Jean Holloway has lived in the same house in Hartford’s Clay Arsenal neighborhood since 1971. It’s nestled among several historic landmarks and predates the Connecticut State Capitol building.
The house is one of the only constants that’s come with her time in Hartford. Most other things, she says, have changed. When she moved in more than 50 years ago, the city lacked the skyline that it’s since grown to have. Over time, more and more of the neighborhood’s kids — including her own — started taking buses to magnet schools in other parts of the state as the quality of Clay Arsenal’s schools declined. And most notably, the neighborhood slowly lost the family-oriented feel that first drew her there, she says.
“There was a time when everybody on my street owned their home. Now… only two people on my street own [their houses],” she said.
Holloway’s neighborhood is one of several across Connecticut that meets the definition for an area of concentrated poverty, where more than 30% of residents live under the federal poverty line. But residents are hopeful that Clay Arsenal could see a return to the close-knit neighborhood it once used to be through a new piece of Connecticut legislation that aims to create a 10-year plan to reduce concentrated poverty in the area.
Tackling concentrated poverty through legislation
The Connecticut General Assembly passed the measure earlier this year as part of a statewide bond bill. It requires policymakers to select one census tract — or group of adjacent census tracts, like the three that make up Clay Arsenal — experiencing concentrated poverty, and work with community leaders and residents there over the next several years to design and carry out a 10-year plan that will comprehensively tackle poverty. The goal is to reduce the share of people in that area living under the federal poverty line to 20% or less.
How exactly that reduction will happen, however, is largely up to community members. While the law suggests workforce development programs, housing development, and education initiatives, among other projects, any other initiatives that remedy the consequences of concentrated poverty are also fair game.
And while the measure lists several possible funding sources for the 10-year plan, monetary specifics are also up in the air, as is an official kickoff timeline for the pilot program.
Primary responsibility for creating the plan falls to a new community-focused office in the state Department of Economic and Community Development. Called the Office of Neighborhood Investment and Community Engagement, this entity was also created through the passage of the bond bill.
By 2029, after evaluating the success of the 10-year plan in the neighborhood chosen for the pilot program, the commissioner of DECD will recommend to the legislature whether the 10-year plans should be expanded to the other tracts across the state that also face concentrated poverty.
If expanded beyond the pilot, the legislation has the potential to impact the one-tenth of Connecticut residents — more than 360,000 people — who live under the federal poverty line and have long navigated issues with health care, food insecurity, education and more in what researchers call a “combination of barriers.”
The legislation is the first of its kind, according to Sen. John Fonfara — who co-chairs the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, which co-sponsored the legislation before it was absorbed into the bond bill — because it aims to change the lifelong, systemic effects of poverty, rather than remedying individual impacts.
“It isn’t just changing incomes, it’s changing the environment that creates opportunity,” Fonfara said. “That’s the difference with concentrated poverty — it isn’t just where a lot of poor people live, it’s a generator of poverty, because if you grow up in that environment, your chances of living in poverty are much, much greater.”
Coordinating funding and leadership
The new office within DECD will work with a community development corporation in the tract chosen for the pilot program to decide what projects and initiatives to prioritize in that area’s 10-year plan.
Previous state legislation — also championed by Fonfara and the finance, revenue and bonding committee — created a framework for these community development corporations, which are nonprofit, community-led organizations that aim to improve urban areas and expand economic opportunity for low- and moderate-income Connecticut residents.
Clay Arsenal has an existing community development corporation that’s gearing up to apply for a 10-year plan, making it a likely contender for the pilot program, according to Fonfara.
Dozens of empty lots sit scattered in between buildings in Clay Arsenal. Credit: Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror
Holloway is the vice president of Clay Arsenal’s community development corporation, which kicked off its work in 2023, and Jeffrey Stewart, another Clay Arsenal resident, is president.
For Stewart, the fact that this legislation will rely heavily on coordination and input from a community group also sets it apart from previous statewide efforts.
“A lot of development going on in the community, sometimes it’s not from the ground up. So this kind of gives people in the neighborhood a chance to be part of that development,” Stewart, who has lived in Clay Arsenal since 2015, said.
On the DECD front, implementing the legislation is currently a work in progress. In an email to The Connecticut Mirror, a spokesperson for DECD said “it is premature to discuss specifics” but the department is “currently developing the implementation plans for the pilot program and engaging with appropriate stakeholders as needed.”
