New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Columbus House receives $200K Bank of America grant
NEW HAVEN — The local anti-homelessness nonprofit Columbus House has received a $200,000, two-year “Neighborhood Builder” grant, Bank of America announced Thursday at an end-of-year annual meeting at the New Haven Lawn Club.
“As visionaries, you need capital,” said Bank of America of Southern Connecticut market manager Carol Heller to the room at the breakfast meeting for Columbus House. “At Bank of America, we’re very proud to have invested in your work for many years.”
Alison Cunningham, CEO of Columbus House, said the grant was “really a reflection of the work of Columbus House staff.”
She provided several updates about the state of homelessness in Greater New Haven; for someone earning minimum wage to afford a market-rate, two-bedroom apartment in New Haven, they would need to work 99 hours per week.
“People who live in poverty have tough choices to make when it comes to their survival,” she said.
Cunningham highlighted that the Columbus House is in its second year of a five-year partnership with the Yale School of Architecture to build duplex homes for people experiencing homelessness and said the center is looking at opening a seasonal warming center in Hamden.
Additionally, she said, the group received a grant to establish youth shelters for people between the ages of 18 and 24 and also will complete work on a new overflow shelter.
“We have a goal of ending youth homelessness by 2020,” she said.
Cunningham said more than 1,100 people used Columbus House shelters in 2018. She thanked Gov. Dannel P. Malloy for throwing support behind initiatives to end homelessness and said she hopes Gov.-elect Ned Lamont shows “the same commitment to ending homelessness in Connecticut.”
Cunningham said Columbus House has “a longstanding relationship with Bank of America.”
As part of the grant, Cunningham and one other Columbus House staff member will receive leadership training. According to a news release, the Bank of America Neighborhood Builder award has partnered with 17 nonprofits in Southern Connecticut since 2007 and invested a total of $3.4 million into the region. Nationally, Bank of America has invested
$220 million through the grant since 2004.
Columbus House was founded in 1982.