![After a decline, homelessness rises again across the Northwest Corner](https://lakevillejournal.com/media-library/participants-in-the-northwest-ymcas-freezin-for-a-reason-fundraiser-warm-their-hands-on-the-open-fire.jpg?id=50873347&width=1245&height=700&quality=90&coordinates=0%2C84%2C0%2C84)
Participants in the Northwest YMCA’s Freezin’ for a Reason fundraiser warm their hands on the open fire.
Photo by Paul Venti
Editor’s note: This is the first part of a series exploring homelessness in rural Northwest Connecticut. Click here to read part two.
TORRINGTON — On a frigid day in early December, a newborn entered the world naked and homeless — but not hopeless.
Upon release from the hospital maternity ward, the infant’s young mother, abandoned by family, returned with her swaddled baby to the homeless shelter in Torrington where she had been staying while awaiting the child’s birth.
“We are currently housing eight children and a baby,” explained Deirdre DiCara, executive director of the nonprofit Friends in Service to Humanity of Northwest Connecticut Inc. (FISH), as she organized a bassinet in preparation for the shelter’s newest and youngest arrival.
While at FISH, infant and mother will receive health care and support services from local organizations aimed at placing them in permanent housing, said DiCara. “Hopefully, with time, she will reunite with her parents.”
A public health emergency
Homelessness in rural Northwest Connecticut, which has surged for the second year in a row after a decade of decline, far exceeds the number of beds available at the only two shelters serving the state’s rural Northwest Corner.
“It’s a public health emergency and a humanitarian crisis,” noted DiCara.
The Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness has reported that homelessness jumped 39% statewide from 2020 to 2022, and as of fall 2023, had risen 13% over the prior year.
In the Northwest Corner, 30% of those experiencing homelessness are considered chronically homeless, meaning they had experienced homelessness four or more times in three years, according to The Plan to End Homelessness in Northwest CT, a comprehensive report prepared by the Northwest CT Community Foundation (NCCF) in collaboration with about 30 regional social service agencies.
The rural homeless are less visible than those in more urban areas, said service providers. They are camped out in dense woods, under bridges or living in cars, tents or structures unfit for human habitation.
51 beds for entire Northwest Corner
The dipping temperatures drive homeless people to seek a warm place to sleep, burdening local shelters.
“We have 51 shelter beds in Northwest Connecticut. There are 35 beds at FISH, five of which are dedicated to veterans funded by the Veterans Administration (VA), and 16 beds at the Y in Winsted. It’s a very rural region, and transportation is a big issue,” said Julia Scharnberg, vice president of community engagement for NCCF.
“Our shelters are constantly full. We are stuck with a real logjam,” she noted. “Every day that passes, the wait list is long enough to fill all 51 slots about twice.”
Scharnberg, who also serves on the board of The Housing Collective, said she has seen a rise in the number of unhoused seniors. “Many are on a fixed or low income and any increase in monthly expenses puts them at risk of homelessness.”
The lack of low-income housing in the Northwest Corner has reached a critical point, explained the FISH executive director. “I often say it’s about housing affordability, not affordable housing.”
Complicating matters, the planned mid-November opening of an emergency cold-weather shelter in downtown Torrington, known as Operation Overflow, has been delayed as service providers search for a suitable location. Several churches have offered space, but a group of parents objected to the shelter’s proximity to a nearby school.
‘A problem that touches everybody’
Rural homelessness, according to The Plan to End Homelessness in Rural Northwest Connecticut, has many of the same root causes as the more visible urban settings: the persistent lack of affordable housing, evictions, poverty, domestic violence, mental illness and the invisible injuries of combat.
The Northwest Corner towns, unlike larger cities, lack shelters to call their own. Except for assistance from municipal social services agents, the task of assisting and monitoring homelessness falls heavily on municipal, faith or business leaders, health care agencies, charitable institutions and volunteers.
“There is nothing here because our towns are so small. What has happened is an informal web of arrangements,” said state Rep. Maria Horn (D-64).
