Joel Nieves is lucky if he can get two hours of sleep using his CPAP machine before the battery pack dies.
“At night when I try to sleep I feel like I'm being suffocated,” said Nieves, who has sleep apnea and other health problems.
Nieves relies on a CPAP machine to keep her breathing through the night, but more than three weeks ago, she couldn't plug it into the wall of her home after the city of New Haven ordered United Illuminating to cut off power to her small neighborhood because the device no longer complies with state building codes.
With temperatures soaring into the 90s in July and August, Nieves described the conditions as a “nightmare.”
“Without electricity it's about 15 degrees hotter inside than outside and in this heatwave it's impossible to even function,” Nieves said. “I sit there at night crying, wondering how I'm going to get out of this hole.”
Though the heat finally subsided this week, tensions between Rosette Neighborhood Villages, the state's first tiny house community for homeless people, and city officials show no signs of easing.
Mark Colville, who has been running Amistad Catholic Worker since October from his home, where six prefabricated tiny homes have been placed in his backyard, said the city's actions are putting residents at risk.
“What they're doing here is a human rights violation and will very likely lead to serious health conditions and even death,” Colville said.
New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said in an interview with The Courant that Colville and village residents knew that tiny homes would no longer be approved after a temporary 180-day building permit from the state expired July 15.
“The document that Colville signed stated in bold letters at the top of the page that it was for a 180-day (permit) and that it was 'not extendable,'” Elicker said. “People have known for a long time that this would happen and we've been ready all along to help people out there find other options.”
Elicker said city representatives and outreach workers visited the village to provide services to residents both before and after the permit expired, but city officials issued a cease and desist order asking all residents to vacate their units.
The Department of Administrative Services is processing a petition from the property side seeking a one-time extension of the permit.
Lee Appleby, the department's public affairs director, said the state's Codes and Standards Committee will “consider the next steps in the (appeals) process” at its Aug. 14 meeting.
Elicker said Nieves was the first village resident to accept the city's offer to help secure alternative housing and shelter after the city cut off power to the property, fined him $100 and placed a lien on his property to enforce the eviction order. Elicker said the options available to other village residents vary on a “case by case basis.”
“I understand they communicated that we're not helping, that they don't have access to resources. That's a concern to me because we are helping and we will continue to do so. Organizers should have in-depth knowledge of city resources and be able to connect residents to city resources and ensure that those who are very vulnerable in our community get the help they need,” Elicker said.
“Residents are not refusing service,” Colville said in a statement to The Courant on Friday.
“They refuse to be pushed out of their neighborhoods to accommodate them,” Colville said. “They have come to see this community as essential to their personal healing and their escape from homelessness.”
“City officials have willfully and consistently ignored this facility, with two exceptions,” Colville added, “(One) when they want to send us a 'cease and desist order' and (Two) when they send them here because they have nothing (to offer) homeless people in crisis.”
Colville, village residents and their advocates continue to criticize Elicker for not visiting the site in person, arguing that the city's July order to shut off power was premature and that power should continue while the state considers the village's appeal.
Elicker said the city has no authority over state permits.
“We have an obligation to follow state law and if we don't we have significant liability (regarding electricity),” Elicker said.
Elicker said he was “not sure how productive” the visit to the village would be, but said after multiple conversations with organizers, the city and village have the “same goal of helping vulnerable members of our community.”
“We can accomplish a lot more if we work collaboratively rather than in an adversarial way,” Elicker added.
Suki Godek, one of the village's leading activists, said she thinks Elicker's support has been inconsistent.
“Every time we have a small victory, the mayor jumps in and says how much he supported us,” Godek said. “When it comes to doing something that we really need, something that's important and lasting for the health of all our citizens, he just pushes it onto the next person. It's infuriating.”
Godek, who has been living in a small house with her husband since October and suffers from stress attacks, said the blackout period has been particularly hard. She said Thursday she hasn't received any assistance from the city.
“From our perspective, he (Elicker) just throws another problem at us,” Godek said. “We're not going to stop helping people, we're not going to stop doing our day-to-day activities – providing food, providing shelter, doing community work – just because he wants to turn off the lights.”
Elicker said the decision to cut off power to the village was consistent with previous orders from the city.
“Any time we have an illegal housing unit, we tell the power company to shut off the electricity,” Elicker said.
