Now, the waitlist for his products is three months long. 

Montgomery credits the success of his bespoke apparel and accessory business, Threads by Tea, in part to the business accelerator he graduated from in 2019. The accelerator was run by Collab, an entrepreneurship nonprofit founded by two former Yale students. Now in its sixth year, Collab’s workshops provide technical assistance and mentorship to aspiring New Haven entrepreneurs, particularly women and people of color. 

“We call ourselves the front door to the New Haven entrepreneurial ecosystem,” said executive director Dawn Leaks. “Oftentimes, the folks that are coming to us, we’re their first touch of business education.” 

Collab runs four main programs: a pre-accelerator to flesh out business ideas, a flagship 12-week accelerator, a food business accelerator in partnership with Cityseed and a “youth accelerator” summer program. They also offer one-on-one thirty-minute coaching sessions.

The main accelerator focuses on “various kinds of business fundamentals” from marketing to accounting, according to Caroline Tanbee Smith ’14, Collab’s co-founder and director of external affairs and organizing.

In addition to weekly workshops, the program includes individual coaching, fundraising connections, pro bono services and a culminating pitch day. 

“Pitch day was really amazing because it challenged us to tell our story,” Montgomery said. “The whole time, Collab was really about building our story, who we are, what we’re presenting and then knowing how to talk about it.” 

The food business accelerator also provides entrepreneurs with 10 hours of commercial kitchen space, food handler certification and a chance to sell their product at CitySeed farmer’s markets. 

Equally important, Leaks said, is the emotional side of Collab’s support.

“The focus was not just on starting and scaling and growing a business, but it was also on helping the entrepreneur build confidence and self worth, and kind of the mental fortitude that you need for the journey,” Leaks said, explaining why she wanted to work for the group. “People talk about the flashy side of entrepreneurship, the more appealing sides, the successes, but they don’t talk about the fact that it’s hard, and it can be an isolating journey sometimes.”

Montgomery agreed, explaining that the social connections he made were his favorite part of the program. He said that it was “really inspiring and encouraging” to be around other entrepreneurs with similar mindsets and to have a community where they could all learn from each other. 

Collab also provides wraparound services like childcare, interpretation and transportation. The commitment to accessibility aligns with Collab’s mission of helping historically marginalized communities achieve economic stability. 

Smith explained that she views entrepreneurship as part of a broader system of enacting economic change. It can’t replace a basic safety net or resolve deep-seated wealth inequality, but it is “a pathway of building wealth for oneself and your family and your neighborhood that should be accessible to everyone.” 

Inspired by the citywide activism they witnessed as undergraduates, Smith and Margaret Lee ’14 co-founded Collab in 2017 as an event series to help Yale students and New Haven residents build power together. 

During those initial conversations, participants shared countless ideas that could improve their neighborhoods. But over and over again, they said they lacked the resources to turn their ideas into a viable venture. Although there were a few one-off workshops at the public library and a handful of late-stage capital opportunities, there were few initiatives to assist businesses in what Smith called their “tender early stages.” 

“There were many people in the community that had really great business ideas, but they just didn’t have the resources to bring their ideas to life, or the know-how,” Leaks said. 

Many of those early ideas have since become thriving companies that give back to the community. Smith pointed to accelerator graduates like Peels & Wheels, the bike-based composting service, and Havenly, the restaurant that provides job training and education to refugee and immigrant women. Leaks mentioned Oh Shito!, the Ghanaian sauce company which won $10,000 at last year’s CTNext Entrepreneur Innovation Awards, and Alegría Café, which just opened a food truck on Grove Street. 

Collab, too, is growing and changing; Lee stepped down last year, and Smith is departing in a few months. Smith explained that she and Lee always wanted a “plan for succession,” hoping that the nonprofit would be self-sustaining beyond their tenure. 

Leaks was hired as executive director last February. Previously, she ran a digital media company for female entrepreneurs. 

“I knew I wanted to continue to help entrepreneurs,” Leaks said. “Having the experience as an entrepreneur … you have a perspective that you don’t fully understand unless you’ve truly done it yourself.” 

Applications for Collab’s spring accelerator are due March 19.

The post Collab nonprofit brings mentorship, resources to aspiring entrepreneurs appeared first on Yale Daily News.

A year and a half after Connecticut legalized the drug, retail sales of adult-use cannabis officially started on Jan. 10. Affinity Dispensary, New Haven’s only adult-use cannabis retailer, has served the New Haven community since 2019, dispensing cannabis exclusively for medical use. Now, Affinity is one of the nine hybrid dispensaries in the state, meaning that they can serve both the medical and the adult recreational market.

“The adult-use patient population that has been coming in so far for the last week, they’re very happy that we’re here,” said Ray Pantalena, Affinity’s owner. “They’re very encouraged that we’re here. Their experience has been nothing but exceptional.”

Retail regulations

Cannabis customers faced a range of regulations when they arrived at Affinity on Tuesday morning. 

“It was just really busy, like non-stop traffic,” Affinity employee Lyandre Boyd told the News. “I would say it was a little overwhelming at first because, you know, the first day none of us were used to it. I remember seeing close to 300 preorders.”

Customers, who must be 21 or older, can purchase up to one-quarter of an ounce of cannabis flower or its equivalent at a time. Kaitlyn Krasselt, director of communications for the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection, or DCP, explained that this limit will protect Connecticut’s 50,000 medical marijuana patients by ensuring that demand does not outstrip supply. 

Outside of the store, adults can possess and use up to 1.5 ounces of cannabis freely and store up to 5 ounces in a locked container. Adults will also be able to grow cannabis at home for recreational use starting July 1. Visit https://www.ilovegrowingmarijuana.com for the best cannabis growing tips.