But Stewart said residents in Clay Arsenal have been in touch with DECD, and that the department has assured them that it will “catch up” to the community development corporation’s preparations. They’re hopeful, he said, that reducing — and eventually eradicating — concentrated poverty will become a reality in their community.
Jeffrey Stewart and Jean Holloway walk through Clay Arsenal. During their walks, they take note of issues to report. Credit: Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror
Per the legislation, DECD will also be largely responsible for helping the pilot program neighborhood secure funding. The bond bill mandates that the department establish a grant program to fund initiatives in the 10-year plan, which can range from streetscape improvements to rehabilitating mixed-income rental housing.
Gov. Ned Lamont’s office is tasked with approving project applications from the pilot program community — and eventually, the other communities that may receive 10-year plans. If the governor approves a project, the community facilitating that project could receive $500,000 or more in grant funding from the state.
Funding for aspects of a neighborhood’s 10-year plan could also come from bonding. The bond bill authorizes the state’s bond commission to issue up to $50 million in bonds, and obligates the state to put the proceeds toward projects to reduce concentrated poverty. Money for poverty reduction projects could also come from investors, existing grant programs run by state agencies and other existing state funds like the Community Investment Fund.
In some towns and neighborhoods in Connecticut, no formal community development corporation exists — but residents are hopeful that the 10-year plans will be expanded and that they can get involved in the legislation soon.
In Bridgeport, for instance, residents have continually spoken up about issues in their neighborhoods that are closely tied to concentrated poverty.
Programming priorities: health care, education and housing
Mercedes Velasco is one of those residents. She lives in the West Side neighborhood of Bridgeport with three of her children and is involved with community organizing through PT Partners, a resident-led group advocating for better living conditions in Bridgeport’s public housing.
In Velasco’s census tract, number 709 in Bridgeport, almost half the residents live under the poverty line. For Velasco’s family, this has meant repeatedly facing issues with health care and education.
In July, for instance, Velasco spent over a week without her seizure medication.
Since switching medical providers last year, she’s struggled to get timely appointments, meaning her prescription didn’t get refilled until she landed in the emergency room earlier this month after having another seizure, she said. Having to juggle her health concerns with being the sole parent to her four kids, she explained, has been “crazy.”
“For my health to be up in the air like this, it’s stressing,” she said. “I don’t want my kids to see me go through another seizure. That’s so draining, not only for me, but for them.”
Because of concentrated poverty, neighborhoods like Velasco’s often lack quality medical care. Living in poverty can also create and exacerbate health issues. Velasco hopes a plan that could reduce concentrated poverty in her area could also ease her individual health situation.
The interplay between poverty and negative health outcomes is one that many residents in Bridgeport public housing have seen. They’re part of an ongoing fight against the expansion of two wastewater treatment plants near the city’s PT Barnum apartment complex, to which they’ve attributed declining health conditions in their communities.
For several families living in tracts with concentrated poverty, education is also top-of-mind as they think about a potential future 10-year plan for their neighborhood.
Velasco’s 17-year-old daughter, Shyelis, said she’d like to be in more hands-on classes that have practical applications.
Right now, Shyelis said, “you basically just learn to pass a test,” but she wants knowledge that she can keep using outside the classroom. Her mom said introducing and funding subjects like finance and home economics could be helpful in engaging kids and preparing them for life beyond school.
Zenida Gonzalez, who also lives in Bridgeport, has three children. Her older two children attended school in New Haven, and she was happy with the hands-on learning they did there, she said. She hopes that through a mechanism like a 10-year plan, schools in Bridgeport and other areas can follow a similar model.
“In their schools in New Haven, they already had things in place, outlets for these kids,” Gonzalez said. “These kids were engaged in school activities and community service… the kids were always active in something.”
New Haven Public Schools students have access to city-run work experience programs and partnerships with colleges around the state. Through a program called New Haven Promise, for instance, New Haven students have access to full-tuition scholarships for the state’s public universities, career placement support and similar services.
The legislation aims to expand such programs. In the pilot area, and potentially in others if the 10-year plans are expanded, projects or programs that target at-risk youth and establish workforce training opportunities are likely to be prioritized for funding, according to the bond bill.
