New Haven Shelter Faces Closure Without $30M State Funding

Connecticut has roughly 1,700 people experiencing homelessness in the Greater New Haven area, and the nonprofit network trying to house them is running out of money.

That’s the short version of what shelter operators told reporters Friday at 270 Foxon Blvd., a former hotel that Continuum of Care converted into a 51-room non-congregate shelter. Their ask: $30 million in new state funding before the spring legislative session wraps up. Without it, they say the whole system starts to crack.

James Farales, CEO of Continuum of Care, didn’t sugarcoat it. The Foxon shelter alone faces a $1.5 million shortfall, enough to force its closure. “It’s only going to get worse,” Farales said, standing in a lobby that currently houses roughly 100 people who have nowhere else to go.

One of those people was watching from a bench at the back of the room. Theresa Kennealy, 62, didn’t take the microphone. She let the advocates do the talking. But when the press conference ended, she explained what this funding fight actually looks like from inside the shelter.

Kennealy is a thyroid cancer survivor. She was evicted from her West Haven apartment, lost her job at Family Dollar, and eventually ended up in a tent off Quinnipiac Avenue. She now shares a room at the Foxon shelter with her 35-year-old son. “I wouldn’t be alive,” she said, holding back tears. The shelter, she made clear, wasn’t a last resort. It was the difference.

She’s not unusual in that regard. Service providers say they’re seeing more older adults with serious health conditions at emergency shelters, people whose needs the current system wasn’t built to handle. Housing costs keep climbing. Incomes don’t. The math is punishing, and it’s producing a demographic the system can’t absorb.

New Reach CEO Kellyann Day put the stakes bluntly: “This can happen to anyone.”

The coalition gathered at Foxon that Friday included leaders from 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. Deputy CSA Carlos Sosa-Lombardo was there too. The Department of Housing and national research from the National Alliance to End Homelessness both point to the same trend: the gap between available shelter capacity and actual need is widening in mid-sized cities like New Haven.

The $30 million request has a specific breakdown. Beth-El Center’s Jennifer Paradis walked reporters through the numbers: $12.3 million for extreme-weather housing support, $10 million in flexible funds for homeless services broadly, $6 million to expand staffing at existing providers, and $1.5 million earmarked specifically for the Foxon shelter.

That last line item is the most urgent. Continuum of Care runs the city-owned building on a budget that doesn’t have room for the kind of shortfall it’s now facing. The neighborhood around Foxon Blvd. isn’t one that generates much political pressure, but it’s quietly absorbing some of the region’s most vulnerable residents. Without the $1.5 million, Farales says the program can’t survive.

The flexible funding piece is what providers say they need most in the long run. Connecticut’s homeless response infrastructure wasn’t designed for rapid demand spikes. When a shelter closes or a stretch of brutal weather pushes more people inside, the System doesn’t have a financial cushion to absorb it. That’s what the coalition is calling a Breaking Point, not a metaphor, but an operational reality playing out at 270 Foxon Blvd. right now.

The New Haven Independent covered Friday’s gathering and reported on the coalition’s warning to state lawmakers, with the 2026 legislative session offering what Service providers describe as a closing window to act.

Kennealy wasn’t thinking about legislative calendars. She was thinking about her son, her health, and a room that’s kept both of them stable. “This can happen to anyone,” she said.