New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker and other city officials offered additional safety recommendations at a press conference on Jan. 9. 

“We anticipate more people purchasing and possessing and using marijuana,” Elicker said. “We’re not anticipating a huge, huge spike. I think we can be real that marijuana’s been accessible to many people for quite a long time.” 

Elicker emphasized the importance of keeping cannabis products away from children and not driving under the influence. New Haven Director of Health Maritza Bond encouraged cannabis users to “lock,” “label” and “limit” their purchases. Chief of Police Karl Jacobson said that the police department would also monitor increased traffic around Affinity, advising that customers not open their purchases in their cars.

Jacobson added that residents cannot bring marijuana across state lines or use it in nonsmoking areas. He said landlords can prohibit smoking or vaping on their properties, but not the use of edibles such as the biocbd+ organic cbd gummy.

Bo Sandine, public educator with the New Haven Health Department, noted that community education was the department’s “primary focus” as they prepared for the launch of retail marijuana sales. 

“We provided messaging for New Haven schools, parents and the general community,” Sandine told the News. “Led by our Health Programs team, we have educated the public via our social media platforms and outreach.” 

From medical to marketable

Medical marijuana dispensaries hoping to expand into the state’s new adult-use market also faced a bevy of regulations. 

Pantalena, a long-time New Haven resident, worked as a pharmacist before starting Affinity. After seeing many of his patients find success in treating several underlying conditions using cannabis, Pantalena became interested in medical marijuana, seeing it as “something different than a traditional pharmacy.”

Affinity’s process to become authorized as a hybrid vendor began last February. In addition to filing paperwork, becoming a hybrid dispensary required conforming to numerous safeguards put in place by the state government and the DCP. 

Vendors applying for hybrid status were also required to submit a medical preservation plan, laying out how the dispensary would ensure that its medical patients would continue to receive appropriate care. 

“We take care of the medical patients,” Pantalena said, describing the preservation plan at Affinity. “They get priority over everyone. They don’t have to wait in any lines. They don’t have to wait inside. We have dedicated people just for the medical program… we’ve tried to make every accommodation to make sure that the adult rollout would not adversely affect them.”

In converting to a hybrid dispensary, Affinity has also had to double the size of its staff from 20 to 40 and perform some remodeling, according to Pantalena. 

According to both Pantalena and Krasselt, neither Affinity nor the other hybrid dispensaries across the state have experienced supply issues or difficulty serving both the medical and recreational markets in this first week. Pantalena credited the cautious and thoughtful guidance of the DCP for the success of Affinity’s transition to a hybrid model.

Currently, the Connecticut cannabis market is served by four in-state growers who have had to expand their businesses and production facilities to serve the adult-use market. In addition to these four, the DCP is currently reviewing a number of other applications for business licenses in the cannabis market.

“While our existing producers have managed that supply chain, entirely in house in our medical market, as the adult use market ramps up, there’s a number of other businesses that will be opening that will support that supply chain,” Krasselt told the News.

Reckoning with the War on Drugs

Senate Bill 1201, which legalized adult-use cannabis, included multiple provisions to address the historically discriminatory impacts of drug criminalization. In addition to erasing certain cannabis-related convictions on people’s records, the bill aimed to support equity in the cannabis market, including a measure that gives people from marginalized communities priority access to licenses. 

The DCP created both a “social equity lottery” and a “general lottery” for licenses to grow, manufacture, transport and sell cannabis products. Each lottery pool was allocated half of the total licenses. Social equity applicants needed to have an average household income of less than 300 percent of the state median income, and they needed to reside — or have resided as a child — in an area that was disproportionately impacted by the War on Drugs, as indicated by their high conviction rates for drug-related offenses. 

Many New Haven census tracts were designated as “disproportionately impacted,” including parts of Fair Haven, Newhallville and Beaver Hills. 

Winners of the social equity lottery also have free access to a Cannabis Business Accelerator Program, led by the Hartford social enterprise nonprofit reSET and by Oaksterdam University, a cannabis college based in Oakland, California. The eight-month program, which began this month, provides coaching, technical assistance and wraparound services. 

“The Social Equity Council of Connecticut has really envisioned and allowed us to execute what we know to be best practices,” said Dale Sky Jones, president and CEO of Oaksterdam. “This industry is hella hard. It is flat ridiculous… One thing that Oaksterdam is trying to be for these participants is a lifeboat. We can help shed light on what is a confusing and difficult process.”

Jones added that the enduring stigma and legal uncertainty around the marijuana market mean that entrepreneurs face extra challenges when securing insurance, banking and other necessary services. 

Among the new state marijuana businesses that will be opening in the next year are 26 new cultivators that are working with and have received approval from the Social Equity Council, according to Krasselt. 

Over half of state revenue from retail cannabis sales will also be directed to a Social Equity and Innovation Fund, which will make investments both inside and outside of the cannabis market.

Krasselt said the Social Equity Council’s goal was to ensure “that people from those [disproportionately impacted] communities had priority access to licensure, and if they’re not interested in working in the cannabis industry, that revenue generated by the industry is directed back into those communities for business accelerator programs and community reinvestment and things like that.”

In Connecticut, cannabis is subject to state and local sales taxes, as well as a potency tax based on the product’s THC content. 

The post New Haven concludes first week of recreational cannabis sales appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen, or DESK, announced the funding during a press conference at its State Street center on Wednesday morning. DESK and its partners will use the money to redesign all four floors of the building and expand their medical and case management services.

“We’re going to continue to do what we’ve always done: provide basic needs,” said DESK executive director Steve Werlin. “We’re [also] going to have next-level and specialized services offered on site … We will encourage and welcome and affirm all individuals, regardless of whatever hardships they’re bringing into the space when they come.” 