“They are often put up in a hotel, or transported to where there are services. There have been a lot of good intentions, but the processes seem to have gone astray,” said Horn. “People are forced to find their way to Torrington and Winsted, and we tend to think we don’t have a problem.”
Help starts with 2-1-1
New Beginnings of Northwest Hills Litchfield County is a regional service agency and sponsor of The Gathering Place, which implemented the 2-1-1 intake system in Litchfield County in 2014. It offers unhoused people in Northwest Connecticut “assistance and access to services to help individuals transition out of homelessness and into a new chapter of their lives,” according to director Nancy Cannavo.
Its Gathering Place offers visitors a safe place to receive their mail, take a shower, do laundry, get a haircut, speak to a provider one-on-one, make phone calls and obtain clothing for employment interviews. Visitors also receive mental health and substance abuse referrals and supported employment.
Cannavo, a psychiatric nurse at Charlotte Hungerford Hospital and coordinator of the Mental Health Services to the Homeless program, said that between January 2022 and November 2023, The Gathering Place saw 608 homeless clients.
“We are fully committed to caring for all people and ensuring that no one is left behind,” said Cannavo.
Abstract art display in Wassaic for Upstate Art Weekend, July 18-21.
WASSAIC — Art enthusiasts from all over the country flocked to the Catskill Mountains and Hudson Valley to participate in Upstate Art Weekend, which ran from July 18 to July 21.
The event, which “celebrates the cultural vibrancy of Upstate New York”, included 145 different locations where visitors could enjoy and interact with art.
On Saturday, July 20, The Wassaic Project hosted numerous community events. Will Hutnick, the director of artistic programming, said “We’ve been a part of it since the beginning, this is the fifth year of UPAW.”
Most of the action was based at Maxon Mills, the seven-floor grain mill located in the heart of Wassaic. On exhibit was work from 30 artists, 18 of whom were past residents of The Wassaic Project. “Artists can come and do a residency here, meaning they live and work with one another for a couple months at a time,” Hutnick stated.
The first floor held work by Petra Szilagyi, who uses dirt and linseed oil to construct images of paranormal concepts, most of which include bats. They reflected that a recent trip to a fifth sense competition in Vietnam was the influence behind the exhibit.
Across the floor was Tiffany Smith’s interactive installation which incorporated plants and wicker chairs, all of which were objects associated with her Carribean upbringing. “The room being filled with plants is symbolic of hurricane prep which often included bringing the plants from outside into the house,” Smith said.
As visitors made their way up the narrow wooden stairs, music could be heard from behind the walls. The echoing music was Daniel Shieh’s installation, entitled Mother’s Anthem, which played a recording of the American Anthem in 30 languages. The languages ranged from Spanish and Italian to Navajo and Bengali.
Each floor was filled with artwork of all mediums, including painting, fibers, collage and photography. Rachel Bussières, who switched her concentration after watching the 2017 solar eclipse, uses varying light sources to produce lumen prints. During the wildfires, she recounted that she “made a new exposure each day to capture the changing air quality”.
Luciana Abait also incorporates the natural world into her pieces, instead using maps. An environmental activist originally from Argentina, Abait’s work highlights “environmental fragility, specifically the impacts it has on immigrants.” Her installation that is currently on display at Maxon Mills, takes the form of a mountain range built solely from maps of the US and Argentina.
Throughout the day, visitors could “Arm Wrestle 4 A Popsicle”. Winners had the choice of 3 playfully flavored trout-inspired popsicles - Nightcrawler, Power Bait, and Salmon Roe. Artist Katie Peck, who spent the day in costume as a rainbow trout, encouraged guests to step up and try their hand at an arm wrestle.
Shibori Indigo dyeing, group meditation, and dance workshops were open for community members of all ages as well.
While the daytime activities fostered appreciation of fixed art, a dance party until midnight at The Lantern Inn offered guests a space for performative art.
When describing the environment of The Wassaic Project, Smith emphasized, “It’s all community, it’s all love.”
