Coalition for People Takes on Housing Issues

by Paula Panzarella, Coalition for People

Earlier this year, dozens of people who have been supporters of the Coalition for People and attendees of its annual meetings were asked what topics they would like the group to focus on. There was no lack of issues, and within the responses, various housing concerns were mentioned numerous times. Gentrification, rent control, homelessness and lack of affordable housing were the specifics on people’s minds.

At our March 6 meeting, we decided that housing issues would be a key focus of our work at this time. One of the most vivid examples of the lack of affordable housing occurred last December. Mark Cochran, a homeless man who needed detox, was discharged from the hospital to the street after two days. He died soon thereafter.

We want to hear about your concerns and continue the discussion to develop an action plan on

    1. Lack of affordable housing in New Haven;
    2. Homelessness; and
    3. People without a place to live being discharged from the hospital to the street.

The next meeting will be on Tuesday, April 17, 2 p.m. at the Fair Haven Library, 182 Grand Ave. For more info and your suggestions please call Paula at (203) 562-2798.

Support Environmental Action. Ride Rock to Rock Earth Day Ride

by Chris Schweitzer, New Haven/León Sister City Project

On April 28, 2018, 1500 cyclists will travel between West Rock and East Rock, with celebrations at each. Along the way, they will eat tasty food, hear great music, and explore the city’s parks. They will travel along the Farmington Canal Trail and official city bike lanes, pass through many of the city’s beautiful neighborhoods, and make stops at parks. There will be five rides: the 5-mile family-friendly ride – a parade this year!!!; a 12 mile adult ride; the 20-mile ride; the 40- mile ride; and a metric century (60+ miles), all traveling through scenic and park filled routes in the New Haven region. Music at various stops and at the end at East Rock will include performances by local musicians. For more info call (203) 285-6147 or go to www.rocktorock.org.

Help Launch Our Mother’s Day Bail-Out Campaign April 7!

by Connecticut Bail Fund

Each day, hundreds of Connecticut women are incarcerated merely because they cannot afford to pay bail. Most of them are mothers and caretakers, women of color, and survivors of violence and trauma. Many of them are criminalized for acts of self-defense.

We are coming together to organize in solidarity with incarcerated women and girls and to demand an end to the vicious criminalization of our mothers and caretakers. Leading up to Mother’s Day, we will be working to free as many women as possible from pretrial and immigration jail.

Join a coalition of Connecticut organizations, led by Connecticut Bail Fund, who are coming together to free incarcerated mothers for Mother’s Day.

April 7 at 4:30 p.m. come to the Mother’s Day Bail Fund party at Bregamos Community Theater, 491 Blatchley Ave.

The event will feature:

  • A panel of formerly incarcerated women and women whose loved ones have been impacted by the carceral state.
  • Food and drinks
  • Button, sticker, and t-shirt sales
  • Music and dancing
  • Letter writing to express solidarity to women who are incarcerated.

Donations will be accepted at the door. You can also make a donation online here: bit.ly/2FPa5wV. www.ctbailfund.org/mothers-day

Meet the Illustrator of The Legend of Miss Kendra

by Eleanor Montgomery, NHFPL

On Wednesday, April 4 at 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m., there will be an exciting program in the Young Minds Area on the second floor of the New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Elm St.

The Legend of Miss Kendra has been illustrated (by Tanya Leonello) and published as a hardcover book! This month over 2,000 copies of the book will be distributed free to each of the elementary school children in the New Haven schools where the ALIVE program [Animating Learning by Integrating and Validating Experience] is being conducted. Join the Mayor and other community leaders in marking this event!

The Legend describes the story of resilience born of suffering, of strength overcoming helplessness, and knowledge arising from the truth of experience. Miss Kendra is becoming embedded within the New Haven community as a guardian figure who helps children cope with chronic and toxic stress of everyday living. She represents the essence of so many real people in New Haven who have been working each day to help our children. Each of us, indeed, is Miss Kendra!

Come and celebrate our legend, meet the illustrator, get your own copy, and share in the discussions with friends and colleagues. Light refreshments will be provided.

VICTORY! Charges Dropped Against ANSWER Organizer Norman Clement!

by ANSWER CT

In a victory for protest and resistance, prosecutors were forced on Friday, March 9 to drop the most outrageous charges against ANSWER Coalition organizer Norman Clement stemming from his brutal and unjust arrest at the hands of the State Police at the Feb. 4, 2017 protest in New Haven against Donald Trump’s Muslim ban and planned wall on the Mexican border.

In the 13 months since the arrest, prosecutors and the entire court system dragged the case on to wear out organizers and supporters, knowing there was no evidence for the fabricated charges like “inciting a riot.” Prosecutors attempted to pressure Norm to plead out to charges without any evidence to substantiate their charges. Police lies about emergency vehicles being blocked during the protest were quickly exposed by local media. Police and their mouthpieces in the media tried to paint Norman Clement as a leader of the pro-test. While Norman is a leader in many movements, the march was a spontaneous response to the outrageous and racist policies of the Trump administration.