The renovations, entrusted to local architecture firm Svigals + Partners, will include converting the unfinished basement into a commercial kitchen and adding showers and a meeting room to the second-floor resource center. Three-quarters of the second floor will be rented to Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center, which will provide on-site medical care. The building’s infrastructure will also get an upgrade, with a new elevator, stairs and HVAC system. 

“I’m going to fully express how I feel about this project, and that is to say, ‘Yay, yay, yay, yay,’” said Michael Taylor, CEO of Cornell Scott-Hill. “Our homeless health care team cares for people in shelters, under bridges, beside railroad tracks. What a wonderful thing to give those who are suffering from homelessness a medical home that speaks to the respect and high regard that we have for them.”

The first floor will continue serving as a drop-in center but will be refurbished with a “trauma-informed lens,” according to Werlin. He explained that DESK aims to “brighten” and “soften” the space, altering the acoustics of the room in order to reduce noise levels. 

Currently, the drop-in center also serves as an overnight warming center to compensate for the shortage of shelter beds during the colder months. DESK aims to start construction at the end of this winter when the warming center is no longer necessary and finish renovations by the end of the year. 

The organization opened the drop-in center in April 2021 after a series of community conversations with clients, volunteers and other stakeholders. The center helps clients with a range of needs, from meals to toiletries to first aid and overdose prevention services. 

Although the center had been in the works for years, Werlin said that the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated DESK’s timeline.

“We were rushing really, really, really quickly in those early months, because there was an acute need,” Werlin said. “But from the moment that we found this building, we knew right from the beginning that we were going to have to do major renovations.” 

Werlin noted that the drop-in center is intended to be accessible and low-barrier. It is street-level and located close to the New Haven Green, where many of New Haven’s homeless residents live. 

“No longer are we going to be in church basements, in dark alleys hiding,” Werlin said. “We are really going to be upfront and visible so that people can find us.” 

He added that the center is also meant to be “emotionally accessible” — not an “intimidating” space but rather one that is “imbued with dignity from the top to the bottom.” 

Kelly Fitzgerald, director of the Greater New Haven Coordinated Access Network, said the updated drop-in center will be valuable in helping connect people experiencing homelessness to resources. She noted, however, that the system is limited in its ability to move people from homelessness to housing.

“We need enough shelter beds and enough housing so that every person that’s walking through this door has a space to go to next,” Fitzgerald said. 

DESK was one of 15 organizations in Connecticut’s Third District, along with the Fair Haven Community Health Clinic and Wilbur Cross High School, to receive federal community project funding. 

DeLauro, who previously chaired the House Appropriations Committee, worked to reestablish community project funds in the 2022 spending bill after more than a decade without them. The funds enable representatives to direct federal money to local projects that otherwise might not receive support. DeLauro emphasized that the funds were awarded via a transparent process reviewed by the Government Accountability Office. 

Wednesday’s press conference was also attended by other local homeless services providers and members of New Haven’s Unhoused Activists Community Team.  

The post Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen receives $1.4 million in federal funding appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Monk announced that he is suing the VA for negligence at a press conference at the Dixwell Community Center on Oct. 28. The press conference included words by Monk’s legal representation —  The Veterans Legal Services Clinic at Yale Law School, or VLSC — Senator Richard Blumenthal LAW ’73 and the nationwide nonprofit Black Veterans Project.

“Since our nation’s founding, our government has relied on Black Americans to win its wars,” said Richard Brookshire, the executive director of the Black Veterans Project. “Yet for decades, it has allowed racially discriminatory practices to obstruct Black veterans from equally accessing veterans’ housing, education and healthcare benefits.”

Monk is seeking compensatory damages for the VA’s negligence. He has separately submitted an administrative claim on behalf of his father, a World War II veteran who was also denied benefits.

The lawsuit alleges that racial bias in the military justice system made Black service members less likely to receive honorable discharges, which in turn affected their eligibility for VA benefits.

In 2021, the VA provided records of disability compensation claims in response to Freedom of Information Act requests from the National Veterans Council for Legal Redress, which Monk co-founded and directs and the Black Veterans Project. The records the VA disclosed reveal that there are statistically significant racial disparities in the outcomes of veterans’ benefit claims.

Between 2001 and 2020, for example, the VA on average denied 29.5 percent of Black veterans’ requests for disability compensation, compared to 24.2 percent of white veterans’ requests.

The lawsuit accuses the VA of negligence, stating that although the VA knew or should have known about these disparities, they did not address them. As evidence of this disparity’s widespread recognition, it points out that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission prevents employers from requiring applicants to have honorable discharges because of pervasive discrimination in the discharge system.

“For decades, there have been anecdotal reports and widespread suspicion of racial discrimination in the VA benefits programs,” said Adam Henderson LAW ’23, an intern at the VLSC. “The VA has denied countless meritorious applications of Black veterans and thus deprived them and their families of the support that they are entitled to.”

Monk is one such veteran. After serving in Vietnam in 1969, Monk began to experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. He received an undesirable discharge, now known as a discharge “under other than honorable” conditions,” in 1970 after an altercation caused by his PTSD-induced hypervigilance.

When the VA conducted a Character of Discharge determination, they failed to consider the circumstances surrounding Monk’s discharge and declared him ineligible for education and housing benefits, leaving Monk temporarily homeless. The VA also denied Monk disability benefits for PTSD, and later for diabetes.

The department repeatedly declined to conduct a new Character of Discharge determination, even after Monk received a formal PTSD diagnosis. It was not until 2015, after an appeal in which Monk was represented by the VLSC, that Monk began to receive disability compensation, and only in 2020 did the VA recognize that Monk should have been eligible for benefits since his initial application for compensation in 1971.

