Plan for New Haven Green rules riles advocates for poor

Sarah Raven of the Amistad House, Nathan Ball of Ascension House, Leonard Branch of the Overflow Homeless shelter on Cedar Street in New Haven and Kenneth Driffin, an independent homeless outreach worker, left to right, join other homeless service advocacy groups during a press conference Friday morning at the Amistad House in New Haven to voice their opposition to proposed changes to the park ordinance by the Board of Alders. less Sarah Raven of the Amistad House, Nathan Ball of Ascension House, Leonard Branch of the Overflow Homeless shelter on Cedar Street in New Haven and Kenneth Driffin, an independent homeless outreach worker, left ... more Photo: Peter Hvizdak — New Haven Register Photo: Peter Hvizdak — New Haven Register Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Plan for New Haven Green rules riles advocates for poor 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

NEW HAVEN >> Advocates for the poor say the city’s attempt to protect the New Haven Green goes too far and will criminalize the homeless.

They recently gathered in the kitchen of the Amistad Catholic Worker house in the Hill to announce their opposition to proposed rules drafted by Corporation Counsel Victor Bolden to clarify use of the Green in light of the six months Occupy New Haven protesters lived there through the spring of 2012.

The courts ruled that the protest was protected by the First Amendment, but that the city’s regulated use of the Green was also constitutional.

The new rules would formalize the city’s role in managing use of the Green, which is owned by the private, nonprofit Committee of the Proprietors of the Common and Undivided Lands in New Haven, an arrangement in place since 1805.

Bolden’s proposal would not allow sleeping or walking on the Green after 10 p.m. and essentially applies the rules for city parks to the Green.

Occupy New Haven, which was the last of the encampments connected to the national Occupy Movement to be closed in New England and one of the last in the country, cost New Haven $145,000 in legal fees, police overtime, trash pickup and repairs before it was over.

The Board of Alders has yet to hold a public hearing on the proposed rules and the new administration led by Mayor Toni Harp is taking a wait-and-see attitude to the proposal.

“The proposed ordinance amendments regarding the city’s parks and open spaces were drafted and submitted while the previous mayoral administration was still in office. Officials of the New Haven administration have not yet had an opportunity to review them but will do so as the amendments move through the process,” Laurence Grotheer, Harp’s spokesman, said in a statement.

“Being homeless is not a crime. I think people who punish people for being homeless, they are the criminals,” said Kenny Driffin, a homeless outreach worker.

He said the reason some people sleep on the Green is “they report that that is a place where they feel safe. It is a public area ... Others feel the opposite, they want to hide someplace to feel safe. It goes both ways.

Mike Stebbins, who is homeless, said this year he was issued a ticket by a police officer on a bicycle for trespassing while he was sitting in a city park, but no one else there was treated that way. He said he had to go to court and it was dismissed in 10 minutes.

John Lugo of a Latino advocacy group said the proposed rules are an attack on people “to the benefit of the rich people of New Haven ... I don’t feel they are representative” of New Haven residents.

Norman Clement of the Answer Coalition — Act Now, Stop War and End Racism — questioned the legality of the proprietors of the Green.

Joseph Foran, a member of the Amistad Catholic Worker House, said the law could “fundamentally change the character of the Green, which makes New Haven the beautiful place that it is.”

“There ought to be equal opportunity to express ourselves any way we want to. It ought to be a place ... where people can come and feel safe,” said the Rev. Richard Meadows of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.

Meadows said the aldermen asked for more power through charter changes last November and he promised that they will watch what they propose so that it does not take power from the least advantaged.

Meadows said “it is not a fight, it is not a struggle as much as we are going to be asking for what we are entitled to as citizens in this city.”

Ina Staklo, from Women Organized to Resist and Defend Queer Solidarity, said it is illegal to criminalize status “and that is exactly what is happening here.”

Staklo, a criminal justice student at the University of New Haven, said it is part of a broader assault on poor working people in general, including the proposed cut to food stamps and unemployment benefits. “People are being forced into abject poverty in this country,” she said.

Alder Jessica Holmes, D-9, attended the gathering, but said at this point she had no comment and just wanted to listen to people’s concerns.