New Haven officials mark start of deal at Continuum of Care with ribbon cutting
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — More than a hundred clients of Continuum of Care will be able to keep living right where they have been for years. That, despite their landlord looking to sell to an out-of-state developer. Friday morning, New Haven officials cut the ribbon marking the start of a new deal for Continuum.
Connecticut Job Corps centers to pause operations in June
Most ribbon cuttings mean big changes are coming. This one was designed to keep things mostly the same. At one apartment complex on Ella Grasso Boulevard and another one on Blake Street, more than 100 people and families rent apartments with the help of the Continuum of Care.
Continuum helps folks dealing with mental health, developmental, and addiction issues, and the homelessness that often goes with them.
'Continuum offers a full array of services for individuals, including crisis stabilization, residential treatment, supervised apartments, supportive housing,' Jim Farrales, the President & CEO of Continuum of Care, said.
The landlord who had been renting all those apartments to Continuum clients for all those years told Continuum they were looking to sell. A buyer from New York was interested. Continuum knew that meant the new landlord was probably going to jack up the rents.
So, the continuum went to local officials, who worked with the State Department of Housing and the Department of Economic and Community Development. DECD has something called the Community Investment Fund
'It's not just for economic development projects,' Deputy Commissioner Matthew Pugliese of the Department of Economic and Community Development, said. 'It's for projects in communities that are going to help support the people that are underserved in those communities.'
That money, along with other public and private funding, helped Continuum buy the two apartment complexes. That means all those people and families can stay right where they are, in apartments they can afford, with case workers on site to help them stay on track.
'This supportive housing model is designed to help individuals have the support they need to successfully live full lives here in the community,' Continuum's Farrales said.
Some things will actually change. Continuum plans to upgrade and renovate many of the units.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Yahoo
New Haven officials mark start of deal at Continuum of Care with ribbon cutting
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — More than a hundred clients of Continuum of Care will be able to keep living right where they have been for years. That, despite their landlord looking to sell to an out-of-state developer. Friday morning, New Haven officials cut the ribbon marking the start of a new deal for Continuum. Connecticut Job Corps centers to pause operations in June Most ribbon cuttings mean big changes are coming. This one was designed to keep things mostly the same. At one apartment complex on Ella Grasso Boulevard and another one on Blake Street, more than 100 people and families rent apartments with the help of the Continuum of Care. Continuum helps folks dealing with mental health, developmental, and addiction issues, and the homelessness that often goes with them. 'Continuum offers a full array of services for individuals, including crisis stabilization, residential treatment, supervised apartments, supportive housing,' Jim Farrales, the President & CEO of Continuum of Care, said. The landlord who had been renting all those apartments to Continuum clients for all those years told Continuum they were looking to sell. A buyer from New York was interested. Continuum knew that meant the new landlord was probably going to jack up the rents. So, the continuum went to local officials, who worked with the State Department of Housing and the Department of Economic and Community Development. DECD has something called the Community Investment Fund 'It's not just for economic development projects,' Deputy Commissioner Matthew Pugliese of the Department of Economic and Community Development, said. 'It's for projects in communities that are going to help support the people that are underserved in those communities.' That money, along with other public and private funding, helped Continuum buy the two apartment complexes. That means all those people and families can stay right where they are, in apartments they can afford, with case workers on site to help them stay on track. 'This supportive housing model is designed to help individuals have the support they need to successfully live full lives here in the community,' Continuum's Farrales said. Some things will actually change. Continuum plans to upgrade and renovate many of the units. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Yahoo
Spokane County, two largest cities agree to share data, coordinate on homelessness response
May 25—The Inland Northwest took a step towards a regional, coordinated response to homelessness this week, although not to the lengths advocates once hoped. Spokane County and the cities of Spokane and Spokane Valley have signed on to an interlocal agreement to work together on the state's housing and homelessness crisis. The agreement ensures coordinated data sharing, award granting, extreme weather responses and development planning. Spokane Valley Mayor Pam Haley said the collaboration should help the region combat homelessness more efficiently and help people achieve better and lasting outcomes. "Addressing homelessness cannot be tackled alone by any single jurisdiction," Haley said. "This collaboration will allow us to pool our resources to coordinate planning efforts, establish priority interventions to meet the needs of our community, and jointly evaluate the performance of providers to maximize the regional funds dedicated to homelessness." The agreement is the first major step towards the regional approach to homelessness posited by local leaders a few years ago. But it's not the regional authority composed of government officials, service providers, business leaders and subject matter experts explored while former Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward was in office, and that appeared to lose steam over the competing interests and personalities involved, and a wave of new leaders put in office during the 2023 election cycle. "By continuing to collaborate, we can make more efficient use of public dollars and improve outcomes for people experiencing homelessness in our communities," Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown said in a written statement. State law requires counties in Washington to adopt a five-year homeless housing plan consistent with guidelines laid out by the state Department of Commerce, and to provide regular updates through annual progress reports on those plans. The city of Spokane is also required to adopt a strategy as it administers state and federal housing funds. The Valley administers only a fraction of the funding Spokane and the county do, but is included in the region's Continuum of Care 2025-30 Five-Year Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness. George Dahl, Spokane County's housing and community development administrator, said the interlocal agreement is predicated on the five-year plan, ensuring collaboration as each government body works to meet its objectives. Dahl told the commissioners it replaces a 2012 contract between the county and the city of Spokane for homelessness data sharing. "This interlocal really spells out that we will coordinate, collaborate and work well together, whether I'm in the seat three years from now, or if my counterparts of the city or the Valley are there," Dahl said. In addition to sharing data, coordinating inclement weather and emergency shelter responses and having housing and support services staff meet regularly, the three jurisdictions have agreed to coordinate on how they distribute funding for housing and homeless services projects in the region. Spokane Valley City Services Administrator Gloria Mantz said contract requirements and performance measures will also be more consistent between the three when awarding funding. "There are very limited dollars for these purposes, and we can only expect that we're going to see a reduction in the near future with what's happening at the federal level," Mantz said. "So it's very important you know that we pick the best qualified and that they adhere to the contract requirements and that they're meeting those performance measures."