Henderson described the two claims as evidence of “the generational harm that the VA has caused.”

The speakers expressed their hope that Conley’s lawsuit sets a precedent for other Black veterans to also seek out compensation.

“My lawsuit is also going to lead the charge for other veterans,” Monk said. “We are hoping and praying that we are successful in our fight because it’s not only for me and my father, it’s for thousands of other veterans that are undergoing the same type of situation.”

The lawsuit also alleges that even after Monk received some benefits, they were insufficient and did not address “the unique harm Mr. Monk suffered due to VA’s pattern of racial discrimination.”

Blumenthal said that regardless of whether the lawsuit is successful, it will call attention to the VA’s practices and encourage the department to reexamine the discharge and benefits system.

“At the very least, the VA and the Department of Defense are going to have to look at themselves in the mirror and say, ‘What is the reason for these disparate outcomes?’” Blumenthal said. “What we need to do is examine the whole system: the less than honorable discharge system, bad paper discharge, general discharge. These kinds of labels can stigmatize a veteran and stain his chances for success throughout life, not just with the VA, but throughout professional and personal life.”

Monk is suing under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which was enacted in 1946.

The post Yale Law School clinic sues Department of Veterans Affairs over racial discrimination appeared first on Yale Daily News.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, federal funding enabled the city to house residents in nearby hotels. Now, the city is back to relying on congregate shelters — but continued COVID-19 restrictions and limited resources have reduced the total number of beds available. Homelessness rates, meanwhile, have risen due to COVID-induced job losses, inflation and a lack of affordable housing. 

“The problem is we have too much demand and not enough supply,” said Kellyann Day, CEO of New Reach, which offers homelessness prevention and emergency shelter services in New Haven. “We do not have enough shelter beds for families and individuals that truly are homeless and have no place to go, and we do not have enough housing stock that is affordable to move people out of homelessness.” 

A shortage of spaces

Before the pandemic, the city had 285 shelter beds available for homeless residents during the winter, according to Steve Werlin, executive director of Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen, or DESK. This year, Werlin said that there are 175 beds.

The main reason for this decrease is the closure of the Emergency Shelter Management Services shelter on Grand Avenue. Werlin said the ESMS shelter used to have 75 beds for adult men, but the city stopped funding it during the pandemic. 

Other shelters are operating at reduced capacity due to pandemic restrictions. Columbus House’s overflow shelter, for example, will offer 40 beds instead of its usual 75. 

Columbus House CEO Margaret Middleton explained how difficult it is to make a “Sophie’s choice” between getting people out of the cold and adhering to public health guidelines.  

“In civil society, we’ve sort of adopted this [attitude of] ‘COVID doesn’t exist anymore,’” Middleton said. “But the reality is our client population is really high-risk. They tend to have chronic health conditions. They have an unknown vaccine status … And so we really have to take the potential for infection really, really seriously.” 

At the same time, statewide rates of homelessness have increased for the first time in nine years, with the total number of unhoused people rising from 2,594 to 2,930. Day attributed this shift to “landlords increasing rents, inflation, the lack of jobs that pay livable wages” and pandemic-related job loss.

As it did before the pandemic, the city is providing funding for homeless service providers to open warming centers starting in mid-November to mitigate the lack of shelter beds. DESK is operating a warming center, as are a variety of faith-based providers. Werlin said these warming centers will create space for another 120 clients in New Haven.

Werlin emphasized, however, that warming centers are not the same as shelters. 

“If you’ve ever slept in an airport, it’s kind of like that,” Werlin said. “It gives people a way to get out of the cold. Most of them don’t have beds. They don’t have showers. You don’t have places to store your stuff. At best, maybe they’ll have yoga mats that people can lay down on the floor.” 

He added via email that it is difficult for clients to get a good night’s sleep at a warming center, often leaving them too exhausted to “discuss the housing process, substance use treatment, job searches, or court appearances.” 

Shelters, too, are not always comfortable spaces, according to Pastor Philip Boone of the Cathedral of Higher Praise, a New Haven church that also operates a food pantry. Boone said that people often sleep outside around his church because they find shelter services insufficient. 

“The places are not clean, and you can’t watch your stuff, people steal from you,” Boone said. “They don’t want to go to places where they’re going to lose what they have.” 

New Haven’s Community Services Administrator Mehul Dalal MED ’09 said that all shelters and warming centers have employee supervision.

Werlin noted that different shelters and warming centers have “different atmospheres” and  varying rules. DESK’s warming center, for example, allows people to come and go throughout the night, while others will not let people re-enter once they have left. 

As a result, Werlin said DESK can be more accessible for people with substance use disorders, but also “a little bit more difficult to manage.” All DESK staff are trained in first aid, Narcan administration and conflict de-escalation. 

However, Werlin agreed with Boone that there will likely be some residents who don’t feel comfortable in either a shelter or a warming center — or who get turned away because of a lack of spaces.

“It’s going to be a very difficult winter for individuals and families that have no place to go,  because we do not have enough crisis services to meet all of the needs,” Day said. 

Compounding crises

Shelter operators affirmed that the city does not have enough funds to adequately support shelter services. 

Middleton noted that for the third year in a row, the state legislature is supporting municipalities’ winter emergency services through temporary pandemic funding. She described this as a positive change, although the funding mechanism is not permanent. And, as opposed to the last two years, the funding will not go towards housing homeless people in hotels.

Overall, Day said that shelters are doing as much as they can with insufficient public funding. New Reach also relies on private fundraising, but the struggling market has reduced the amount of available philanthropic dollars. 

