Legislative Roundtable stresses strain on homeless shelters, food banks in Northwest Corner

TORRINGTON — On a cold, blustery morning, Nov. 22, state legislators and advocates for homeless people met in the Torrington Library to discuss the current state of unhoused people in the Northwest Corner. The emphasis of the dialogue, by the Waterbury-Litchfield County Coordinated Access Network, concerned the crisis within our statewide system of care and housing.

Homelessness is up 14% in Connecticut since 2022, and numbers are rising steadily. There are 51 shelter beds for a known population of 482 men, women, and children sleeping outside in tents, cars and under bridges.

Due to a $500,000 cut in Connecticut Cold Weather Emergency Response funding, the overflow winter shelter opening at Trinity Church in Torrington was delayed until Dec. 1, which meant more frigid nights spent sleeping under layers of blankets in tents in the woods.

Deirdre Houlihan Di Cara, Executive Director of Friends in Service to Humanity welcomed the concerned crowd that filled the room. FISH is a 35-bed shelter with five beds reserved for veterans and a food pantry serving the most vulnerable people living in the 900 square miles of the Northwest Corner of Connecticut.

More than half of the clients using the FISH shelter are senior citizens whose Social Security no longer cover their rent.

“We have over 2,652 neighbors in need using our FISH Food Pantry,” DiCara said. “This is an increase of 952 people this past year. We distributed enough food items for 182,859 meals. At their coat drive in November FISH distributed 1,800 cold weather items. Funding through the Department of Housing covers half of the cost of operating a shelter. Di Cara added, “We are trying to save lives.”

Nancy Cannavo, Director of the Gathering Place/New Beginnings daytime drop-in center reported since this October that 604 new people began using the facility. Of the 1,188 housing requests they fielded, 64 people were housed, 2,391 hot showers were taken and 810 loads of laundry were done. Cannavo proposed that non-photo IDs, such as birth certificates and social security cards should be free.

Anne Giordano, early child specialist at EdAdvance (whose mission promotes the success of school communities) revealed the group most likely to be homeless are infants. Of the 53 homeless people in Torrington, eight of them are children under 6. Giordano expressed concern, “The impacts are negative because the lack of consistency and nurture often have long-lasting effects on the development of children.”

Nationally 1.2 million pre-K through 12th grade children are homeless — 365,000 of them under the age of three. “In Connecticut we have 4,000 homeless children from pre-K through 12th — 1,000 of them under the age of three,” Giordano said.

Only 68% of homeless kids graduate from high school, contrasting with the 86% national average. Giordano concluded the negative cycle continues as high school dropouts are four times more likely to become homeless.

Julia Scharnberg, vice president of Community Engagement at the NWCT Community Foundation emphasized the role of philanthropy in finding solutions. Credible websites with accurate data are essential to address negative assumptions. Banishing the stigma of homelessness is crucial. Housing is the vital answer to this dilemma, but housing development is slow. Obstacles to housing are landlords not accepting vouchers, limited credit and rental history, jobs with low wages, and insufficient space — Connecticut currently has a 2% housing vacancy rate.

Leonardo Ghio, Project Director of Northwest Hills Community Health Network at NW Hills Council of Governments and Co-Chair of CAN explained the importance of annualized funding. Ghio expressed concern for young people without trusted adults who suffer adverse childhood experiences during the trauma of being homeless.

State Rep. Jay Case (R-63) often gives hands-on help at area shelters. He said the funds for addressing homelessness must become a line item in the Connecticut budget, which newly elected State Rep. Joe Canino (R-65) and State Sen.-elect Paul Honig (D-8) acknowledged.

Sarah Fox, CEO of Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, recalled being homeless as a child which informs her advocacy. Fox shared a working draft of legislative priorities including annualized funding, homelessness prevention measures, tax incentives for landlords honoring housing vouchers, expanded shelter capacity, and protections to prevent criminalization of homeless people.

Even after approval for housing vouchers, the wait for a home can take up to a year. Fox estimated that Connecticut needs more than 98,000 affordable housing units to close the gap.