Law School professor reflects on 'Citizen Yale'

JOHN YI/YH Yale Law professor Robert Solomon, an expert on town-gown relations, will try to reform New Haven's failing housing board.

Robert Solomon knows New Haven and Yale like a marriage counselor knows his two patients. As a former tenant advocate and newly appointed Acting Executive Director of the Housing Authority of the City of New Haven, he must now re-suscitate New Haven's troubled housing board and its real estate market. As a clinical Professor of Law at Yale Law School who teaches a course on public housing, Solomon is an expert on Yale's responsibilities as an institution in an urban setting.

Solomon himself is an example of Yale's increasing involvement in the direct management of New Haven. When the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released its annual evaluation of the city's housing agency on Mon, Aug. 23, the board failed outright in 16 of 29 categories, giving it a rating of 33.76- its lowest rating in six years. Under pressure to reform its management, the agency appointed Solomon interim executive director.

In an effort to improve the agency, Solomon plans on applying methods he uses as a professor, employing up to 12 student assistants in setting up a housing and community development clinic similar to one he runs with his students at the Law School. He emphasized that he would like "students to do what they are best at, to research ideas and put the best ones into practice." Solomon explained, "A big problem at the Housing Authority is managing housing with the byzantine problems of fulfilling HUD regulation and reporting requirements." Students accustomed to textual examination and detailed research will hopefully be able to contribute to solving real problems as well.

Solomon's expertise will serve him well as a city administrator. It is also invaluable to students and to others looking to understand Yale and its multifaceted presence in New Haven. According to Solomon, "The university exists as a developer, houser, commercial landlord, and important citizen of the city, and it deals with some roles better than others. Yale performs best at providing educational services, worst at providing residential housing services outside of the University, and in the middle is Yale as a commercial landlord."

Solomon points out that in its capacity as landlord and developer, Yale faces its most complicated and misunderstood role. "Because it is an academic institution, Yale will make decisions for non-economic reasons, sometimes good, sometimes bad," Solomon explained. What helps local businesses will not always be consistent with what benefits students. Solomon uses the analogy of a small family farm in describing Yale's decisions over whether to subsidize or replace local businesses. "We have this romantic notion of family farms, and we want them to survive: we see people struggling at hard work, and we want to see that survive as opposed to corporate agribusiness," he said.

Solomon acknowledged, however, that while the ideal of the yeoman farmer is one thing when it comes to subsidization, "we feel differently if particular businesses can't survive in the market. Services to poor people in cities [who face a situation similar to small farmers] we call welfare, and we have forms of corporate welfare that some people view very differently." When local businesses fail in the market, Yale faces a decision. "Do you subsidize attractive local businesses or do you charge reasonable rent and try and improve?" Solomon asked rhetorically. "That's a hard question. Yale's role as a landlord is going to be different than what the market will support."

Solomon maintains that Yale is "more committed now to the community than at any point in its history" and that it has had a positive effect overall. He also points out a basic reality. "Yale does things in its own self-interests, which we can only hope are enlightened," he said. He mentioned the $2 million renovations of Broad Street and the newly-built Jewish Community Center on Chapel Street as examples of "Yale's interest in what a private developer might have decided was not worth it." Nevertheless, according to Solomon, "Yale is willing to evict paying tenants and leave buildings empty for years because [as an academic institution] it doesn't have to turn a profit." The dynamic between Yale and New Haven is not just one of an institution and city residents, he explained. Students themselves occupy an enormous amount of housing. Their presence in the city is one of the most important influences changing New Haven. "Yale students are a big segregating factor, not Yale as an institution," he said. Ultimately, it seems that while it may be a city agency that has failed, nobody is really off the hook of responsibility.

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