Homeless but not helpless in New Haven

Sat., Jan. 8 was a night when Yale welcomed many of its students back from winter recess. It was also one of the coldest nights of the year. That night, a homeless woman named Roseann Rogers died sleeping in the alley next to the Palace Theater.

CAYTE PUSHKAREVA/YH New Haven's homeless feel marginalized by confusing and non-responsive shelter policies.

The impact of January's harsh weather led some Yalies and members of New Haven's homeless community to form a coalition pursuing changes in the city's treatment of the homeless at Columbus House (CH), Immanuel Baptist (IB), and the Overflow Shelter (OS). On Sun., Jan. 30, the coalition stood outside City Hall and read a list of proposals to change New Haven's system for dealing with its homeless.

A new proposal

On Mon., Feb. 7, Alder Julio Gonzalez, CC '99, implored his colleagues to call on the city's Homeless Advisory Commission (HAC) to review three provisions of the city's homeless policy before Wed., Mar. 1, when budget discussions will begin for the new fiscal year. The first and most important provision that Gonzalez wants HAC to address is the lack of shelter beds for single women. "If there is a need to add women's beds, then the alders need to know before [budget deliberations]," he said.

According to Abigail Levine, BK '02, a student coordinator for the Yale Hunger and Homelessness Action Project (YHHAP), the lack of beds for women is a serious problem. "Women in Crisis has 24 beds for single women," she said. "But they are usually filled by 5 p.m." Those turned away are referred to shelters in Meriden and Waterbury, Conn. But Alison Cunningham, executive director of CH, claims that her shelter's beds for women are usually unfilled. "We rarely have to turn women away," she said. "Our capacity of 24 is not always reached."

The second provision mandates a new policy for handling homeless people who come into the Overflow Shelter—a male-only shelter—after the 11 p.m. curfew. The current policy states that if a homeless person comes to the shelter past 11 p.m., he is to be turned away unless he has made previous arrangements with the shelter, has referrals from hospitals or other social agencies, or is escorted to the shelter by police.

Some homeless citizens criticize this policy as inconvenient. They want the shelter to continue accepting all people until 1 a.m. On Fri., Feb. 4, Alma Ayala, CC '86, director of New Haven's human resources department, which oversees the city's homeless policy, made a concession. For now, those arriving after 11 p.m. will be admitted to shelters if they pass a drug test administered by the Southern Connecticut Recovery Center (SCRC) upstairs.

Ayala disagrees with the charge that the original policy is inconvenient to the homeless. "The vast majority of people come in before the curfew, or have made arrangement with the shelter because of work," Ayala said. "Only a handful don't. Often, it's because they were partying." By evaluating the people who arrive after 11 p.m., Ayala wants to find out how many of the people who come in late do so due to the influence of drugs.

The third provision that Gonzalez wants HAC to review is a capacity clause, which requires the OS to direct people to either IB or CH if those two shelters are not filled. Ayala said that in mid-January, the city reacted to the inclement weather by suspending the capacity clause, but the clause was rescinded only on cold days, not "until further notice" as it was supposed to be, due to administrative confusion.

As recently as Sun., Feb. 13, men were turned away from OS due to confusion over the capacity clause. Levine also said she had heard that this week, when a man came to OS after the curfew, he was turned away. This assertion surprised Ayala. "I have not been hearing that people were turned away," she said. "The key is that they have to be evaluated. As far as I know, the policy is enforced."

Gonzalez failed to marshal the necessary unanimous consent for his proposals. Alder Andrea Jackson-Brooks, who sits on the board of the Hillhouse Center, which manages SCRC, was the only alder to vote against the proposal. She felt SCRC was ill-suited to its new role, saying, "SCRC, to my knowledge, was not notified of the city's new policy," she said. "SCRC is not meant to treat the homeless."

An uneasy trio

The relationship between New Haven, the care providers, and the homeless has always been troubled. At the Jan. 30 speak-out, many homeless told stories of what they perceived as gross maltreatment by certain shelter workers. A homeless man named Alex said that staff members at a shelter threw him out after he complained that he was given a rotten sandwich. The homeless citizens maintained that they wanted to be treated with respect, and found it degrading to be searched upon entering a shelter like CH. Charles Tulles, a homeless man, said, "It's about respect, brotherhood, and a common humanity."

