Many of the other street corners seem to, today. It’s a beautiful October afternoon, and I’m driving through Newhallville with Jim Pepitone, the Construction and Energy Specialist at Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven. Pepitone, or “Pep,” as practically everyone calls him, started working with NHS about a year ago, after managing a New York-based housing development operation for most of his life. On almost every block, he slows down or reverses to show me a home that NHS has renovated, or is in the process of renovating.
Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven is a non-profit organization dedicated to revitalizing New Haven neighborhoods. NHS takes blighted and abandoned homes—those that are deemed unlivable—and gives them a complete rehabilitation. NHS began working in the city in 1979, helmed by Executive Director Jim Paley. Since then, the organization has renovated and sold almost 450 units to low and middle-income New Haven residents.
Originally, the organization took all of New Haven under its scope, but in the past 10 years, they’ve directed their focus primarily to the neighborhood of Newhallville, Paley says. To date, according to an interactive map on their website, they have completed 28 renovations there, and will finish four more this year.
“The real story is what’s been happening to the people here in Newhallville without jobs,” Pep tells me, when I ask more about the work NHS does. He gestures out the window of his car at the big concrete building disappearing behind us. “One hundred guys a month are dropped off at that prison with no job, no money, no place to go—that’s the story here in Newhallville.”
The Newhallville story mirrors that of many neighborhoods in post-industrial cities. In the 1800s, the area served as a bedroom community for employees at the Winchester Repeating Arms Factory, and was filled with flourishing shops, grocery stores, and local businesses. But Winchester Arms started a slow decline in the 70s and finally closed in 1979, taking 26,000 jobs with it. After that, residents of Newhallville began to leave, businesses began to shutter, and the incidences of crime and poverty began to rise. Gang violence pervaded, incarceration rates skyrocketed. Insurance rates rose with the decline of the neighborhood, preventing new businesses from opening up and new families from settling down.
Other neighborhoods in New Haven were similarly hard-hit, but Newhallville has emerged with the worst reputation, said Donald Morris, the leading community organizer at the Life Kingdom Outreach Ministry. Together with his ministry, he is working to change that perception.
Morris spent last summer conducting a door-to-door survey of Newhallville residents, asking them which improvements they wanted to see in the community. Number one, they wanted gangs off the streets; number two, they wanted better lit sidewalks; number three, they wanted more activities for young people. And, number four, they wanted the city to get rid of the abandoned and dilapidated houses.
Lieutenant Herbert Sharp, District Manager for Newhallville, explained that gangs and drug-dealers use these abandoned houses as headquarters, and are more prone to violence on empty streets. By fixing, and filling, these homes, NHS hopes to bring life back to the neighborhood.
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“For 20-something years, this house was vacant,” Pep says. We’re in the midst of the busy construction zone on the corner of Starr and Newhall Streets: tiptoeing past power tools and wood shavings, stepping over cardboard boxes of kitchenware, and climbing up sturdy new steps covered in a film of white dust. “The roof was rotted out, this whole corner was rotted right out, the stairs were rotted out, and the interior was totally rotten. This house was in pretty bad shape,” he says.
Two years ago, the only living residents of 141 Newhall Street were pigeons, and a nice family of raccoons. Both Paley and Stephen Cremin-Endes, NHS’s Director of Community Building and Organizing, described it as “the most blighted house in Newhallville,” and the two of them have seen their fair share of neglected houses. Now, the three-story home is finally nearing completion, more than halfway through a construction process that typically takes six to eight months.
The old house has been completely gutted, but since the area is a historic district, all new houses must retain their distinct Newhallville character. In keeping with the neighborhood’s strictly defined color palette, the outside paneling is painted a rich maroon, and small geometric brown squares line the top floor windows. Inside, the staircase railing is made of the intricately carved wood from the original interior.
Still, NHS brings 21st century quality to all the homes they renovate—every home is Energy Star rated, with efficient heating, well-insulated windows, and low-intensity flush toilets. And outside every NHS home stands a lamp post, providing a beacon of light to illuminate sidewalks and backyards after dark.