As we have said before, we consider it to be no coincidence that the two people arrested on February 4, 2017 were people of color. Norman is Indigenous and Nate Blair, who was pulled to the ground and arrested by the New Haven police, is Black. We also consider it no coincidence that Norman was targeted for being a well-known organizer against war, police terror and for the rights of Native peoples. In addition to his work in Connecticut, he traveled twice to Standing Rock as a Water Protector. The March 9 announcement shows that it is the power of the people coming together that will get justice and fight state oppression.

Ready for Researchers: The Greater New Haven Labor History Association Collection at the UConn, Storrs

by Joan Cavanagh, Archivist and former Director, GNH Labor History Association

Thirteen groups of records, photographs, artifacts, newspaper articles, and audio and videotapes documenting slices of New Haven’s rich working class and union history are now available to researchers at the Greater New Haven Labor History Association Collection held in the Archives and Special Collections repository at the University of Connecticut, Storrs.

The records include materials from New Haven’s garment workers’ unions; the Typographical Union of New Haven (ITU Local 47); the New Haven Federation of Teachers Local 933; the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers Local 299; and selected papers of the preeminent labor historian David Montgomery, as well as memorabilia from the life of Nicholas Aiello, business agent and organizer for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, and Joseph Rourke, Secretary-Treasurer of the CT AFL-CIO from 1946 until the late 1950s.

The Collection also includes the organizational records of the Greater New Haven Labor History Association itself, from its founding in 1988 through 2016.

The finding guides for the Collection may be accessed at the following link: hdl.handle.net/11134/20002:860317492.

For more information or to access any materials in the collection, contact Laura Katz Smith, Archivist, Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut Library, (860) 486-2516, [email protected].

And don’t forget to check out the exhibit about Winchester workers, “Our Community at Winchester,” at exhibits.winchesterworkers.gnhlha.org. A book is currently in the works, and the physical exhibit will be on view at Southern Connecticut State University in the fall of 2018. Stay tuned!!

In the Spirit of Dr. King – Fight the War Machine!

by ANSWER CT

Saturday, April 14, noon-5 p.m. Rally and March – Gather at the White House. Followed by teach-in at George Washington University.

Fifty years after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., peace and social justice groups across the country are uniting to carry on his legacy of determined struggle against racism, war and poverty. Many of these activities are being coordinated by the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.

In his final book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stated, “a final problem mankind must solve in order to survive … is finding an alternative to war and human destruction.” This comes just after his statement in the same text that “the time has come for an all-out world war on poverty.” Today, when there is no controversy in Congress about spending at least $700 billion on the war machine while horrendous cuts are being made to almost every program designed to help people survive, these words ring as true as ever.

In the richest country in the history of countries, this situation is unacceptable. Food stamps, Medicaid, programs to save the planet and funds for affordable housing cannot and should not be held hostage to a global war-making machine – a machine aimed not at freedom or democracy but domination and control, complicit in terrible crimes.

From facilitating the brutal war in Yemen to the extreme threats directed at North Korea, Venezuela and Iran, the U.S. government has placed itself completely at odds with Dr. King’s vision: A way of life where people’s needs rather than profits and imperial goals are the center of our society. This vision can be realized only if we seize the time and show that we won’t allow our future to be sacrificed at the altar of war and militarism.

Join us on Saturday, April 14 for a rally, march and teach-in against war, militarism and empire. These actions are timed to coincide with the anti-war Spring Actions 2018. As Dr. King said: “Science has provided us with adequate means for survival and transportation, which make it possible to enjoy the fullness of this great earth. The question now is, do we have the morality and courage required to live together … and not be afraid.”

Initial sponsors (list in formation): ANSWER Coalition; Justice First; Family and Friends of Incarcerated People; CODEPINK; Popular Resistance; Partnership for Civil Justice Fund; Imam Mahdi Bray, National Director of the American Muslim Alliance; Virginia Defenders for Free-dom, Justice & Equality; Internationalist Students Front at George Washington University www.answercoalition.org/ in_the_spirit_of_dr_king_fight_the_war_machine

Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad. Demonstration NYC April 15

by Henry Lowendorf, Greater New Haven Peace Council

There is no way to peace without dramatically cutting the $700 billion Pentagon budget and ending the many wars the US started and is engaged in. STOP THE WARS AT HOME AND ABROAD!

The Trump administration, however, is proposing more war spending and all CT members of Congress voted with their colleagues to increase the Pentagon budget by $80 billion, a third more than Trump asked for. This is a recipe for more killing, more refugees, more cultural devastation and indeed economic disaster for our own country. STOP THE WARS AT HOME AND ABROAD!

Cuts to the funding of education, environment, jobs, health-care, science, civil rights, infrastructure can only be reversed when we stop funding war. Ending the internal assault on minorities, immigrants, people of Muslim faith, women, our youth – ending the mass killings – requires strong opposi-tion to militarization and warmaking. STOP THE WARS AT HOME AND ABROAD!

The No US Foreign Bases Coalition, which brought together many peace organizations (noforeignbases.org) and held a successful conference in Baltimore in January, resolved to organize a national day of demonstrations on tax day 2018. There will be demonstrations in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chicago and New York.

