Symposium Shows The Love For Newhallville

Back in 2019, then-NHPD Lt. Manmeet Bhagtana and then-Newhallville Alder Delphine Clyburn drove around the neighborhood identifying the light posts that were either out or low. At night Bhagtana had her officers check the same. Bhagtana wrote up a list for UI, and gave them the crime stats from CompStat. Then she learned UI would replace the light posts.

“After that, residents felt safer and they started talking to us because that’s what they wanted, to know that we see them and we respect them and we care,” Bhagtana, now assistant police chief, said at Saturday’s lively ​“I Love Newhallville” symposium at Albertus Magnus College’s Behan Community Room.

Divided into a presentation by board members and a one-stop-shopping spree for an array of neighborhood resources, it was the first official event of the newly-registered Newhallville Community Services Development Corporation. The mission of the community-driven development organization, according to director Jeanette Sykes: to promote homeownership and overall a stronger sense of connection and investment in the neighborhood.

“This used to be an area where there were a lot of homeowners because they worked at Winchester, where everyone took pride in their properties and looked out for each other, and we need to bring that back, and we can,” said board member Linda Davis-Cannon.

“We know homeownership seems unattainable for many but there are programs out there that can help,” said board member Chanelle Goldson, encouraging residents to engage with representatives from Livable City Initiative about programs that help with down-payment assistance, and with Liberty Bank to learn about its affordable housing program.

Among the audience members spotlighted by Sykes for investing in the community was Believe in Me Empowerment Corporation​’s Barbara Walker. Along with a 28-bed transitional housing with 24-hour staff, as well as commercial space that it leases for free, she shared another project BIMEC has been working on: 24 SRO units at 53 Shelton Ave.

“Our goal is to get it under Section 8 so that anyone can have a one-bedroom apartment and not pay $2,000 a month,” she said. She said BIMEC hires 90 percent of its employees from the neighborhood — ​“if they work in the community, they’ll respect the community, and they can walk to their job, not have to worry about a bus” — including people with records. ​“We don’t hold it against them,” she said.

Matthew Denney was also on hand as a representative from Jubilee New Haven, an ​“intentional Christian community” created to address housing insecurity in Newhallville. ​“We’re in the process of starting a community land trust as a way for people to have affordable housing and build equity,” he said.

Denney cited the group’s renovation of a blighted property on Sheffield Avenue. ​“We’re trying to make it available for folks to be able to pay less than they would in rent for much higher quality housing, especially for long-term residents who are in danger of being priced out,” he said.

Near a table with a volunteer sharing information on free rain barrels and another with Yale New Haven Health employees offering coupons for free early screenings, Neighborhood Housing Services’ Stephen Cremin-Endes was discussing the Project Lighten Up initiative to foster a safe and well-lit community.

“Beginning in 2012, we went around the neighborhood and asked the residents, ​‘What would you like to see different in this neighborhood?’ and people said they wanted better lighting,” he said. That effort led to the installation of 2,000 LED lights, and in subsequent phases, porch lights and lamp posts, as well as having the city cut back trees and keep them trimmed.

In 2021, Project Lighten Up, which eventually included Bhagtana and her team, was awarded $7,000 for the Dwight Hall at Yale’s Civic Innovation Prize, funding the installation of motion-detector lights outside of homes.

“I think everyone likes this initiative,” Cremin-Endes said. ​“The police like it because they can see better, and the residents like it because they feel safer. If people feel safer, then they’re more likely to go outside and walk, and talk to their neighbors, and spend time on their porch. There’s a lot more work to be done, but this is all a good thing.”