Gonzalez lives in census tract 703 in Bridgeport’s West Side neighborhood. Fifty-four percent of residents in that tract live under the federal poverty line. Of those ages 25 and up in Gonzalez’s area, fewer than 9% have received a college degree.
Almost all the tracts that face concentrated poverty see similarly low levels of high school and college completion. Of all Connecticut residents over age 25, 40% have received a college degree. All but five of the 64 tracts with concentrated poverty have populations where the share of college degree recipients is under the statewide level.
Hector Glynn, president and CEO of The Village — a Hartford-based nonprofit that offers behavioral health treatment, foster care and other community support services — pointed to the need for more engagement in schools, which he hopes the 10-year plans can help foster.
A Dalio Education report from October 2023 highlighted concerns about youth in Connecticut that are disconnected from employment and education in the state, which Glynn said includes chronic absenteeism, risk of not graduating and similar factors. In Hartford, where The Village primarily offers its services, disconnection rates among those ages 14-26 are especially high, at over 40%.
Bridgeport, New Haven and Waterbury — the other towns with the highest number of census tracts facing concentrated poverty — also have high youth disconnection rates of 30% or more.
In Clay Arsenal, Stewart saw firsthand how COVID exacerbated youth disconnection. To him, a 10-year plan presents the possibility of improving schools in neighborhoods with concentrated poverty and keeping families who are looking for a better education in those neighborhoods.
“We want to get kids to grow, but we don’t want them to necessarily leave the neighborhood, but stay here,” Stewart said. “How do we go capture those and try to pick up those who are affected by that? And how do we reach behind them to make sure the next group doesn’t have the same issue?”
Jeffrey Stewart and Jean Holloway look back towards one of the few single family homes in Clay Arsenal. Credit: Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror
Housing, too, is a key area for those looking ahead to the 10-year plans.
Subpar housing conditions can perpetuate a cycle of living in poverty, according to Glynn, making it a foundational area to target in order to effectively address concentrated poverty.
“If you’re moving from one bad place to another to another, if you have any sort of history of financial disarray or you’ve been evicted in the past, then even if you’re back on track, trying to get out of that housing situation is almost impossible,” Glynn said.
Community-led change
For Fonfara, addressing housing means putting ownership back in the hands of community members.
Right now, according to the state senator, it’s a “regular practice” for slumlords from outside communities to monopolize property ownership — especially in neighborhoods with concentrated poverty, where they can prey on those using public housing vouchers. But Fonfara envisions a Connecticut where neighborhood residents become certified property owners. That, he said, goes hand in hand with giving residents in the qualifying tracts a say in the future of their homes.
“Nobody asks people in poor communities, ‘What would you like your neighborhood to look like in five years or 10 years?’ Nobody asks them that because the majority of properties in high poverty communities are owned by people that don’t live there,” Fonfara said. “For the first time… they’ll have a say in what will happen in their neighborhood.”
In addition to putting 10-year plan development in the hands of community development corporations, the bond bill creates opportunities for residents to enforce legislation if a lack of action from policymakers arises.
Each tract that eventually participates in the 10-year plans must meet certain benchmarks for kindergarten-readiness, grade level reading and mathematics and college-readiness rates.
In 2025, DECD must also issue a progress report on poverty eradication in the areas that are chosen for the pilot program.
And starting in July 2027, participating community development corporations can bring legal action against public officials who don’t fulfill responsibilities related to the 10-year plans — including delivering the appropriate funding.
To Velasco, the law’s elevation of community members is a welcome departure from previous attempts at tackling poverty.
“We need community input. You can’t just come in here and tell us what we need,” Velasco said of her tract in Bridgeport. “That seems to be a big problem a lot of the times with the state or these big corporations and they don’t really take into account any of the needs of the residents or the community.”
For Holloway, the legislation offers the promise of keeping people in the neighborhood that she’s so passionate about. It’s an opportunity, she said, to create a place no longer defined by concentrated poverty, but rather, a version of Clay Arsenal where there’s a close-knit community that takes pride in their rich history, takes advantage of a thriving small business landscape, and enjoys walks downtown with friends.
“It’s a beautiful neighborhood that I really enjoy. I look forward to people making a conscious decision to come in here,” she said. “I’m positive that in the next 10 years, we can do that.”