Jacob Miller, Colville's son-in-law, neighbor and co-owner of a real estate brokerage, said the blackouts feel like “selective enforcement.”
“I've done hundreds of transactions in this city over the last 10 years and can say with absolute certainty that our building is not the only one in violation of building codes, and it's not uncommon to see power being shut off in these circumstances,” Miller said.
Miller said the village and its lawyers are trying to exhaust all administrative remedies to keep the tiny homes in place before taking formal legal action. Miller and Colville said the village is prepared to defend its right to keep people in tiny homes against human rights and religious arguments.
Miller said land use attorneys representing the property have contacted United Illuminating and the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to request that the power outages be reversed, given concerns about the health and safety of village residents.
“Power cannot be shut off during winter or summer if it would lead to a dangerous situation and such customers have filed a medical protection form with the utility,” according to the state's website.
“The city's position is health and safety, and our contention is that these units were fully safe to have energized six months ago, and absolutely nothing has changed since then,” Miller said.
Elicker emphasized his concern that the tiny homes would not survive extreme weather events such as hurricanes or snowstorms.
“Imagine what would happen if a tree fell on a building or if there was a really strong wind,” Elicker says. “Building codes are in place for a reason, so while their goals are noble, they have to follow the rules just like everyone else.”
Designed by the for-profit company Palette, the tiny units resemble standalone dorm rooms. Though the shelters don't have bathrooms or kitchens (they're just around the corner from Colville's house), they do have beds, plenty of storage space, smoke alarms, and carbon monoxide detectors. When hooked up to an electrical grid, the tiny homes also have heating, cooling, and power outlets.
Pallet says each unit has a 10-year or more lifespan and is designed to withstand winds up to 110 mph, 25 pounds of snow per square foot, and temperatures as low as -40 degrees F. It's also resistant to mold, rot, and pests.
Renee Spieler, communications director for the mayor's office, in an email to The Courant on Thursday took issue with the “tiny home” moniker used to describe the village units.
“That's misleading,” Spiller said. “These structures are not 'tiny homes,' they are 'temporary structures.' State building codes have a definition of a tiny home…Pallets also define them as temporary housing solutions or shelters.”
The 2021 International Residential Code, which Connecticut has adopted as part of its state building code, defines a “tiny house” as “a dwelling having a floor area of 400 square feet or less, excluding lofts.”
To qualify as a residence, the law stipulates that each unit must provide “complete independent living facilities for one or more persons, including permanent facilities for living, sleeping, eating, cooking, and sanitation.”
The village buildings may not be legally considered “homes,” but to Nieves and her seven neighbors, they are.
Nieves said he had been homeless for two years before finding the village, during which he participated in a state-funded drug addict relief program that gave him temporary housing for 90 days.
“When my time was up, they dropped me off at the heating centre and said, 'Good luck,'” Nieves said. “The heating centre closed after three days and I was thrown out onto the street.”
Nives said he spent every moment of those two years in “defense mode” — barely sleeping, not trusting anyone, losing parts of himself.
“Kids, they're throwing stones at us. You never know if you're going to get robbed. You never know what's going to happen if a stray dog comes at you when you're trying to sleep,” Nieves said. “They don't even have names. You go out on the street and they just point.”
Nives said after moving into the village in April and then into a smaller house in July, she finally feels safe and her physical, mental and emotional health is improving.
“When I first got here, I would slouch over my plate, almost like I was guarding my food, but now I eat like a human again. I can sit, lean back, socialize. These are skills I lost that I didn't have before I got here,” Nieves said.
“The problem with the shelter system is that people lose these social skills and no one gives them the opportunity to rediscover them,” Nieves said.
Nieves said that in the village, “we were treated like family, not like a number.”
“It saved my life,” Nieves said.
Nieves said she has submitted an application to move into a nearby nursing home, bringing her one step closer to her goal of permanent housing.
Colville said the village has successfully transitioned other tiny home residents into permanent housing. Colville said he hopes the city will adopt the same community model to address homelessness in New Haven.
“Solving homelessness requires systemic change and it requires community effort,” Colville said. “It's not about efficiently housing people. It's about separate spaces. It's about independence. It's about being able to grill your own burger, feed your own dog, lock your door.”
“If we just get out of the way and let people be neighbors with each other, we solve the homeless problem,” Colville said. “That's really the real solution to homelessness.”
First published: August 11, 2024, 6:00 AM
