Kellyann Day: Defeating homelessness is the work of many New Haven and Connecticut partners

Kellyann Day is CEO of New Reach in New Haven. Kellyann Day is CEO of New Reach in New Haven. Photo: Digital First Media Photo: Digital First Media Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Kellyann Day: Defeating homelessness is the work of many New Haven and Connecticut partners 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

She is young, 25 years old — and pregnant with twins.

And she is homeless. Or rather, she was homeless.

When the city of New Haven needed to dismantle and disperse an encampment of people living in tents and the increasing cold, she was sent packing.

But to where? With whom? How?

Homelessness is not a condition that happens to bad people. It confronts good people — families, unaccompanied youth, veterans with PTSD, individuals with crippling disabilities — who don’t have the friends, families, connections, resources or social wherewithal to keep themselves in a home.

So they need help. And we, thankfully, but not miraculously, are able to help them.

Sylvie was, within a day, directed to us at New Reach, evaluated, processed and quickly provided shelter. Now we need to find her a home that she can afford and hope those babies are not born into homelessness. But our ability to help her, and others in the encampment, wasn’t lucky or accidental.

It was the result of more than a decade’s work by our staff. It was financed by such funders as the Greater New Haven Community Foundation and United Way of Greater New Haven. It was enhanced by partners such as Columbus House, Christian Community Action and Beth El Center. And it was supported by caring government officials such as Gov. Dannel Malloy, state Housing Commissioner Evonne Klein and New Haven Mayor Toni Harp.

Much has been — and should be — made of the creation in recent years of eight Coordinated Access Networks, or CANs, across the state that are able to identify and assess people who lose their homes, swiftly re-house them and hook them up with necessary services.

This coordinated system, which avoids unnecessary duplication and delay, is the reason Connecticut has ended veteran’s homelessness and is on the threshold of ending chronic homelessness. Some people think ending chronic homelessness means no one will ever become homeless again. That’s not it. It means that we now have a system to make those episodes rare, brief and non-recurring.

Which brings us back to Sylvie.

That the New Haven region CAN could help her wasn’t simply a product of a couple of years’ worth of coordination. It wasn’t that easy.

It’s taken two decades, four governors, hundreds of meetings, thousands of dedicated people and resources — from the state, Connecticut housing Finance Authority and the Melville Charitable Trust — to make our little state a national leader.

Where would Sylvie be without all that advocacy, energy and accomplishment?

Maybe not in a wooded encampment, but most likely in a doorway, under a bridge, on a park bench, in an emergency room, or worse, at a far higher price to taxpayers and a cost to her and her soon-to-be-newborns that is too hard, and too terrifying, to measure.

The next frontiers will be the quest to end homelessness among families and unaccompanied youth. Sylvie has a foot in each of those worlds. To help her, and others, we will continue to need emergency shelters for temporary aid, and many new housing units and services.

But it is worth every effort. Sylvie, her children and their future make our work vital. We have been at it for many years and, happily, it is bearing fruit. Sylvie and her children — and so many others — will have a home. And a future.

Kellyann Day is CEO of New Reach, a New Haven organization that works to help people into safe, secure, affordable homes, with services and supports to achieve self-reliance.