Advocates buoyed by new state initiative to end homelessness

Boy Scouts constructed shelters out of cardboard boxes during a Dec. 8 sleep-out on the Winsted Green to raise awareness of homelessness in the Northwest Corner.
Paul Venti
Boy Scouts constructed shelters out of cardboard boxes during a Dec. 8 sleep-out on the Winsted Green to raise awareness of homelessness in the Northwest Corner.
Advocates who provide services to a growing number of unhoused people throughout the rural Northwest Corner and state are applauding Gov. Ned Lamont’s establishment last week of a new interagency council tasked with tackling the problem of homelessness.
The panel, consisting of leaders of multiple state agencies, will be known as the Connecticut Interagency Council on Homelessness and will be responsible for strengthening the state’s homeless prevention and response efforts.
Chronic underfunding and bureaucratic obstacles to services have hampered past efforts by community agencies in caring for the unhoused, problems that advocates said will hopefully be addressed.
“The program has a lot of promise,” said Julia Scharnberg, vice president of community engagement for the Northwest CT Community Foundation (NCCF). Scharnberg manages the foundation’s grant-making process and is an active participant in regionwide issues including homelessness.
“It’s something that has been expressed by others in the homelessness sector, that it would be so helpful if we had something like that,” she noted.
The council will consist of leaders of state agencies that are responsible for housing and intervention support services. According to a press release issued by Lamont, it will build upon existing efforts already undertaken by several state agencies, including the departments of housing, social services and mental health and addiction services.
The governor is tasking the new group with focusing its work on three main goals, including strengthening current programs, improving the effectiveness of the homelessness response system, and meeting the demands of housing.
The council will collaborate on maximizing the use of funding for housing assistance, increasing the supply of permanent supportive housing, improving the effectiveness of rapid rehousing, and evaluating and finding solutions for expanded access to safe and affordable housing for all with an interagency approach of tailoring support to each individual’s needs.
Lamont has appointed Housing Commissioner Seila Mosquera-Bruno to serve as the council’s chairperson, and leaders from the following offices will serve as members: Department of Housing, Department of Aging and Disability Services, Department of Children and Families, Department of Correction, Department of Labor, Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, Department of Social Services, Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Police and Management, Court Support Services Division of the Judicial Branch, and the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority.
Additionally, representatives of several state offices will serve as ad hoc members. Those include the Department of Developmental Services, Department of Economic and Community Development, Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, and the Department of Public Health.
Also, the state Department of Education, Department of Transportation, and Department of Higher Education.
“Everyone should have access to a safe, warm place to call home,” said Lamont in making the announcement.
“State and local governments, along with our nonprofit partners, need the resources available to them to ensure that fewer people face the possibility of becoming homeless,” said the governor.
“Between building new housing units, addressing mental health issues, improving access to education and health care, and increasing job support, this issue must be addressed in a holistic manner.”
Scharnberg said the goal is to “try to wrap people around a team that best serves their needs.” For example, she said, the chronic homeless are likely to need “very long-term services, versus a hiccup in someone’s life who just needs a light touch to get back on track.”
Sarah Fox, CEO of the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness (CCEH), said the establishment of the interagency council will help “weave together our resources.” The Northwest Corner, she said, has experienced a “lack of consistent funding” in terms of homelessness response efforts, yet it encompasses a vast geographical area.
“I don’t think fairness comes into play when talking about homelessness,” said Fox, who experienced homelessness as a child.
She said there needs to be a “shared understanding” of the problem so that municipalities and small towns can better coordinate strategies to be part of the solution, and so that the financial burden doesn’t fall on just a few understaffed and overburdened regional agencies.
Deirdre DiCara, executive director of the FISH (Friends in Service of Humanity) homeless shelter that serves Northwest Connecticut, explained that several unhoused individuals from the more rural communities are currently living at the shelter.
“I am short-staffed right now,” she said. State funding only covers about half of her nonprofit agency’s annual operating costs, “and the other half comes from fundraising.
Where is the support from the community?
“The recent $250,000 received from the state for our Northwest Corner, that’s paying to have a temporary overflow shelter open for four to five months,” DiCara explained.
Regardless, she said she is buoyed by the news of the renewed effort to solve homelessness. “It’s a wonderful thing, really. We’re very pleased.”
The FISH executive director said the recent media coverage of the homelessness problem in rural Northwest Connecticut by The Lakeville Journal and other local and state newspapers in recent weeks has helped to shed light on the homelessness crisis and likely put pressure on the state to take action.