FILE PHOTO Julio Gonzalez, CC'99, thinks he can help solve New Haven's homeless problem.

Are the shelters up to the task of giving care to the city's homeless? Cunningham said there was a serious undercount problem in the 1990 census, which estimated that there were between 2,000 and 2,400 homeless in New Haven. She asserted that the problem is much greater than the census portrayed. Accurate census counts affect the federal aid money that comes into Connecticut and New Haven. "Our funding only lets us stay open between 4 p.m. and 8 a.m.," Cunningham said. "This winter, when the weather was really bad, I decided to keep my shelters open past 8 a.m., but that puts a real and serious strain on our budget."

Cunningham said that CH is beginning to talk to the homeless about the importance of the census—but strong mistrust persists. "There are a lot of people who are skeptical of anything that involves the government," Cunningham explained. She also added that CH is in constant contact with other service providers, such as IB. Wesley Thorpe, the executive director of IB, refused to comment for this story.

According to homeless advocates like Duff Morton, TC '00, the current system's biggest flaw may not be a lack of funding. "New Haven is a textbook example of the professionalization of charity," Morton said. "Its attitude toward charity is reduced to dollars and cents. But charity comes from the Latin word caritas, which means `love.'" Morton said that the existing social service network is structured around the concept that homeless people are all mentally ill or drug addicts. According to the Mayor's Office, 85 percent of shelter users admitted to having used drugs and/or having a serious mental illness [YH, 2/19/99].

The question of trust hints at the larger image issues involved in dealing with the homeless. For example, pat-downs may be perceived as distrustful, but Cunningham insisted, "We do it out of the concern for the safety of everyone." John Huettner, special projects director for the city, feels that the shelters have been portrayed unfairly in the media. "Agencies have to have rules," he maintained. "Just for the safety of others, you have to have rules."

Settling the dispute

To ensure that both sides are heard is one of the duties of HAC, which was activated only in October 1999 after proposals dating back to 1985. According to Huettner, agreements had to be reached regarding the size and make-up of the commission. Presently, of the 11 members, five must either be members or former members of the homeless community. But because HAC is so young, it has no chair and no official spokesperson.

Les Williams, a member of HAC from the homeless advocacy group We the People, did not express surprise when he heard that Gonzalez's proposal failed to gain unanimous agreement. She feels that the truly proactive steps in moving the city to address the concerns of the homeless must come from the community. "I think that the homeless population needs to let the city know [its] needs," she said. "We can only advise and suggest changes in policy—but that doesn't mean that the city is going to act on our suggestions. But citizens are not limited."

One of the long-term changes that the homeless and their advocates hope to realize is an improved system for addressing grievances. Among their 11 proposals, they would like to see a grievance board that would "consist of people who are currently homeless," and one that "should have the power to investigate and oversee discipline and other operations at the shelters."

Levine stresses that the grievance board issue is a long-term one. "It's one that we haven't fully discussed," Levine explained. "We don't pretend to have the solution to the issue of grievances; we would just like to see this issue worked on because it is important to homeless people. They want to see a change in how they are treated." Cunningham, however, defended the current CH grievance process and was skeptical of grievance boards. "To respect the autonomy of the shelters, matters should be first tried to be resolved internally," she said.

Morton prefers to see the humanity in the homeless people that he knows, rather than thinking of them as simply clients of the city's services. He said that he knew Rogers, the woman who died on Sat., Jan. 8. "She was a wonderful woman," he said. He doesn't know how Rogers died because he could not find her death certificate, but he pointed out, "No matter how she died, the cold didn't help."

With the thermometer's mercury rising, memories of the harsh January are quickly fading from people's minds. Will the problems experienced by the homeless fade as well? Morton doesn't think so. "The weather [at night] is still in the area where people could freeze to death." But he has not lost hope. "We have a determined set of people dedicated to confronting social justice issues."

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