Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven

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Revitalization Demonstration Project

In 2006 Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven began the restoration of Fairlawn Manor: 12 contiguous houses along Ella T. Grasso Boulevard, Whalley Avenue, and Blake Street.  For more than a decade, the surrounding neighborhood had suffered both physical and social effects of the visibly blighted and abandoned properties.  Because neighborhood revitalization involves more than just housing development, NHS designed an innovative project to address factors other than housing that impact a community.  The Revitalization Demonstration Project (RDP) is a holistic approach to revitalization that considers the effects of public image, market forces, neighborhood management, and physical conditions on a neighborhood.  Consequently, the RDP includes community building, marketing, publicity, and strategic partnerships in its efforts to stabilize the Blake Street neighborhood.  

RDP initiatives, which include the Fairlawn Manor Homebuyers Club, block parties, organized street clean-ups and tree plantings, actively connect residents to each other and to the resources necessary to sustain community development.  Lessons and successes from the Fairlawn RDP will be shared with other New Haven communities through the development of a city-wide Neighborhood Revitalization Institute (NRI).  The NRI will continue to investigate and apply holistic strategies to affect community building by encouraging individual homeownership and greater community engagement.

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