wednesday, and will do so again in Darien Friday.

Hearst Connecticut Meida file photo Helen Matulavage, left, with two residents from the Callahan House senior housing in Seymour during the summer of 2011. Matulavage, whose daughter helped prompt state legislation on housing complex violence, died in 2017.