Dalal said that the city’s “longer-term vision is to identify stable and long-term housing for individuals, so we actually reduce our reliance on warming centers and shelters.”

But in addition to a lack of emergency services, New Haven is facing a housing affordability crisis that makes it difficult for people to move out of shelters and into long-term housing. Connecticut has the lowest rental vacancy rate in the country, and New Haven has the third-lowest rental vacancy rate of all major metropolitan areas nationwide. Day said that even when people have housing vouchers, they can’t always find an available, affordable unit. 

Day added that the development of permanent supportive housing has slowed in recent years. In addition to increased funding from all levels of government, she called for regulatory changes so that it doesn’t “cost twice as much and take twice as long” to develop supportive and affordable housing as compared to private sector housing. 

Middleton also said she thought that the city ought to put more of a priority on affordable housing development. She pointed out that it took considerable resident advocacy before the city allocated a significant portion of its American Rescue Plan funds to housing.

Beyond New Haven, Middleton said that zoning policies in other Connecticut towns also present a major barrier to building affordable multifamily housing statewide. 

“Until people who live in suburban Connecticut, like I do, start to feel like the housing affordability crisis matters to them … and they start to see it as being our community’s problem and not just a problem that affects people downtown, we won’t really own a collective solution,” Middleton said.

As of 2020, New Haven had 987 total permanent supportive housing units, according to the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness’ annual report.

The post New Haven homeless services scramble for resources as winter looms appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Edwards, who passed away on Sept. 16 at the age of 85, was one of the first members of New Haven’s chapter of the Black Panther Party. After coming to Connecticut to attend the Yale School of Drama, Edwards played a key role in establishing the chapter’s free breakfast program. He was also involved in the city’s first needle exchange program during the AIDS epidemic, anti-apartheid advocacy and countless other initiatives. 

The memorial was a joyful event, full of drumming and clapping. Friends and family remembered the charisma, intelligence and community spirit of a man who many people described as “a pillar of the community.” 

“He was so committed to liberation for people worldwide,” said Edwards’ partner, Elise Browne. “No matter where it was in the world, he identified with people who were struggling for self-determination and liberation. And this is what he shared with all of us.” 

When the New Haven chapter of the Black Panther Party was established in 1969, Edwards was one of its earliest members. Numerous friends spoke about Edwards’ dedication to political action and to helping the community. 

Brian Jarawa Gray, who led a drum performance at the memorial, remembered Edwards asking him if he wanted to learn how to protect himself. Jarawa expected that Edwards would give him guns. 

Instead, he said, Edwards took him to his office and pulled out some books. 

“He gave me a political education,” Jarawa said.

Friend and musical performer Ed Beverly pointed out that when he met Edwards in the 1970s, New Haven — and the Dixwell neighborhood in particular — was facing a range of economic and political issues, from high rates of poverty to police violence. 

Edwards and other Black Panthers set up free health clinics for sickle cell anemia, educational services for children and other programs to support the working class Black community. 

“This was the heart of New Haven,” Beverly said. “This was the ghetto, as they called it. We called it home.” 

Others highlighted Edwards’ focus on global issues. Rosemari Mealy said that Edwards was an “internationalist.” He subscribed to the newspaper of the African National Congress and pushed Yale to divest from apartheid-era South Africa.

Speakers also described Edwards as compelling, compassionate and studious. Browne called him “loquacious,” saying he had a “knack with people.” 

Judge Clifton Graves said that when he invited Edwards to his Gateway Community College class to speak about his time as a Black Panther, his students were “in awe.” The talk was so popular, Graves had to have Edwards back a second time.

“He shared his knowledge and information, and inspired and motivated these young people,” Graves said.

Friends also remembered Edwards for his paranoia, although his suspicions were often well-founded. Edwards was the target of a massive illegal wiretapping scheme, part of the FBI’s effort to undermine the Black Panthers organization nationally. Graves recalled how Edwards always wanted to meet outside, suspecting hidden cameras and microphones. 

Edwards also faced betrayal from fellow Black Panthers. 

In 1969, the New Haven chapter of the Black Panthers tortured and murdered Alex Rackley, who was wrongly suspected of being a police informant. When Edwards refused to participate, he was also tortured, although he escaped before he could be killed. 

Edwards, along with other party members, was then charged for Rackley’s murder. Prosecutors also tried to use the case to imprison party leaders Ericka Huggins and Bobby Seale, in an evidently biased trial which sparked New Haven’s 1970 May Day protests in support of the Black Panthers.

Edwards continued to identify with the party, even once it had mostly collapsed under the aggressive FBI campaign.

Graves recalled that when he described Edwards as a “former” Black Panther, Edwards was sure to correct him. During a eulogy by Cyril Innis, Jr., about fifteen members of the audience raised their hands to indicate their affiliation with the Black Panther Party.

Later in life, Edwards was known for distributing personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jarawa also recalled Edwards’s love of nature, evidenced both by his long walks in Edgewood Park and by his commitment to environmental organizations like Greenpeace. 

Multiple speakers called on the audience to continue Edwards’ legacy of activism. 

“There’s no retirement from the movement,” said activist and former alder Shafiq Abdussabur, whose mother was a Black Panther. “We just keep doing it until we can’t do it no more, like George did. So I think if we all want to honor George, don’t give up the fight.” 

The memorial also saw musical performances, including a rendition of the Marvin Gaye song “What’s Going On” at the memorial by Beverly.

Edwards was born on July 31, 1937, in Goldsboro, N.C. 

The post Q-House hosts celebration of life for Black Panther George Edwards appeared first on Yale Daily News.

