Conn College forum explores how social standing can bar access to basic freedoms
New London — A panel of local community leaders met Monday on the Connecticut College campus to discuss how entrenched policies and institutional biases can prevent marginalized residents from attaining even basic housing, educational and health needs.
That conversation touched on issues related to gentrification, success barriers and even the college's own relationship to the city.
The forum, 'From the Grassroots: (Un)Freedom and Community Advocacy,' was the first of four planned speaking events scheduled through March and sponsored by Conn College professors and the Eastern Connecticut Centers for Affordable Housing group.
Monday's forum in the college's Blaustein Humanities Center featured panelists Mayor Michael Passero; Cathy Zall, executive director of the New London Homeless Hospitality Center; David Morgan, president and chief executive officer of the New London-based Team Inc. anti-poverty group; Jennifer Paradis, executive director of Milford's Congregation Beth El; and Trina Charles, leader of the Step Up New London social justice organization.
The event focused on the concept of 'unfreedom, a term used by forum hosts to describe the state of marginalized people denied human rights despite them being ostensibly free.
Panelists, when asked to describe their experiences with both freedom and unfreedom, pulled examples from their work with the homeless, those without adequate health care options and the Black and brown community.
'We've never really had freedom; it's something we're still fighting for,' said Charles, whose group works to promote social and economic equity for the city's minority residents. 'But unfreedom means not having housing, or proper educational opportunities or proper health care.'
Zall said she considered herself fortunate to have butted up against few impediments in her career, while also being lucky enough to cultivate mentors and role models who enabled her to know her value. She said simply removing a barrier, such as those blocking an individual's access to housing or medical care, while a crucial start, isn't the endgame.
'It's also about building community and giving people a chance to feel they're part of something bigger,' Zall said.
Morgan called freedom the ability to reach a person's fullest potential, regardless of circumstances, though he noted the 'deep reality' of that process is fraught with challenges created by an individual's ZIP code and position in society's pecking order.
'They need a seat at the table, a voice, but in many cases these people are not even in the room, let alone at the table,' Morgan said.
Paradis said freedom is often taken for granted.
'(Freedom) is the ability to dream, to be curious about something and be able to pursue it relentlessly,' she said. 'But for too many, that ability to dream has been stripped away and life has become about survival. Or they're forced to lose a part of themselves when pursuing a dream — people are dying sooner because they don't have access to basic needs.'
Passero called New London a city of 'split personality' with a rich maritime history and pleasing geography marred by past instances of blatant segregation.
'We want a city where everyone has a fair shot,' he said, touting his administration's work in creating hundreds of new housing units and making the city a welcoming place for waves of incoming Electric Boat workers. 'It's a slow, hard process bridging that gap between freedom and unfreedom.'
A question from one of the 70 or so audience members on the dangers of gentrification prompted Passero to recall the 'white flight' decades earlier when affluent city residents pulled up stakes and moved to the suburbs.
'Many of them are returning now, hopefully with better attitudes,' he said, adding it's crucial to have a balance of residences — market-rate, affordable and everything in-between — to make a city viable.
Charles said the construction of several market-rate housing complexes in the city did amount to gentrification, in which the apartments were built to specifically attract higher-income tenants.
'And even then, they're not all rented out,' she said. 'We have 400 New London public school students classified as homeless and single mothers living in hotels.'
The speaking series is part of the (Un)Freedom Colloquium project, which aims to explore 'freedom, inequity and resistance in New London's past and present.' The forums in turn are part of a larger right-to-housing project that includes a planned traveling exhibition, a digital publication and community–based research. The three-year pilot program is being funded by a $500,000 public dialogue and research grant awarded to the college last month by the Mellon Foundation.
When students asked what practical steps they could take to address the issues of inequity, Zall said to "get proximate."
"Get out there at some level and get involved, she said.
j.penney@theday.com
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