While optimistic about the new interagency council’s appointment, Scharnberg cautioned that efficiency will be the key to its success:
“I don’t want it to be just about the red tape. We don’t need another study. This has been studied to death. What we need is staffing, funding, flexibility and resources behind the effort. That’s my hope.”
Join The Lakeville Journal for a community celebration, featuring local nonprofits and businesses, festive family fun, great food, and engaging activities.
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Cobbler n’ Cream
5 to 7 p.m.
Freund’s Farm Market & Bakery | 324 Norfolk Rd.
Canaan Carnival
6 to 10 p.m.
Bunny McGuire Park
Canaan Carnival
6 to 10 p.m.
Bunny McGuire Park
Cocktail Party
5 to 7 p.m.
Douglas Library | 108 Main St.
Canaan Carnival
6 to 10 p.m.
Bunny McGuire Park
Boot Drive
8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
North Canaan Fire Co. | 4 E. Main St.
3rd Annual Fly-In
8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Triumph Airfield | 547 W. Main St.
Canaan Railroad Station Museum
10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Canaan Union Station
New England Accordion Connection
9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Canaan Union Station
Canaan Carnival
3 to 10 p.m.
Bunny McGuire Park
Berkshire Resilience Brass Band
5 to 8 p.m.
Canaan Union Station
Barbecued Chicken Dinner
5 to 7 p.m.
St. Martin of Tours | 4 Main St.
Canaan Fireman’s parade
6 p.m.
Rosa setigera is a native climbing rose whose simple flowers allow bees to easily collect pollen.
After moving to West Cornwall in 2012, we were given a thoughtful housewarming gift: the 1997 edition of “Dirr’s Hardy Trees and Shrubs.” We were told the encyclopedic volume was the definitive gardener’s reference guide — a fact I already knew, having purchased one several months earlier at the recommendation of a gardener I admire.
At the time, we were in the thick of winter invasive removal, and I enjoyed reading and dreaming about the trees and shrubs I could plant to fill in the bare spots where the bittersweet, barberry, multiflora rose and other invasive plants had been.Years later, I purchased the 2011 edition, updated and inclusive of plants for warm climates.
On the cover of the new edition, a quote from Adrian Higgins of The Washington Post boasts, “Michael Dirr is the oracle of ornamental horticulture. I trust his judgements implicitly.”I heartily disagree with Mr. Higgins:I blame this book — and my poor use of it — for some of my worst tree and shrub choices.
I realize some readers might find this declaration inflammatory. The book still occupies a place of high regard among experienced and novice gardeners alike, so please allow me to explain.
In addition to giving the reader his opinion on the aesthetic worthiness of the woody plants included in the book, Mr. Dirr makes good on the book’s title with a review of each species’ hardiness. What makes a tree hardy?It thrives in its intended site, resisting disease with leaves and bark not readily eaten by insects and other critters.
Non-native plants make up the majority of the recommended hardy plants in the book.And here is why:Native trees and shrubs are, by evolution’s design, food source and host to our native fauna — critters large and small. There is no substitute equal to the fauna’s co-evolved flora.A native caterpillar cannot eat a kousa dogwood leaf, as it has not evolved to digest it.Non-native plants seemingly have the advantage if the lens we look through values pristine, uneaten leaves.
In the days when there were sufficient thriving ecosystems to maintain local habitats, a non-native specimen tree here and there was just fine.But where we live in Northwest Connecticut, our woods, meadows, marshes and other natural areas have, for a couple of decades, been severely compromised by invasives that have almost entirely removed the food sources for native insects. It is up to us — now — to plant native plants to save the food chain.Without insects, not only will native animals die, but human food sources will also be at risk.
The security of our food pipeline seems a worthy exchange for some caterpillar-eaten leaves — and to be clear, we’re not talking about non-native infestations such as spongy moth, but rather native caterpillars, which are the singular food source for nesting birds.
My issue is that, in being a trusted source for plant selection, Dirr’s book should give equal — if not prioritized — space to information on ecological impact.For example, it would be good to know when selecting a tree, that a native oak provides food and other ecosystem services to more than 400 native animal species, while a native tulip poplar supports fewer than 30 — though that includes the Eastern tiger swallowtail. Including information on the birds and insects attracted to a given plant would enable reader to weigh these factors in choosing what to grow.But this information is not mentioned at all.
Dirr makes no mention of the role some of these plants have played in the degradation of our natural areas — an omission that is highly relevant, as many of the plants featured in his book are, in fact, invasive culprits. Plants like barberry, porcelain berry and tree of heaven are showcased for consideration alongside native plants without recognition of the devastating infestations they can manifest. Tree of Heaven is now responsible for hosting the spotted lanternfly, which is devastating crops.