New Haven has adopted a more aggressive lead program in recent years with resident advocacy recently motivating changes in the city’s lead ordinance. Last Thursday, to mark the start of National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week, Mayor Justin Elicker announced the launch of a new online dashboard that tracks lead inspection and abatement cases. The health department is also conducting outreach events across the city to inform residents about ways to prevent lead exposure and access funding for lead abatement projects. 

“Lead paint… has caused and will continue to cause exposure in children, which can lead to long-term impacts on development, from health to mental health to developmental issues,” Mehul Dalal, New Haven community services administrator, told the News. “One of the things that we’re trying to do and promote is that we do have resources to help families, specifically families that are in low-income neighborhoods that may be at highest risk.”

Most of New Haven’s homes were built before 1978, when lead paint was banned for residential use. When the paint chips, those living in the home often come into contact with lead via dust and soil. This can cause severe health problems, especially for young children. 

According to Rafael Ramos, director of environmental health for the New Haven Health Department, 5.4 percent of New Haven children under the age of six have elevated blood lead levels compared to 1.7 percent statewide. 

Dalal noted during the press conference that lead exposure disproportionately affects low-income children living in older and sometimes poorly-maintained homes. 

Residents can take steps on their own to minimize the risk of lead exposure. 

This week, the health department is distributing cleaning kits with buckets, sponges, spray bottles, rags and gloves so that families can contain lead dust around window sills, door jams and other “friction areas.” Ramos wrote that this strategy of wet cleaning is much more effective than sweeping or vacuuming, which can spread lead dust. However, Zarqa Ansari, project manager of the health department’s lead program, noted that these measures are just “interim controls,” not full lead abatement procedures. 

In response to this elevated risk, New Haven has expanded its lead response program. Under Connecticut law, children must have two blood lead level tests before their third birthday. Blood levels above 5 mcg/dL trigger the New Haven Health Department’s involvement, in contrast to the statewide intervention threshold of 20 mcg/dL, which will be lowered next year.

When a child’s blood levels are elevated, the city’s health department provides families with educational materials, completes an epidemiological questionnaire and conducts a lead inspection. 

The certified contractors create and implement abatement plans to mitigate lead exposure in coordination with property owners. Residents are usually able to remain in their homes during abatement. Since 2019, only 21 temporary relocations have taken place.

Using funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the city offers forgivable loans of up to $15,000 to low-income property owners for lead abatement projects. Ansari said that landlords have been eager to get involved with the program. 

“It’s mostly small landlords that have one or two properties that can’t afford to abate their unit, because the cost of lead abatement has gone up about 30 percent in the last two years,” Ansari said. “Now that we are promoting the program, we’re getting a lot of calls from landlords that are volunteering. So instead of us waiting for a kid to get lead poisoned, now we’re having landlords volunteer and participate in the program.”

Despite this interest, the city is also facing a shortage of qualified contractors. Ramos wrote in an email to the News that there are currently nine certified contractors who can bid to take on lead abatement projects. In response, the city is offering a range of free and subsidized lead abatement trainings in English and Spanish starting Oct. 31.

Ansari said the department is focusing outreach in the city’s low-income neighborhoods designated as opportunity zones, including the Hill and Fair Haven. 

“I like doing outreach, communicating and getting out into the community, helping out as much as you can, because a lot of people don’t know about these resources,” lead community worker Chelsea Wearing said. 

Joseph Deleon, a resident who stopped by the health department’s table at Wilson Library in the Hill on Wednesday, said he was planning to give the department a call and request an inspection, since he lives in an “older house” and has young nieces and nephews. 

In addition, the department has launched a new public dashboard which displays what stage cases are at in the abatement process. According to the dashboard, 396 blood lead cases have been opened since 2019. 243 of those are closed, 75 are open and 78 are pending updates.

Of those open cases, 61 were started in 2022. As of Oct. 27, the majority of those cases are waiting on the creation of a management plan or the start of abatement work, with 13 cases still waiting for an initial lead inspection or lab results. 

Ramos wrote that the dashboard “serves to increase transparency and accountability.” 

It also reveals some of the major barriers that the health department has run into in their lead poisoning investigation efforts. Under the department’s timeline, epidemiological questionnaires should be completed within 30 working days after a case is opened. Of the 89 cases with late epidemiological questionnaires, nearly half were attributed to parents being unreachable. 

Ramos wrote that the health department created a door knocker to leave with families “to alert parents that we are trying to contact them.” He added that although some cases may be behind schedule, they will not be closed until abatement is achieved. 

113 cases — nearly 30 percent of all cases since 2019 — did not have an inspection completed after the target of 30 days. The main reasons listed by the dashboard were COVID-19 restrictions and parents rescheduling or being unavailable for the initial inspection date. 

“COVID, that’s been a major obstacle for us,” Ansari said. “Because of COVID, a lot of people still wouldn’t allow our inspectors into their homes.” 

City officials took Lead Poisoning Prevention Week as an opportunity to call on the state and federal government for additional investment.

Dalal told the News that lead poisoning is connected to other housing issues. 

“We need to make it easier for folks who are in poor-quality housing, if they don’t have the means to move to better quality housing, to provide them with some support,” Dalal said.

He suggested the expansion of housing voucher programs as one policy intervention that could improve people’s ability to move into better housing and thereby reduce the risk of lead exposure. 

The New Haven Health Department will be conducting outreach at three grocery stores on Friday.

The post New Haven launches outreach efforts for National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week appeared first on Yale Daily News.

SNAP is a federal program that provides low-income families with monthly additional money for food in the form of an electronic benefits transfer (EBT) card. Recipients can use the money on their EBT cards at most food retailers, including some farmers markets. 

