Shelter Starts Again In Home Search

Clients waiting for the Grand Ave. shelter to open. (Allan Appel file photo)

Monday, April 3, 2017 - New Haven’s top economic development official has promised to help a Grand Avenue homeless shelter find a new home now that the zoning board has denied its request for permission to move to an empty building on an industrial strip around the corner.

During the March meeting of the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA), the board denied without prejudice the request from Emergency Shelter Management Services (ESMS) to receive a use variance to operate an emergency shelter in a light industrial zone.

ESMS currently runs the homeless shelter out of a building at 645 Grand Ave. The shelter is 6,400 square feet and serves 50-75 men per night, depending on the season.

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Shelter Change Draws Local Opposition

Wednesday, February 15, 2017 - A plan to change a small Hill homeless shelter into a rent-subsidized residence for young people who have aged out of the foster care system is meeting with opposition from neighbors worried about parking and crime problems.

That opposition surfaced at a Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) public hearing at 200 Orange St. on Tuesday night on New Reach Inc.’s request to convert its Careway Shelter at 223 Portsea St. in the Hill’s Trowbridge Square area into a more conventional affordable housing residence for previously homeless and at-risk young women.

New Reach came up with the new plan two years after losing city funding and embarking on an effort to rethink how to house people who are, have been, or at risk of becoming homeless.

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Alder, East St. Neighbors Oppose Homeless Shelter’s Move

Lawyer Erskine McIntosh (center), with ESMS’s Arnold Johnson (left) and Curtis McBride (right) at hearing.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017 - Operators of a Grand Avenue homeless shelter looking to move around the block will have to wait at least another month before the zoning board can vote on its relocating request. The reason for the delay: missing paperwork, and an incomplete application.

Meanwhile, the neighborhood’s alder and some neighbors showed up to oppose the move.

That was the outcome of a hearing at Tuesday night’s Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) meeting at 200 Orange St., where one of the topics under discussion was the proposal by Emergency Shelter Management Services (ESMS) to move its men’s homeless shelter from 645 Grand Ave. to 923-925 East St. The board decided to extend the public hearing on the shelter’s variance use request to give it a little more time to get its application in order. ESMS is asking for a variance to permit an emergency shelter in a light industrial zone.

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Homeless Shelter Seeks New Home

293-295 East Street

Tuesday, February 14, 2017 - The neighboring strip club has no objection, but a flood plain may stand in the way of one of New Haven’s homeless shelters moving into a new home.

After two years of searching, operators of the shelter — Emergency Shelter Management Services (ESMS) — have located a new location after learning they need to leave their current location at 645 Grand Ave.The only hurdles left are building regulations, concerned city officials, the skepticism of a few reluctant neighbors, and the costs that come with being adjacent to the flood plain.

Tuesday night the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) will consider the Grand Avenue homeless shelter’s proposal to move into a new home at 293-295 East St.

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