A serene scene from the Amenia garden tour.
AMENIA — The much-anticipated annual Amenia Garden Tour drew a steady stream of visitors to admire five local gardens on Saturday, July 13, each one demonstrative of what a green thumb can do. An added advantage was the sense of community as neighbors and friends met along the way.
Each garden selected for the tour presented a different garden vibe. Phantom’s Rock, the garden of Wendy Goidel, offered a rocky terrain and a deep rock pool offering peaceful seclusion and anytime swims. Goidel graciously welcomed visitors and answered questions about the breathtaking setting.
Amenia Finance Director Charlie Miller welcomed visitors to his Bog Hollow Road garden in Wassaic, a manicured expansive yard with well-placed garden beds framing a far-reaching view. He said he plans carefully each winter for the next spring’s improvement.
The organic, environmentally responsible Maitri Farm was next, a lesson in coordinating agriculture with natural balance. The farm stand and a walk among the greenhouses brought visitors together.
Near the center of Amenia was the garden of Polly Pitts-Garvin, offering a chance to visit a robust vegetable garden with raised beds to be envious of and a remarkable absence of any insects or usual vegetable garden problems.
At Chez Cheese, the vast garden acreage surrounding the 1850s historic home of Joan Feeney and Bruce Phillips in Millerton, visitors could begin at refreshment stations where walking tour maps of the 15-acre property were available. There were streams and ponds with docks, and a dozen bridges arranged around the landscape. In the 19th-century, the property had been the home of the Wilson Cheese Factory, inspiring the name of the estate.
The Amenia Garden Tour was supported this year by Paley’s Garden Center in Sharon.
Gary Dodson working a tricky pool on the Schoharie Creek, hoping to lure something other than a rock bass from the depths.
PRATTSVILLE, N.Y. — The Schoharie Creek, a fabled Catskill trout stream, has suffered mightily in recent decades.
Between pressure from human development around the busy and popular Hunter Mountain ski area, serious flooding, and the fact that the stream’s east-west configuration means it gets the maximum amount of sunlight, the cool water required for trout habitat is simply not as available as in the old days.
This is not a new phenomenon. It does seem to be getting worse, though.
Gary Dodson and I convened where the creek makes its final run into the Schoharie reservoir, part of the New York City water supply system, on a semi-broiling Thursday afternoon, July 11.
The goal was simple. Catch smallmouth bass, which abound in the lower section of the river.
This was hot stuff — as in an 80-degree water temperature.
The air temperature was actually slightly less at 77.
After negotiating the intensely slippery rocks, festooned with treacherous algae, the first major pool presented several difficulties, with a back eddy competing with a main flow and several large trees draped about the whole thing.
I hit on the simplest strategy, which was to flip a weighted attractor fly called a Tequilley into the start of the eddy so it would proceed slowly but steadily into the maelstrom, sinking all the while.
This worked. A proper adult smallmouth, with bronze coloring and vertical stripes, took the thing.
The point-and-shoot camera finally died, however, and I was not going to try to fumble my phone out for a nice but routine fish photo.
Why not?
Because I guarantee the fish would have made a sudden, last-moment bolt for freedom, causing me to drop the device into the drink.
Gary moved downstream while I continued trying to annoy the residents of the pool, succeeding a couple of times with different colored Wooly Buggers.
Then we all got bored and I moved off, where Gary was catching rock bass and cussing them out for not being something else.
I have to admit, they are not the most compelling critters. Something about the red eyes.
This latest trip was dominated by extremely tedious and distasteful Harry Homeowner activities, but on both Wednesday and Thursday mornings I prowled Woodland Valley Creek. By “morning” I mean “dawn,” because that was when the water temps were down to a barely acceptable 64.
I made the acquaintance of several stocked browns and of a handful of their wild cousins. The wild fish are smaller and nimbler.
The successful ploy was an Adams wet fly, size 16, drifted behind something big, like a Parachute Adams or Stimulator.