Our most important lessons in college came from outside Yale’s gates. We have learned about abolition from the local bookstore Possible Futures; American policing structures from the New Haven Housing Fund and Connecticut Party for Socialism and Liberation; urban planning and social service systems through U-ACT, Mothers and Others for Justice and Benefits Cliff; the criminal legal system from Women Against Mass Incarceration and food deserts from Witnesses to Hunger. And, from all these organizations, we’ve learned about the importance of community.

Though we might not have grown up in New Haven, we are grateful for the love, care and support we have received from community members. At the end of our junior years, the two of us joined the Unhoused Activists Community Team — colloquially known as U-ACT — along with fellow senior Mahdere Yared, who contributed to this piece. Reflecting on how much New Haven has given us all and how much we are going to miss it, we hope to remind Yale community members how important it is to continue building and maintaining our relationship with the surrounding city, even after graduation. As we’ve learned, one major way to do this is to support U-ACT and their People’s Budget. 

U-ACT is a coalition of unhoused community members, activists, teachers, health care workers, and students that fights relentlessly for the rights and dignity of unhoused people in New Haven. Last month, U-ACT proposed the “People’s Budget” to the Board of Alders calling for a city budget that allocates funds for tiny homes, warming centers, public bathrooms, showers, and storage facilities. 

In Greater New Haven, 25.3 percent of community members live below the poverty line with over 633 people being unsheltered. Too many community members struggle to find housing, food, healthcare, and education. This does not just happen. Mayor Justin Elicker and Yale deprive and ostracize unhoused, low-income and Brown and Black community members. Displacement is a form of violence; it uproots people’s entire lives, makes it difficult for people to live and vulnerable to police violence. This oppression cyclically destroys beloved homes, encampments and community spaces in attempts to hoard wealth and make New Haven more “palatable” for Yale elite and luxury real estate developers.

While the number of people living in poverty in New Haven increases, Elicker aims to increase the public safety budget by 10 percent. Policing and incarceration, forms of institutional violence, perpetuate cycles of poverty. U-ACT calls for this money to be reallocated toward solutions that safely house and provide for people. This costs merely $4.5 million, which is 0.06 percent of the $703,765,049 city budget. 

Through our four years here, we have seen our university’s active role in creating the housing crisis and criminalizing unhoused communities. 56.32 percent of all property in New Haven is tax-exempt, and Yale, including Yale New Haven Hospital, owns 43.4 percent of that, depriving New Haven of $4.3 billion in property taxes and diverting essential funding for social programs. Out of its over $40 billion endowment, Yale announced a six-year, $135 million voluntary donation to the city in 2021. Considering that New Haven is a Black and Brown community often denied access to Yale’s wealth but sustains the institution through its underpaid labor and extracted city resources, the People’s Budget is a small way for Yale to address its centuries of violence.

The current options for city-provided shelters are temporary and carceral. The Elm City Compass hotel-turned-shelter on Route 8 keeps people on the outskirts of the city — providing housing for a mere 90 days and enforcing stringent rules, such as a 7 p.m. curfew. Through these rules, the shelter becomes another way for New Haven to police people and invisibilize them. Additionally, Varick and 180 Center warming centers closed on April 15, displacing 60-80 people. 

In response to the city forcibly removing people from their tent homes while not providing sufficient resources, the non-profit Amistad Catholic Worker transformed its backyard into Rosette Neighborhood Village, a community of tiny homes. However, since 2024, the City of New Haven has been trying to destroy Rosette Neighborhood Village, leveraging arbitrary enforcement of zoning laws to shut off the electricity during heat waves. Similarly, on Oct. 16, U-ACT and its allies put up encampments on the New Haven Green, calling for a moratorium on sweeps while providing a haven for unhoused folks. Every day, we shared meals, offering each other necessary nourishment and connection. These served as spaces for collective joy and fierce expression, which are rare to find when the city and Yale deprive us of care and basic human necessities. 

Instead of investing in education, public services and social goods, which address the root of structural poverty, Elicker once again decided to waste the New Haven budget on increasing police patrol of the area and arresting folks while giving them no other place to go. While we tried to build a care-based, adaptive community, it was not easy. How wouldn’t it be? We were trying to do the city’s job without enough people, resources, or funding. 

U-ACT knows New Haven, knowing where every unhoused person and encampment is in the city. Rather than assuming one solution works for everyone, we talk to unhoused people weekly to find out their needs. Now, U-ACT is advocating for money to address them. New Haven needs to fulfill its obligation of providing for its people by supporting this community solution. All members of New Haven will benefit from these changes — including Yale students. 

On our way to becoming alumni soon, it is especially important that we are conscious of our university’s actions and donation practices and continue to hold Yale and New Haven accountable. We are calling on Yale students and alumni to create lasting support with U-ACT. Supporting U-ACT can take a variety of forms: participating in U-ACT’s weekly meetings or joining their community lunch on the New Haven Green. Until the root causes of the homelessness crisis are addressed, the People’s Budget offers an essential step toward justice and survival for New Haven’s unhoused community — a community that we will continue fighting for even after our time at Yale comes to a close.

ISHIKAA KOTHARI is a senior in Timothy Dwight College studying Computer Science and Film and Media Studies. She can be reached at ishikaa.kothari@yale.edu. 

ABBY MOOS is a senior in Branford College studying History of Science, Medicine and Public Health and Ethnicity, Race and Migration. She can be reached at abby.moos@yale.edu.