Chapel Haven Honored For 53 Years Of Affirming The Human Spirit

by Allan Appel

When Michael Akersten came to the Chapel Haven Schleifer Center, he needed 24-hour supervision to manage social and developmental disabilities. After two years spent learning to balance a budget, a job, an apartment, and relationships, he moved to his own condo, where he’s been living independently for ten years and now checks in for just two hours of support a week.

He’s got a job at Home Depot  where he assists in the lumber and gardening departments and with deliveries, and his next goal: earning his forklift license.

Oh, and he has some friends, also graduates of Chapel Haven’s pioneering programs, who have recently climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.

“The sky’s the limit,” said Michael Storz, Chapel Haven’s long-time president.

That is, no limits.

The moving occasion Sunday afternoon unfolded over a tasty bagel brunch at the Jewish Community Center of Greater New Haven on Amity Road in Woodbridge.

There another Greater New Haven organization, the Jewish Historical Society, presented their annual achievement and recognition award to the 53-year-old Chapel Haven Schleifer Center, whose recently renovated, modern facilities tuck into a cozy campus on Whalley Avenue near Emerson Street in Upper Westville.

It is the first time, said the group’s president, Michael Dimenstein, that an award has been given not to an individual but to an organization.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, State Rep. Pat Dillon and other dignitaries, rabbis, and community leaders were on hand to offer congratulations and formal certificates of recognition of the group’s impressive achievements.

Michael Storz, Michael Ackersten, and Lori Krass.

But there was more: This was an occasion that was also good for the spirit of everyone participating. It saw an award given to a group whose mission represents a collective affirmation of the value of every human being when that indispensable value is under increasing, even daily threat, and often from the government.

So the stars of the afternoon were folks like Akersten, Isaac Ohring, another Chapel Haven resident who performed his own violin compositions to entertain the 100 attendees; and especially Lori Krass.

Krass is the daughter of Sydney Krass, a prominent New Haven real estate developer, and one of Chapel Haven’s founders way back in 1972. His story –  how a handful of resourceful families, many but not all Jewish, simply had to create on their own a program and a place to care for their developmentally challenged adult children, who needed the next level of ongoing life skills trainings after high school; that was the heart of the inspiring event.

These families, led by Krass and co-founder Jerry Rossman, simply could not accept that there was no place in New Haven – or anywhere else at the time – where young adults with these challenges could live and learn to be independent.  

So in the early 1970s, Krass approached a day-only rehabilitation center run by Easter Seals, and made his pitch. He was a salesman, he said (in one of the Jewish Historical Society’s historic videotaped interviews that was shown) and he would not take “no’ for an answer.

In short order Krass pitched, paid for, and then recruited teachers, counselors, researchers from Southern Connecticut State University to create and to supervise the live-in program.

They began in a small house with a handful of families at 1599 Chapel St. (hence the name, which has stuck) and have grown ever since, today with about 250 people of all ages,  in residence and in the community participating in programs, reported Storz.

And the group’s model and pioneering approaches are emulated all over the country and the world, he added.

Since it was very much a history occasion as well, State Rep. Pat Dillon reminded the audience “of the shoulders of the many giants” Chapel Haven Schleifer stands upon, and of  “how much progress we have made in recognizing human potential.”

“I love my father,” said Lori Krass. “There wouldn’t be a Chapel Haven without him, and it’s my second home.”

And the work goes on. 

Harriet Schleifer, a member of Chapel Haven’s Executive Committee, and whose family led the way in a major campus renovation in 2018, said that 85 percent of adults at Chapel Haven move eventually into the Westville community, living independently with varying levels of tailored support.

Many establish productive relationships, job opportunities, and further education and training through local schools, businesses, synagogues, and organization like the Jewish Community Center.  “The JCC  is our northern campus,” said Storz.

And yet, Schleifer estimated that nationally there are about 1.3 million people with autism and other developmental disorders still living at home with parents who are aging, 65 and older. “And they receive no services or support.”

Storz announced that Chapel Haven’s newest program called CATCH (Connecting Adults To Chapel Haven) is designed to reach out precisely to these families.

To learn more or to donate, the Chapel Haven Schleifer Center contact is here:

And the Jewish Historical Society of Greater New Haven, which itself turns 50 next year, is also looking for volunteer interviewers for its oral history project and other programs. The contact there is: president@jewishhistorynh.org