All around Newhallville, more houses like 141 Newhall Street are cropping up—on Starr Street, three out of five homes in a row owe their shiny new paint job to NHS. The organization focuses on turning around several houses in concentrated areas, renovating houses block by block, cluster by cluster.
In order to make homes more affordable, NHS acquires the homes below market value. Sometimes Paley buys homes on the open market with donations from institutions and individuals, and sometimes banks donate homes that have been foreclosed. A different package of government grants and subsidies covers each property.
By keeping purchasing costs low, NHS avoids grappling with the issues of gentrification many developers face. The homes they renovate are state-of-the art, filled with expensive amenities, and packaged in a fresh sheen of paint. But instead of pricing out residents by raising property values, NHS makes sure these homes are affordable for the average New Haven homebuyer.
After NHS works with the state and the city to acquire as many homes as they can, they work with home buyers to develop packages they can afford. According to the 2010 census, the average income of a family of four on Lilac Street is $13,000, Pep says—the standard price for a six-bedroom, two family NHS house is around $175,000. The organization also offers homebuyers’ education programs to teach potential tenants how to financially prepare. “We give housing opportunities to people who maybe wouldn’t be able to afford to under other circumstances,” Pep says, pointing out one new house that, through a combination of loans, subsidies, and the already low NHS price, cost the resident only $1,000 up-front. “Her mortgage payment is less than paying rent,” he says.
NHS’s goal is to provide higher quality housing to current Newhallville homeowners, as well as attract new residents who will lay down roots and make long-term investments in the community.
“One of the really cool things about a block turning around is, look—” Pep says, pointing at a maroon house with brown trim. “They copied the colors! Isn’t that pretty cool?” As we continue to drive, he points to other houses on other blocks: lush flowerbeds bloom, piles of leaves are raked neatly, Halloween decorations adorn front porches. “That, to us, says that somebody else is starting to care.” Small businesses will follow, educational systems will improve, and children will feel safe playing on the streets, the thinking goes.
“We call Newhallville the ‘Promised Land’ now,” says Morris, the pastor. “That’s what we want to see it become.”
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“Oh boy, that’s not good,” Pep says. He’s standing at the back door of 706 Huntington Street, an NHS project that is nearing completion. The grey building has been converted from a three family home to a two family home, and looms large next to a small grassy yard. The door has been left ajar.
“Don’t come in,” Pep tells me, and enters the building. I hear his voice call through the house, “Hello? Hello?” He walks up and down the stairs, peeks into each empty room. Finally, he comes out and assures me: all clear. “I think we’re okay. The fact that the door was open, and the alarm was off, and the keys are still here…very strange.” he says. I ask sheepishly if we can skip this house and tour another, and he agrees. “Somebody could be hiding.”
Even behind the walls of renovated homes like this one, the elimination of violence, vacancy, and systemic poverty isn’t guaranteed. As we drive, Pep slows down at the corner of Newhall and Ivy, where two one-way streets have been paved so the cops can intercept the flow of gang traffic. Later, he points out a building that he says houses prostitutes on the first floor and drug dealers on the second; he shows me the sidewalk where he once watched a little boy drop a live gun; he indicates houses that have exteriors peppered with bullet holes.
But we also pass the house of an old couple he calls “the heart of Newhallville,” who sit on their front porch and talk when the weather is nice, one man working in his make-shift community garden, and two colorful homes where a daughter and mother live side by side. On Lilac Street, Cynthia Johnson has started a community baking club—“One of them could be the next Julia Child!” she insists. Farther down the road, lilacs bloom from flowerbeds made of tires painted purple. Pep is greeted by almost everyone on the street with a “Hey, neighbor!” and a smile.
Newhallville was, and is, a vibrant and historic community, Paley says. All NHS does is embellish what the neighborhood already has to offer, one house at a time.