This update, which Governor Ned Lamont announced on Sept. 28, increases the maximum monthly gross income for Connecticut SNAP recipients from 185 percent to 200 percent of the federal poverty level. Monthly SNAP benefits will also increase by an average of 12.46 percent due to the annual federal cost-of-living adjustment, which accounts for yearly growth in the price of food. Some advocates from emergency food service providers applauded these changes but worried that they will not fully address the needs of New Haven residents, especially since food insecurity nearly doubled in Connecticut in 2022.

“This was a way … to maximize the help that individuals are receiving or can be eligible to receive,” said Dan Giacomi, SNAP program administration manager at the Connecticut Department of Social Services. “SNAP is something that touches all the communities here in the state … I think we as a community should be looking at any policy or program that we can do or utilize or implement to be able to help these individuals to feed themselves and feed their families.”

Increased income limits

In order to be eligible for SNAP, most applicants must meet two requirements. First, their income must not exceed the gross income limit. Second, their gross income minus expenses — which includes childcare, housing and some medical costs — must not exceed the federal net income limit, which is 100 percent of the federal poverty line. 

The updated policy raises Connecticut’s gross income limit from 185 percent to 200 percent of the federal poverty line — or from $4,086 to $4,625 monthly for a family of four — the maximum allowable under federal law. Giacomi explained that this change “smoothes out” benefits, so that people whose income increases will not lose their SNAP benefits, so long as their expenses still keep them under the poverty line.

“Enacting this flexibility up to 200 percent allows us to have those individuals that perhaps are working or have some small amount of income that previously would have denied them for assistance,” Giacomi said. “So when you’re looking at a state such as ours that perhaps has higher than average shelter expenses, for example, now we’re going to determine whether or not the individual is going to receive assistance rather than being outright denied based on their gross income.” 

In addition to making 17,600 additional households potentially eligible for SNAP, according to calculations from the Department of Social Services, this change simplifies program administration.  

Giacomi noted that the SNAP income cap used to be aligned with the “HUSKY A” income limit, which determines whether families with children are eligible for Medicaid, until the Medicaid limit was raised to 201 percent of the federal poverty limit with the expansion of the Affordable Care Act. Realigning those numbers makes it easier for Connecticut residents and DSS eligibility workers — of whom there are about 800 statewide — to identify what assistance they are eligible for.

“If you have an individual that is applying, by and large, they are applying for all of the assistance that they perhaps are eligible for,” Giacomi said. “When you have your guidelines or your income limits aligned, it allows you to more easily explain to individuals why they qualify or do not qualify for programs. And it also helps eligibility workers to be able to quickly refer to what the income limit is across programs.” 

SNAP recipients are automatically eligible for some other state and federal benefits, like the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs and the Connecticut Energy Assistance Program. 

Better benefits, but unmet needs

SNAP recipients in Connecticut will also see an average increase of 12.46 percent to their monthly benefits. Giacomi said that this increase occurred because of the federal government’s annual cost-of-living adjustment. 

The US Department of Agriculture bases SNAP benefits off of its “Thrifty Food Plan,” which their website defines as the cost of groceries needed for a “healthy, budget-conscious diet for a family of four.” The cost-of-living adjustment is meant to account for the growth in the price of food over the last year.

Giacomi said that SNAP allotments to recipients are the same across the 48 contiguous states, and the state does not have control over them. Benefit levels are higher in Alaska and Hawaii because of the cost of food in those areas.  

Dr. Phillip A. Boone, pastor of the Cathedral of Higher Praise, which runs a food pantry in Fair Haven, said he was supportive of the increased benefits.

“Inflation has gone up, so whatever extra money you made, you lost,” Boone said. He added that wage growth has not matched the prices of consumer goods in recent years.  

However, Steve Werlin, Executive Director of Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen (DESK), worried that even with the expansion of SNAP, people on the program still often rely on emergency food services. He noted that most people who come to DESK are also already enrolled in SNAP. 

“The amounts are still far below what is going to be needed,” Werlin said. “If those SNAP benefits were enough, why would they also be coming to us?”

32,950 New Haven residents, or 24.58 percent of the city’s population, were SNAP recipients as of January 2022 — the fourth highest percentage among all Connecticut towns. 

Werlin said he considers SNAP and the emergency food service as complementary at this point. The reality is that, according to Werlin, even with SNAP, people are relying on what used to be emergency food services on a weekly or monthly basis.

Werlin said that although emergency food services will likely always be necessary, he would like to see a day where SNAP is sufficient for families to meet their nutrition needs. 

“The road to ending poverty is through forms of financial assistance like SNAP,” Werlin said. “It is not through community based organizations like DESK. DESK provides a number of important services. We do this because we have to, because our federal programs are otherwise failing.”

Similar to Werlin, Boone felt that his food pantry service has become a chronic service rather than a crisis service.

“We would like to think that we live in a place where everyone has all the means and the ways to get healthy food to live and survive, but it’s not that way,” Boone said.

A preliminary dataset released by the nonprofit DataHaven shows that the percentage of Connecticut adults who say they did not have enough money to buy food has nearly doubled during the past year. 

Mark Abraham, the Executive Director of DataHaven, suggested that the increase of food insecurity is partially due to the expiration of the Child Tax Credit (CTC), which provided large advance payments to nearly all U.S. families with dependent children each month beginning in July 2021 and ending in December 2021.

“That was a large amount of funding for families that allowed them to purchase extra childcare or healthy food,” Abraham said. “That’s something that many people have been advocating to continue in the future.” 

Abraham suggested that to alleviate the problem of food insecurity, the state can consider improving its tax policy and tax credits, and building more affordable housing and better transportation systems to help households reserve more of their budget for food.