From Connecticut we want to send a large contingent to New York. We also want to subsidize transportation in particular to encourage youth to participate. Please help organize this effort. Let us know you will march and bring a crowd April 15, 2 p.m., Union Square, New York.
Greater New Haven Peace Council (203) 389-9547, [email protected]

The Future of Health Care in Connecticut: Paths to Equity and Good Health for All, April 25

Much of what influences health happens outside the doctor’s office. How can we build strong and meaningful links between the clinical care system and the communities where people live?
Wednesday, April 25, 9 a.m.-2 p.m., join the CT Health Foundation and a panel of experts to explore ways to improve health outcomes and ensure the health care system works for everyone, at the Connecticut Convention Center, 100 Columbus Blvd., Hartford. For information and to register, please contact the CT Health Foundation at (860) 724-1580, email: [email protected]. Free but space is limited so please only register once. If you register and can’t attend, please let us know so we can give your ticket to someone else.

Guest speakers include Dr. David Williams, Norman Professor of Public Health, Harvard Chan School of Public Health; Dr. Soma Stout, Vice President, Institute for Health-care Improvement; Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal, Editor-in-Chief, Kaiser Health News and author of An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Businessand How You Can Take It Back.

Nonviolent Communication Workshop April 21

Nonviolent Communication is a way of communicating more effectively and compassionately based on the feelings and needs we share as human beings. It is founded on the idea that people only resort to harming themselves and others when they don’t recognize other strategies for meeting their human needs. Imre Berty, who has been teaching Nonviolent Communication for over a decade, will lead this workshop. It is open to all, but it is requested that people read the book, Nonviolent Communication – A Language of Life, before the workshop, so that we will be able to use the time together well.
The workshop is on Saturday, April 21, from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the NH Friends Meetinghouse, 225 E. Grand Ave.

Please bring a bag lunch. If you need child care, please contact Mary Gorham at [email protected] by April 14 with the names and ages of your children.

Link to event: quakercloud.org/cloud/new-haven-friends-meeting/events/nonviolent-communication-workshop.

More information and to order the book: www.nonviolent communication.com/aboutnvc/4partprocess.htm.

Bringing in The Rain: Workshop March 20

by Lynne Bonnett, New Haven Bioregional Group

It’s been five years since we presented our first Bringing in the Rain session at the Mitchell Library to talk about stormwater runoff, combined sewer overflows and what citizens can do to help clean up our rivers and harbor.

Citizens with their local political representatives convinced CT’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) to adopt a watershed-based approach to cleaning up the West River and New Haven Harbor. The City of New Haven, Greater New Haven Water Pollution Control Authority (GNHWPCA), CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), nonprofits and citizen groups have each had a role to play in helping us meet clean water standards in a cost-effective way, saving us money from expensive construction costs while cleaning our waters.

The challenges of reducing raw sewage overflows into the West River and reducing pollution from stormwater runoff are outlined in a West River Watershed Plan. The community has been implementing the plan for the last 3-4 years and we have accomplished a lot.

Come celebrate our efforts Tuesday, March 20, 6-8 p.m. and engage in residential stormwater management—learn how you can get involved. We will have a rain barrel on display with a sign-up sheet if you are interested in getting one for your home, presentations about rain gardens—the easiest and most attractive way to let rain water soak into the ground, and presentations from local schools, researchers and GNHWPCA. Light refreshments, family-friendly, we will start by showing a short film segment from Water Blues, Green Solutions about how community efforts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, helped reduce pollution from stormwater runoff in their community.
Barnard Nature Center at West River Memorial Park, 200 Derby Ave. (corner of Ella Grasso Blvd,), New Haven.

Lawsuit against State of CT to Restore Clean Energy Funds

by Paula Panzarella, Fight the Hike

Disgracefully, the legislature came up with a state budget that cut the funding for social service agencies and many programs that helped people. This betrayal includes their agreement to give to the General Fund approximately $160 million that consumers already paid into for programs that assist people with energy efficiency, energy conservation and with utilizing renewable energy, which were through the CT Green Bank and the CT Energy Efficiency Fund.

These funds were for the energy programs that we have paid for through the surcharge fee on our United Illuminating and Eversource electric bills. The money was collected specifically to help consumers improve energy efficiency, take part in energy conservation programs, low-interest loans to help with solar panels, modernize furnaces, water heaters, etc.

Besides these programs helping consumers, they have helped build up Connecticut’s economy. There are over 34,000 people working in the energy-efficiency industry in Connecticut. It will be a staggering blow to these businesses and their employees if people cannot continue to have the assistance of these clean-energy programs. The funding for these programs has already been collected to keep these programs going. And the legislators decided to put the money into the General Fund.

Fight the Hike has joined a lawsuit against the state of Connecticut to restore these funds. We hope businesses and other organizations will consider signing on to the lawsuit. Please contact Michael Trahan of SolarConnecticut, Inc. for more information. His e-mail address is [email protected] and his telephone is  (860) 256-1698.

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