Similarly Euonymous alatus (winged euonymous) and Actinidia arguta (hardy kiwi) — two highly invasive plants touted in the book — have been banned or are close to being banned for sale from nurseries in the state of Massachusetts. To his credit, Dirr does point out the invasive nature of Ligustrum sinense (Chinese privet), calling it “a terrible and devastating escapee that terrorizes floodplains, fencerows and even open fields, reducing native vegetation to rubble.” Yet Japanese honeysuckle gets an understated warning, with Dirr describing this massively invasive shrub as “bullying their way into understory and open areas.”
The latest edition of Dirr’s book devotes seven pages of copy and photos to various Berberis species, about which Dirr waxes poetic. He notes the addition of “30 new cultivars” in the latest revision and complains that “this species is under assault for its aggressive invasive nature.” He refers to Berberis thunbergii — Japanese barberry, the most invasive of them all — as “the species of major importance in garden commerce.” This plant has already been outlawed for sale in New York, Pennsylvania, New Hamphsire and Maine.A few weeks ago, a bill was passed in Connecticut recognizing the harm of a broad group of invasive plants. Under this new legislation, barberry will be phased out from sale or transport by October 2028.
In understating the invasive nature of many non-natives and de-prioritizing the importance of native species, Dirr’s widely used reference may be partly responsible for many a devastated woodland, forest, meadow and marsh in New England — if not across the U.S.Certainly, the evolution of species, and scientific knowledge about the environment, is changing faster than new editions of books can be printed. I can only hope that if a new edition of Mr. Dirr’s reference book is in the works that it will account for this criteria we now know to be vital in plant selection.
Which brings me back to that quote on the cover from The Washington Post and the larger issue it suggests:Should “ornamental horticulture” get a pass when it comes to ecological survival?I think we can agree — it should not.The consequences are simply too destructive.
Dee Salomon ‘ungardens’ in Litchfield County.
Foxtrot Farm & Flowers’ historic barn space during UAW’s 2024 exhibition entitled “Unruly Edges.”
Art lovers, mark your calendars. The sixth edition of Upstate Art Weekend (UAW) returns July 17 to 21, with an exciting lineup of exhibitions and events celebrating the cultural vibrancy of the region. Spanning eight counties and over 130 venues, UAW invites residents and visitors alike to explore the Hudson Valley’s thriving creative communities.
Here’s a preview of four must-see exhibitions in the area:
1. Wassaic Project (37 Furnace Bank Road, Wassaic)
“So It Goes” is a powerful group exhibition curated by Eve Biddle, Bowie Zunino, Jeff Barnett-Winsby, and Will Hutnick. The title, drawn from Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five,” signals a reckoning with how we process the horrors of the world. Through play, reflection, and immersive scale, 43 artists respond with urgency and imagination. Installations can be seen throughout the town of Wassaic at Maxon Mills, Gridley Chapel, and Luther Barn, each space transformed by this deeply thoughtful show.
2. Foxtrot Farm & Flowers (6862 Route 82, Stanfordville)
“Queer Bestiary,” a group show curated by Charlotte Woolf, is inspired by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian’s book “Forest Euphoria.” The exhibition investigates queer ecology and human relationship to land through the work of 10 artists using painting, sculpture, textiles, and photography. The exhibit is accompanied by a variety of interactive experiences including tattoo pop-ups, karaoke, book readings, and pick-your-own flowers.
3. ChaShaMa North/ChaNorth (2600 Route 199, Pine Plains)
ChaShaMa North (ChaNorth) will have open studios all weekend and has partnered with Paradice Palase, a platform for emerging artists, to mount a site-specific sculpture exhibition featuring 20 artists entitled “Alone, You Are Heard.” On Saturday evening, July 19, stop by for Weird Music Night for an audio-visual synthesis of experimental music, performance art, and unexpected happenings. Don’t miss this opportunity to experience an eclectic lineup of acts that redefine the boundaries of performance.
4. Millbrook Arts Project(3 Friendly Lane, Millbrook)
The Millbrook Arts Project is hosting a curated exhibit entitled “Generated Utility” at the newly renovated gallery at the village library. The exhibit will feature the work of artists Natalie Beall and Kathy Greenwood. Additionally, visitors will have access to 12 open artists studios across town. The weekend culminates in a free outdoor concert on Saturday evening at 6 p.m. at the Millbrook Bandshell. Enjoy the Indie-Folk sounds of Strawberry Runners and She Keeps Bees.
For more information and a complete list of participating artists and locations, visit: upstateartweekend.org