NEW BRITAIN – Outside of the TD Bank on Main Street a passersby offered Billy Cichon dollar bills and small nip bottles of Fireball whiskey. He sipped cautiously from the already opened flat bottle of clear liquid pulled from his coat pocket and chatted casually with a businessman in a stained, tan trench coat.
Cichon has lived at the Salvation Army in New Britain for the last eight months and has been homeless for three years.
“They do what they can,” Cichon said. “I’ve been waiting eight months for housing, but other people only wait two or three. Usually, families with kids, which I understand.”
Cichon immigrated from Poland to New Britain over 40 years ago and worked as a faux finisher and decorative painter. He said that selling his house was his biggest mistake and started him on the path toward homelessness.
“I guess I was stupid,” Cichon said. “I sold my house. I shouldn’t (have.) I spent the money in a couple of years. You know what I mean? Over $140,000.”
The Friendship Service Center and Hope Connection Center offer resources to unhoused people in New Britain. While the Friendship Service Center offers daily meals, emergency shelter, and transitional housing, the Hope Connection Center provides immediate services to those in need.
Caitlin Rose, CEO of the Friendship Service Center, said that the Hope Connection Center is open to walk-ins and is the easiest path to finding services.
“There is a low barrier,” Rose said. “People can just come in, have access to a shower, get clean clothes if they need them.”
Down the street, a group of young people, from college students to formerly homeless people, gather in a dimly lit event space every two weeks to discuss the city’s homeless problem and gentrification.
Dare to Struggle CT is a chapter of a political advocacy group founded in New York City in 2021. Led by Mike Ryan of Farmington, the group has focused its efforts on New Britain since November 2023.
“Working within the system is limited,” Ryan said after the meeting. “So, we operate from the outside to try to help people.”
While Dare to Struggle got involved in late 2023, other groups, like the New Britain Racial Justice Coalition, have been advocating at the state level for the rights and interests of homeless residents since 2020. The two groups communicate but do not work together directly.
Alderwoman Lori McAdam, a Democrat, is a member of the New Britain Racial Justice Coalition and has brought multiple issues regarding homeless people in the city to the Common Council.
“I will always be a voice for the people that are unheard,” McAdam said. “I don’t have to choose between being an activist and a politician.”
McAdam said she has faced backlash from her peers regarding her proposals but that she’s “here to do what’s right, not what’s liked.”
The Friendship Service Center has worked closely with the city, and the Hope Connection Center is a “city-funded build-out,” Rose said. The organization also works with the police and surrounding businesses under a “good neighbor agreement” to ensure a safe environment for everyone in the areas surrounding both buildings, she said.
Ryan said that there has been an increase in the police presence in downtown New Britain with the opening of The Brit on the horizon. Dare to Struggle argues that this increase is a path toward gentrification and that the city is trying to push homeless people, specifically, out of the area.
McAdam proposed two resolutions to the New Britain Common Council regarding panhandling and loitering ordinances at its meeting on Feb. 28. One would change the language within the ordinance to exclude activities like sleeping from the qualifications for loitering. The other would lower the $99 fine to $10 for the first offense, $15 for the second, and $20 for the third.
“People are being ticketed for something as simple as eating on the sidewalk,” McAdam said.
Members of the common council, including Alderwoman McAdam and President Pro Tempore Francisco Santiago, are in the process of forming a committee on homelessness. Rose said that their committee would only be a “duplication of effort” and that her organization and New Britain Recovers, a city-wide initiative, are already working toward the same goal.
New Britain Recovers was established in 2021 to streamline social services throughout the city. The city’s Opioid Task Force, Homelessness Plan, and Local Prevention Council were separate initiatives but now work together under New Britain Recovers, according to NBRecovers.org.
Rose said preventing homelessness from happening in the first place or quick recovery from homelessness are the best ways to fix the problem. The longer someone is homeless and the more disconnected they are, the harder the transition out of homelessness will be, she said.
