by Laura Glesby
Eric Perkins: “The tree got somewhere to sleep.”
Over an hour after police forced unsheltered park-sleepers and activists to take down six tents from the New Haven Green, Eric Perkins sat by the fountain nearby, watching a tree dangle from the sky.
Perkins said he too had slept in a tent downtown last night, only for police to ask him to leave this morning.
The city’s 2025 Christmas tree arrived later that morning, with a “motorcade” and “police escort” ensuring its safe passage from its origins in Durham, Conn., according to Mayor Justin Elicker.
Dozens of passersby stopped in their tracks, sometimes whipping out a phone to record the scene, as a dozen crew members used a crane to hoist a 52-year-old Norway Spruce into the air. The team carefully moved it upright and settled it into a hole in the ground.
A class of preschoolers watched from a distance with their teachers. One man said he’d biked all the way from the Brookside apartments in West Rock after hearing from WTNH News 8 that the tree would be set up today.
“Of course, the Chanukah and the Kwanzaa display will be out here as well,” said Elicker, introducing the tree at a press conference Friday afternoon.
He expressed excitement for the holiday season and thanked the Parks Department staff in particular for “painstaking” work.
Annie Mixsell, New Haven’s tree system coordinator and tree warden, explained that the tree was an excellent choice due to its “dark green color” and “droopy branches.” The tree was donated by Durham’s Richard and June Porter.
Mayor Justin Elicker ushers in the winter holiday season with Tree Warden Annie Mixsell & other city and Parks Department staffers.
Mixsell said that a pair of the city’s tree crew members spent four days preparing the tree for transport. On Friday morning, the entire crew worked with cranes, provided at no cost by Smedley, to air lift the tree and set it upright on the Green.
It will take about three weeks to decorate the tree, Mixsell said. There are 30,000 lights to string up, with a zip tie for every eight inches.
“It’s a great reason for people to celebrate,” Mixsell said.
Perkins, for his part, wasn’t feeling the holiday spirit. He was hungry, and he didn’t know where he’d sleep the next night.
“This money should have gone towards somewhere else,” he said of the labor and cost of setting up the tree. “That could have gone towards feeding us.”
Separately from Perkins, a group of people camped out on the Green Thursday night inside half a dozen tents. Several were members of the Unhoused Activist Community Team (U-ACT), a group that has organized periodic encampments on the Green in part to protest and call for the city to designate a legal space for unsheltered people to sleep overnight.
According to U-ACT organizer Billy Bromage, the encampment is meant not only as an act of civil disobedience, but also as a way to help those sleeping on the Green out of necessity feel more protected. “People are unsafe downtown. People get assaulted,” said Bromage.
The city removed six tents from the Green this morning, according to city spokesperson Lenny Speiller. Police cited three individuals for “simple trespass,” with a fine of $92, while U-ACT and Amistad Catholic Worker leader Mark Colville was arrested and charged with criminal trespassing in the first degree and interfering with police.
Police arrived at around 9 a.m. to clear the tents. Credit: Contributed Photo
“People have the right to protest,” Speiller wrote, “but unpermitted structures – including tents – are not permitted on the New Haven Green and those rules and regulations will be enforced.”
He argued that “the Green is for all,” and tents create “a private space” on land that’s meant to be public.
Another U-ACT leader, Alexis Terry, was one of the individuals cited for trespassing. For her part, Terry questioned the concept of charging someone for trespassing on land that is supposed to be public.
“At this time last year, I was unhoused” due to an eviction, said Terry. While she has since found housing, the Green remains a meaningful source of community for her. “I needed an adequate space to heal in, and feel like an adequate human being,” she said. “I found the safest space for me was on the Green, in community with people… I needed that and I appreciate that.”
“What we’re doing” with the encampment is “healing. It’s therapeutic,” said Terry.
Perkins, meanwhile, said that he’s been homeless for about four years. He wasn’t aware of U-ACT, though he knew about the weekly free lunches that the group organizes on the New Haven Green; he was waiting for them to set up on Friday morning, as the tree went up.
This week has been particularly difficult for Perkins due to the Trump administration’s decision not to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also known as food stamps) this month with emergency dollars during the federal government shutdown. Perkins said he usually gets about $200 a month from SNAP to spend on food. This week, as the Trump administration continued to challenge court rulings that mandated emergency SNAP, Perkins had to get by on nothing.
He spent the week dumpster-diving and asking local businesses for spare food. “Eating from the dumpster can make you sick,” he added.
Perkins said that he’s used to the tent clearings on the Green. He’s experienced them before; they happen somewhat regularly, as city officials confirmed.
He noted that homeless shelters tend to have limits on the number of days clients can stay there. “So we’re supposed to do what?” he asked. “Stay up and walk all night?”
“I ain’t paying attention” to the Christmas tree, he said. “The tree got somewhere to sleep.”