Hamilton Spectator
23-05-2025
- Hamilton Spectator
County disperses $7 million to municipalities for affordable housing
COUNTY OF WELLINGTON –Some feel that giving local municipalities funds to address the affordable housing gap in the community might be more of a curse than a blessing. Following staff recommendations at an Administration, Finance and Human Resources Committee Tuesday afternoon, councillors narrowly approved dividing the approximately $7 million previously raised for the recently-cancelled Continuum of Care project between all of the municipalities of Wellington County. The City of Guelph is not receiving funds. According to CAO Scott Wilson, each local municipality is eligible for up to $1,000,000 to develop housing to address the availability gap between low-end market housing and subsidized housing, as determined by each local municipal council. The project must have all local permissions in place by Dec. 31, 2027, or the funds will be forfeited. This follows Coun. Andy Lennox requesting a comprehensive assessment of the affordable housing proposals already presented to the county's Attainable Housing Taskforce Working Group. Proposing a deferral, Lennox was concerned that the recommendation delegates responsibility down to local municipalities 'with no care or concern about their ability to deliver on this.' The deferral failed 3:2 (for: Warden Chris White, Coun. James Seeley and Coun. Earl Campbell, against: Coun. Diane Ballantyne, Coun. Andy Lennox) Lennox later asked for a community scan of who might be able to deliver or partner with the County of Wellington, as was originally proposed, to ensure they have enough information to ensure the plan isn't a failure. 'I don't want to put a fund together, say we're going to pass this off to the local municipalities and they don't have the capacity to do it. That's setting ourselves up for failure ... I think we're just fooling ourselves if we're going to put this money out there and not try and ensure that it's going to deliver on the result that we want,' said Lennox. Agreeing with Lennox, Coun. Diane Ballantyne said she's unsure how helpful it would be for every municipality to get $1 million since some have smaller populations and tax contributions. Talking about equity versus equality, Ballantyne also questioned why staff didn't recommend pursuing one of the four alternate housing development models presented in the report. The models included were: 'The demand for affordable housing, while it exists everywhere, is going to be more acute in some areas as opposed to others,' said Ballantyne. 'I question the cookie-cutter approach to the $1 million to each municipality.' Warden Chris White said the money is meant to be a starting point, and they didn't provide recommendations because they wanted to give each municipality the freedom to meet their individual needs. 'I didn't want something too restrictive, it's essentially wide open,' said Wilson. 'Whatever a municipality wants to pursue is permitted ... it (the report) is not designed to support any model in particular.' Supporting the recommendations, Coun. James Seeley shared concerns about the 'very tight' timeline and asked whether staff could soften the deadlines to give developers more wiggle room if necessary approvals slow a project down. Wilson disagreed, arguing that extensions are too much and he'd prefer a solid deadline because it puts pressure on developers to get something done and gives staff some assurance. 'That's over two years to get that all in line,' said Wilson. 'We're trying to do something reasonably quickly because of the urgency of providing housing. I would think it'd be all hands to the pump and everybody would work together to get that done.' Commenting that they're on the right track, Coun. Campbell Cork said he was disappointed to see the inclusion of affordable rentals in the report, asking for more emphasis on homeownership because that's where he sees the gap. 'I think the concept of getting equity in your living place or your home is the key to it being successful,' said Cork. 'I would've been thrilled to see a model that said 100 per cent homeownership as the end goal of it all.' Sharing some of Cork's concerns about the inclusion of affordable rentals in a plan focused on attainable housing, Coun. Matthew Bulmer suggested a density target. 'We all talk about wanting to improve affordability,' said Bulmer. 'The cases we've reviewed identified that increasing density is key to driving affordability.' Isabel Buckmaster is the Local Journalism Initiative reporter for GuelphToday. LJI is a federally-funded program.
