© 2024 WSHU
NPR News & Classical Music
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

New Haven buys a hotel to help shelter the city's homeless population

New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker
Molly Ingram
/
WSHU
New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker

The city spent nearly $7 million to buy the Days Inn hotel on Foxon Boulevard. Officials say it’ll be able to house more than 100 people.

New Haven mayor Justin Elicker said it’s part of a larger effort to provide more beds for the city’s unhoused people.

“If there's extreme weather, we will issue an extreme weather protocol and open up additional spaces for people to go," Elicker said. "But because we've expanded our capacity so much we feel like we're in a much, much better place than we were even a few months ago.”

The shelter will be run by New Haven-based Continuum of Care, which operates more than 50 shelters, group homes and crisis centers across the state. The agency said it’ll offer case management, job training and other services, according to the New Haven Independent.

Davis Dunavin loves telling stories, whether on the radio or around the campfire. He started in Missouri and ended up in Connecticut, which, he'd like to point out, is the same geographic trajectory taken by Mark Twain.