Benincasa Community

The Rosette Neighborhood Village is a transitional housing micro-neighborhood located in the back yard of the Amistad House of Hospitality in New Haven.

Your small gifts = big change for people fighting their way out of poverty

It’s happening in New Haven County—and across America—people are losing their homes and falling into a cycle of poverty.

Click below to "read more"

“Home for the Holidays”

Our goal is to have six tiny homes built by Thanksgiving, before another harsh winter sets in.

We’re almost there but need a little more help. That's why we're doing this fundraiser.

Your gift will help us complete the purchase, construction, and electrification of these homes.

Below is our story, followed by some frequently asked questions that we get asked.

OUR STORY

For thirty years, the Amistad House of Hospitality has been dedicated to helping New Haven’s poorest residents—providing refuge, sustenance, companionship and housing support at 203 Rosette Street, which is also the home of Mark and Luz Colville. (Luz and Mark are longtime neighborhood activists who were honored as New Haven’s Persons of the Year in 2019.) In recent years, the low-income housing crisis, unbridled gentrification, and the Covid pandemic have pushed hundreds more Connecticut residents from their homes and into the street.

(Mark Colville standing in a tent city before it was bulldozed.)

Unfortunately, New Haven city officials have responded by doubling-down on a brutal policy of criminalizing the human right of people experiencing homelessness to take refuge on unused public land. In many cases, people who have taken such refuge for months, or even years in the same place, are suddenly evicted, their homes are bulldozed--with no provision of any safer or more permanent accommodations. People have died as a result of these evictions. Seeing no relief forthcoming from the city government, Mark and Luz decided to start welcoming those victimized by these encampment evictions into their backyard. With Amistad’s support, each person has been given a tiny piece of land and authorized to make a home on it, thereby transforming their status from “homeless person” to neighbor.

As word got out about what Amistad was doing, a group of community members (mental health professionals, faith leaders, writers, scholars, business leaders, people experiencing homelessness, students, and the Benincasa community) united to help raise money to elevate the living standard of the backyard residents; with an initial objective of replacing six of the fortified tent dwellings with tiny homes. We are literally creating a supported, self-governing micro-neighborhood (called the Rosette Neighborhood Village), which is intended to provide a powerful example to the city of New Haven of what a legally-sanctioned encampment for the unhoused could become. The three words we use to describe what we’re trying to provide are: Dignity. Safety. Community.

The tiny homes that your donation helps to build will provide Rosette Neighborhood Village residents with a safe and secure place to return to each day, storage for their possessions, electricity, temperature control and the peace that comes from knowing they will not be evicted. With access to the Amistad kitchen and bathroom, the backyard at Amistad is becoming a thriving community. Residents are self-organized and committed to being good neighbors to all. They maintain the backyard, have established a zero-drug policy, and help serve meals to the wider neighborhood.

(What the tiny homes will look like.)