Naugatuck Valley Project

ISSUES UPDATE April 2007

Acción Latina Project

Latino and bilingual churches have emerged as part of our interfaith justice and urban revitalization work in Waterbury, the Lower Valley and Torrington. NVP organized the Latino Hispanic Resource Committee (LHRC), which is housed at TEAM, Inc., in Derby. The LHRC volunteers also created a partnership with Griffin Hospital’s Women’s Health Coordination Center, the Yale School of Public Health, and the Connecticut Area Health Education Center of Southwestern CT to ultimately create an Interpretation Service Initiative that can create jobs and support people’s health. 

In addition to responding to hundreds of referral calls and conducting outreach to businesses and residents in the Lower Valley, these volunteers have held twenty house meetings/focus groups to inquire about what people perceive as barriers to health care. Six bilingual volunteer interpreters were trained to run these house meetings/focus groups and participated in leadership training. 

Since our meeting on May 10, 2006 with 300 Valley residents, the four area hospitals agreed, and continue to meet, with our medical interpretation committee and have formed an oversight group to explore solutions to the lack of interpretation in hospitals. NVP’s 2006 study estimated “the number of Limited English Proficient (L.E.P.) residents in the Valley region who might use hospital services to be 32,000.” NVP is now in contract with the ICA Business Group of Boston to prepare a pre-feasibility study on the cost of a medical interpretation agency in the Valley. Together with the Hispanic Health Council of Hartford, NVP has helped form the Connecticut Coalition for Medical Interpreters, which is campaigning to educate legislators on what it is like to not get health care in ones own language and the steps to change that barrier. 

Congregational and Organizational Development 

NVP has provided Congregational and Organizational Development training to pastors and their church members and to other organizational members. NVP is dedicated to training new leadership for the Valley. It provides training for leaders from different congregations and community organizations, and works methodically with pastors and leaders to implement the community and organizational action ideas that surface in these trainings. NVP has trained scores of people to be independent and cooperative homeowners, effective church leaders, and effective communicators in the public arena.

NVP will be happy to do orientation training for your parish or organization, just call 203-574-2410 for the next orientation date.

Housing

NVP’s leaders noticed the same houses being sold over and over again even after foreclosures. It took time to coax the victims of predatory real estate and mortgage companies to tell their story; the result was a pattern of unethical business practice, a real estate system that feeds on those who face the greatest challenges in finding safe and affordable housing. Often when families were looking for a rental unit, they were convinced by realtors that they “qualified” for a home mortgage. They were told, “Why rent, when you can buy, we will help you with the down payment.” Faced with mountains of paperwork in English, and assurances that “we’ll fill in the blanks later,” they were lured into predatory mortgages on substandard properties. When the homes crumbled around them, so do their hope and their credit.

Our investigations found that some of the victims had perfectly good credit and could have applied for standard mortgages, but were steered away from local banks and reputable mortgage companies and put into less reputable companies. It’s a neat “sub-prime” lending system - one that Connecticut’s State Attorney General and Senator Dodd plan to shut down. NVP presented 45 cases to Connecticut’s Attorney General, the Consumer Fraud Division and the Banking Commissioner after which a civil suit was filed. The Attorney General’s office won the Predatory Lending and Consumer Fraud case with a potential pay out of $750,000 for those who have been involved with unjust mortgages and faulty homes.
Families being hunted down by predatory realtors are beginning to wane, however, others still can’t find any affordable homes. A state Task Force has introduced legislation to strengthen existing Connecticut law. Predatory lenders and housing fraud disfigure the housing market and promote urban sprawl. NVP seeks to stabilize housing with Mutual Housing Association of South Central CT and Neighborhood Housing Services of Waterbury (Waterbury Housing Coalition) in the Willow Street section of Waterbury. As a result of this joint effort, redevelopment has begun of a major Willow Street apartment building in Waterbury and 6 houses in the same neighborhood. Selection committees are being chosen and interviewing should begin in the late Spring of 2007 in respect to renting these premises. 

Jobs and Brownfields Remediation 

Our Valley has over 189 brownfield sites. In 1997 the creation of the Brownfields Pilot was formed to assist the assessment and remediation of a number of these sites. NVP is now taking this to a higher level. It is organizing to win commitments from both private developers and public sector agencies overseeing brownfield redevelopment for two agenda items:

• The first is to focus on the redevelopment of one or two major sites that will lead to a significant creation of jobs and other public amenities in the Valley.
• The second is to institutionalize professional training of Valley workers in a local educational facility in remediation so as to employ the local workforce and teach a new marketable skill. Keeping jobs in the cities where transportation is accessible, promote and prevent the destruction of green space in the suburbs and cuts down the growing traffic jams on the highways. 

Our creative Jobs Committee is working to create permanent environmental remediation training to be held at the Naugatuck Valley Community College. This training will confront the lack of public awareness and how that affects jobs, rising taxes, struggling businesses. The overwhelming lack of public awareness contributes to the dysfunctional policies and bureaucracies governing brownfields remediation. The NVP also plans to hold a public forum on this issue.

NVP’s Jobs Committee has trained people to go to various organizations to teach people how their beliefs are connected to cleaning and preserving the earth by learning about brownfields remediation and it subsequent redevelopment.

Two of the Valley’s city mayors’ have pledged to adopt to our Brownfield policies and goals. NVP continues to work with the Regional Brownfield Agency of South Central CT and the Archdiocese of Hartford to initiate and promote remediation trainings in local colleges and to work in other areas to avert this anti-sprawl strategy. NVP is currently meeting with public officials to encourage them to funnel as much clean-up money as possible to remediate these brownfields, thus creating jobs and enabling these properties to contribute to the Valley’s economy.

Ongoing Leadership Training

NVP conducts area leadership trainings on power, fundraising, and leadership skills. It conducts these trainings either on-site in the Naugatuck Valley or regionally at InterValley Project (NVP’s regional organizing and training network) retreats throughout New England. NVP has trained over 70 leaders in the past year. 

Youth Empowerment Project 

NVP believes that if it spends time developing the Valley’s youth to be leaders now and cross- fertilize city and suburban youth in a fun and educational setting, that it will break down cultural and mythical barriers in its future adults. It believes that this is accountable development when it merges human resources in institutions to form relationships, discuss fears and hopes for the future, and forge ahead to bring those human experiences into future lives. This type of education usually dispels the myth that inner city youth are hoodlums and non-productive people and that suburban youths don’t care about those same things. These types of experiences will lead to broader minds and outlooks on immigrants and people of color. The youth of our Valley are always amazed that they all have so much in common and that their differences are an asset not a liability.

NVP has trained over 100 Valley youth leaders from Asian, Latino/Hispanic, Indian, and European backgrounds in leadership skills such as public speaking, problem solving, and trust exercises designed to empower youths.

The Youth Empowerment Committee has integrated itself into the life of NVP in adult settings and has led some leadership training sessions. This year they hope to recruit more volunteer adults to guide them in a plan to introduce leadership training in an inner city center on Elmwood Ave. in Waterbury, allowing them to play major cultural roles in community events.