As New Britain dogwalkers, commuters and families made their way from downtown coffee shops to their destinations, the few benches in Central Park were occupied by people who had nowhere else to be.
Billy Cichon, 59, a Polish immigrant who has been homeless since being evicted three years ago, greeted familiar faces from his usual spot. Those with somewhere to be shouted their hellos in passing while others stopped and asked for spare cigarettes or if he knew if there would be food at a library event that day.
The total number of people experiencing homelessness in Connecticut, including children, increased by 16% — from 4,435 to 5,168 — from Jan. 2 to April 16, according to data from Connecticut’s “by-name list.” The list is updated weekly by the Connecticut Coordinated Access Networks to track everyone in the state who is experiencing homelessness.
The 2019 Point-in-Time Count showed that 146 people, including 29 children, were homeless in New Britain, according to the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness. Despite being slightly lower than the previous year, the numbers are not exact because it is difficult to keep track of homeless people, said Caitlin Rose, CEO of Friendship Service Center, Inc., a nonprofit organization that serves homeless people in the New Britain area.
Cichon immigrated to the U.S. in 1984, and after giving birth to their first child, his wife followed.
“They (Poland) had the Communist party at the time,” Cichon said. “I didn’t even go to army yet, because at the time it was mandatory. So that was ’84 and in some kind of way, I run. I run and some cousins help me to get passport.”
He found a place in New Britain’s Polish community, which accounts for about 13% of its population, according to the U.S. Census. The Little Poland neighborhood, spanning Broad Street, serves the Polish community in the city with traditional grocery stores and restaurants reminiscent of their home country.
Two more children and 30 years later, Cichon said his decorative painting business had taken a toll on him and his family. He said that his busy work schedule took him away from his family and eventually led to divorce.
“But I was drinking steady, you know? It’s not like, 'oh something happened, you know,'” he said. “Maybe it was more when we got divorced 10 years ago, but I don’t know, maybe not.”
When his house was sold in the divorce, Cichon said he began working as a handyman doing odd jobs renting an apartment in New Britain. Cichon said that he was three months late on rent when his landlord took him to court, which resulted in his eviction.
Alienated from his family and with no one else to turn to for help, Cichon said he began living out of his car. After it was towed, he went to the Hope Connection Center for help and got a bed at the Salvation Army shelter.
It’s common for homeless people to have substance abuse issues, but there are more factors at play, said Lori McAdam, a Democratic alderwoman who advocates for the rights of marginalized people through the New Britain Coalition for Racial Justice.
“It’s a multi-faceted problem,” McAdam said. “There’s mental health, domestic violence, alcohol and drug addiction — it’s not just one thing that’s causing homelessness. It needs to be looked at from a harm-reduction approach.”
New Britain Recovers, an initiative that brought four branches of social services within the city under one umbrella in 2020, works to provide resources to residents who are currently homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, according to its website.
The Hope Connection Center, a walk-in center within the Friendship Service Center’s network, works with New Britain Recovers to connect residents to addiction and mental health services and housing.
Melanie Alvarez, director of programs at the Hope Connection Center, said they also offer a place for people to do their laundry, take showers and pick up donated clothes on-site.
“We don’t have a full kitchen, but there’s basics like ramen and soup,” she said. “They can go to the Friendship Center for lunch, but they can come here and get basic needs met, too.”
The Friendship Service Center received a $1 million federal grant in April 2024 to renovate its shelter.
“Shelter is supposed to be a place where people experiencing homelessness can come and get their needs met and to have hope inspired,” Rose said. “And when you've got 60 people in and out of a building, the paint on the walls, the plumbing, I mean, there's a lot of work that comes into maintaining the operations of this space.”
Some business owners, including Arthur Ververis of Capitol Lunch, have told city officials about their struggles with the homeless in New Britain. He is opposed to one of McAdam’s proposals — to change the city’s loitering ordinance to allow sleeping in public in the city.
“I’ve had to clean up human feces three times,” Ververis said. “I just think that would increase if you’re just allowing them to sleep there. ... I just want to hear why this would be a good idea.”
Abraham Beltram, a property manager in New Britain, said that the city is too focused on the politics instead of the fact that homelessness is a human rights issue.
“At this point, fighting each other and going at each other, wasting each other's energies on how to prevent the other one from succeeding or how to make the other one look bad,” Beltram said after a meeting this spring with council members. “It's just pointless. We're not even fixing the symptoms and the disease continues to grow.”
Madison Musco is a journalism student at Central Connecticut State University. This story is republished via CT Community News, a service of the Connecticut Student Journalism Collaborative, an organization sponsored by journalism departments at college and university campuses across the state.
Correction: The Hope Connection Center is a walk-in center for unhoused people in New Britain run by the Friendship Service Center. It is not funded by the city of New Britain. The full name of the Hope Connection Center and the source of its funding were reported incorrectly when this story was initially published on June 4.