Accessing assistance

According to Giacomi, there are three ways of applying to SNAP. Applicants can apply online, mail in a paper application or complete an application in person at one of the 12 field offices statewide. Many local nonprofits can assist residents with the application process.

Usually, Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents (ABAWDs) can only receive SNAP benefits for 3 months out of a 36 month period if they do not meet ABAWD work requirements. Connecticut has waived the ABAWD time limit since 2009 due to the unemployment rate and has waived all SNAP work requirements due to the pandemic. 

Once a resident sends in their application, one of the 800 state workers will start the review process, conduct telephone interviews, enter their information into an online system, make determinations and mail them an Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) card.

Once the applicants receive SNAP benefits, they will roll over month to month as long as they continue purchasing with the EBT card. Benefits are expunged from the card if no purchase is made in at least 9 months. Most households are on a 12-month certification period and will receive a form at the end of the cycle to confirm their eligibility.

Giacomi said that there are around 2000 stores in Connecticut that can redeem SNAP benefits, including farmers markets, corner stores and large retailers. Since the pandemic, SNAP benefits can also be used online at many stores.

The overall food insecurity rate in Connecticut in 2022 is 17 percent.

The post Connecticut increases SNAP eligibility, benefits appeared first on Yale Daily News.

But when John Martin, founder of the Bradley Street Bicycle Co-op, looks at it, he sees something more. Martin sees Mulberry Jam — a landscaped community space where people can play with their kids, have a picnic or wait for the bus. 

Martin and fellow East Rock residents have been trying to convert this state-owned site into a small pocket park for the last few years. But amid back-and-forth dialogue with the Connecticut Department of Transportation, complex permit approval processes and pandemic-related delays, progress has been slow. 

After months of collaboration between local community members, nonprofits, city officials and architecture firms, the group is ready to start major construction next month and hopes to have the park open by the end of the year. 

“This was an abandoned site that I kept looking at, being like, ‘Why is it not something more useful?’” Martin told the News. “We’re not trying to change the world over here. We’re just like, ‘I walk by it every day, and it could be nicer, and why is it not nicer?’”

Martin described the space as one of the city’s many abandoned “sliver lots” — small, oddly-shaped pockets created by the construction of roads and highways over the last century. The land was overgrown, and a local restaurant was using the space as a waste oil dump site, but Martin saw its potential.

He reached out to the Urban Resources Initiative (URI), a local nonprofit that assists communities in constructing new greenspaces. They soon ran into complications over permits and liability: CDOT owned the land, so the city had to work out a plan to lease it from the state for $1 a year, with the Mulberry Jam neighborhood assuming responsibility for property maintenance. 

“Even though it’s a very small piece of land, there’s some complex parts to it,” architect Ming Thompson ’04, who worked on the designs for Mulberry Jam, told the News. “Especially because organizations like the DOT [Department of Transportation] are so large, you submit drawings, and they go into a black hole for many months… You have to ask a lot, ‘Where is this in the process?’”

In the meantime, the neighborhood envisioned what Mulberry Jam could look like. They named the site after the old mulberry tree in the corner, which yield fruit for the community every year. Atelier Cho Thompson, a local firm, designed plans for the park pro bono after a series of community meetings at the Bicycle Co-op. 

The current plan includes a low gabion stone wall, tiered wooden benches and shade-loving plants, as well as the central mulberry tree. 

Thompson told the News the park should draw users in, with more spaces to linger as they go deeper into the site. She noted that the firm wanted the park to be welcoming to commuters traveling down State Street, not just to neighborhood residents.

“We talked about what that space could be and tried to imagine a better future than an overgrown, weed-covered lot,” Thompson said. “We wanted a place just to be outside together, a place where you could go by yourself, with your kids or with large groups, and do things like read a book by yourself, or gather together and watch a movie or eat dinner from September in Bangkok across the street.” 

The community received $20,000 in funding from the East Rock Community Management Team, as well as $30,000 from a state grant funded by the furniture giant IKEA. URI donated what its associate director Chris Ozyck called “greens and browns,” which included plants, mulch and stone. 

So far, the project has relied on a combination of local volunteers and employees from EMERGE, a partner of URI that helps formerly incarcerated people find jobs. 

Martin described pulling up weeds that reached up to his chest while removing trash and filling in sinkholes. 

According to Ozyck, over the next few weeks, the team will remove the old metal fence, put in conduits for lighting and build the new stone wall. 

Although the work has been hard, Martin said he sees it as proof that these community-led greenspace initiatives are possible anywhere in the city. He explained that these projects can be a way to knit together communities that have been divided by car-centric development. 

“Anyone can do this,” Martin said. “These are our cities. They’re here for us to make better. Your imagination and a little bit of work can make a tiny little thing into something cooler… One hour a week to commit for a couple of years to slowly get a thing together is worthwhile time.”

Martin added that he hopes residents will find the process easier in future, now that the city has more experience with leasing land from the state to turn into parks. 

Ward 7 Alder Eli Sabin ’22 concurred, saying that “advocating for neighborhood-level projects can be really effective.” He noted that similar projects can be and have been replicated across the city, like at Cherry Ann Park in Newhallville.  

Ozyck encouraged interested residents to reach out to URI with proposals for green spaces in underserved areas. 

“We have a very low bar for people to get involved,” Ozyck said, explaining that URI will work with groups which have at least three unrelated New Haveners who want to support a new development. “The community says, ‘Hey, we want to do something,’ and we say, ‘Okay, let’s see what we can do to help make that happen.’”

Mulberry Jam is located at 126 Bradley Street.

The post East Rock to turn empty lot into pocket park appeared first on Yale Daily News.