HAMDEN, Conn. (AP) - For decades, the unusual fence separated low-income residents of public housing in New Haven from their suburban neighbors in Hamden. The huge fence is finally coming down amid a federal intervention, sparking fears by some residents on one side and hope for a new era by supporters of the move.
The New Haven Housing Authority plans to begin removing the fence Monday. New Haven officials describe the fence as a relic of a less progressive time and say fears of crime are outdated because of changes in public housing. But the removal of the fence is still a source of anxiety for some in Hamden.
“It’s hugely violative and you just don’t see it in places,” said Karen DuBois-Walton, executive director of the New Haven Housing Authority. “You don’t see people trying to fence off their low-income neighbors.”
Efforts to fence or wall off poor people led to fair housing laws in the first place, according to DuBois-Walton. Her agency was planning to sue Hamden on civil rights grounds, but the parties agreed at a mediation session last week that the fence would be removed, according to the U.S. attorney’s office, which welcomed the agreement.
The fence is 10 to 12 feet high, 1,500 feet long and resembles a prison or high-security fence in places, DuBois-Walton said. It turned what should have been a 5-minute bus ride to Hamden for shopping and jobs into a 90-minute ride, she said.
The move to tear down the fence has sparked an outcry for years in Hamden, a diverse, working-class town of about 61,000 where supporters of the fence include some black and white residents who express concerns about crime and traffic.
Joe Farlow, a 60-year-old retired welder who lives in Hamden just feet from the fence, said about seven years ago, his car window was shot out and he believes the gunfire came from the public housing property. Farlow, who is black and grew up in public housing “on the other side of the mountain,” said he also saw drug dealing. Since a taller fence was installed, he said, he’s had few problems and is convinced it prevents crime.
“It’s not about race. It’s about economics,” Farlow said as he applied weed killer to his lawn. “Over here, we pay to have a nice home, peace and quiet - and peace and quiet would be disturbed if they took down that fence.”
Farlow said he favors keeping the fence up, but a gateway opening would be OK.
New Haven is replacing the old housing projects with mixed-income developments that include services such as job and literacy skills. The new housing, colorful townhouses that contrast starkly with the old drab barracks-style houses, has proved successful elsewhere in the city, DuBois-Walton said.
The New Haven Housing Authority learned last fall that the fence is actually on its property. But DuBois-Walton said Hamden officials summarily rejected efforts to get permits for driveways for homeowners to access a road in Hamden and for additional road connections.
While Hamden can’t stop the removal of the fence, the town will start an expanded community bike patrol in the neighborhood, and a police substation will be operated by Hamden and New Haven in the area, Hamden Mayor Scott Jackson wrote in a recent letter to residents.
Jamar Carmichael, a 26-year-old resident of the New Haven public housing, said removing the fence would help residents get to know one another better.
“It feels like it’s Mexico and USA,” Carmichael said. “We’re Mexico, and they’re the U.S.”
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