Continuum of Care CEO James Farales and Deputy CSA Carlos Sosa-Lombardo. New Reach CEO Kellyann Day: “This can happen to anyone.” Theresa Kennealy sat on a bench at the back of the lobby of a Foxon Boulevard hotel-turned-homeless shelter Friday morning as she watched a group of nonprofit leaders urge the state to make deeper investments in a homeless response system that they warned is stretched to the limit. A 62-year-old survivor of thyroid cancer, Kennealy is one of the aging and infirm adults that those same service providers said make up an increasing proportion of people seeking emergency shelter. As someone who was evicted from her West Haven apartment, lost her job at Family Dollar, and ended up sleeping in a tent off of Quinnipiac Avenue, she is one of the 1,700 people now experiencing homelessness in Greater New Haven — a number that speakers on Friday said has risen dramatically because of high housing prices and low incomes. As someone who has spent the past year bunking with her 35-year-old son in one of the 51 rooms at the non-congregate shelter on Foxon, she’s one of roughly 100 people who could lose the little housing stability they now have if Continuum of Care — which runs the city-owned shelter — can’t find another $1.5 million to keep the program open. Kennealy wasn’t in front of the microphone at Friday’s press conference, which saw the leaders of Continuum of Care, New Reach, United Way of Greater New Haven, Milford’s Beth-El Center, and the City of New Haven’s Community Services Administration call for the state to provide a $30 million boost for homeless services statewide. Instead, she watched from the back — and shared her story with this reporter after the press conference, putting a name and face to the housing crisis that Friday’s press conference sought to shed a light on, and warned could get much worse soon without increased funding from state government. If it weren’t for this shelter and for the help of her son, Kennealy said, fighting back tears, “I wouldn’t be alive.” Speakers at Friday’s press conference spoke time and again about the “changing face of homelessness” — about more and more older adults are in desperate need for safe, affordable, stable housing. “This can happen to anyone,” New Reach’s Kellyann Day said. Without more funding, Continuum of Care’s James Farales said, “it’s only going to get worse.” As the Beth-El Center’s Jennifer Paradis detailed, the group of service providers gathered at 270 Foxon Blvd. Friday want the state to invest roughly $30 million in Connecticut’s homeless response system. That includes $12.3 million for extreme-weather housing support, $10 million in flexible funding for homeless services, $6 million to increase staffing for existing providers, and $1.5 million to keep the former Days Inn hotel-turned-shelter open. “Our system is not fully funded to meet this level of need,” Day said about the 1,700 people now officially recognized as homeless in Greater New Haven, including 600 who are on a wait list for a shelter bed. “We need increased investment to prevent homelessness.” In a statement provided to the Independent for this story, New Haven State Sen. and President Pro Tem Martin Looney said that, while state legislators are still working through budget adjustments in Hartford before the end of the session next month, “this issue is top-of-mind for Democratic legislators, especially as federal policies worsen economic conditions for Connecticut residents across nearly all income levels.” He said the Appropriations Committee has recommended that Gov. Ned Lamont support the CT Coalition to End Homelessness “by drawing $20 million from an emergency fund created by the General Assembly to offset the economic impacts of the Trump administration’s policies on Connecticut residents. Those funds are available, and the decision to use them now rests with the governor.” He said the Appropriations Committee budget also includes $10 million in Rental Assistance Program vouchers and an additional $500,000 for students and families facing homelessness. In a separate comment provided to the Independent, a spokesperson for Lamont said that the governor’s proposal Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) budget includes nearly $28 million “for rental assistance, eviction prevention, homeless shelters, cold weather support, and additional support for homeless youth.”  As the state legislature, governor, and homeless service providers hash through just how much the state is willing to invest in these programs, Kennealy said she is hoping to find an apartment of her own after spending nearly a year at 270 Foxon. She said she’s been looking — for a place she can afford, for a landlord willing to take a chance on her and her son. “I want to be a Continuum of Care success story,” she said. She wants to live in a home, and not end up again on the street. At Friday’s presser at 270 Foxon. The post Homeless Responders Sound Funding Alarm appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less