The city’s Food Policy Council is putting together a working group focused on how best to maintain New Haven’s community gardens — with the potential goal of asking the city to contract with a third-party organization to fill a gap left by Gather New Haven.
That early-stage plan stood at the center of the Food Policy Council’s latest monthly meeting last Monday at City Hall.
It comes in response to the financially struggling local environmental nonprofit Gather’s decision in April to hand control of 19 publicly owned community gardens and micro-farms back to the city.
Food Policy Council members spoke at Monday’s meeting about how a working group focused on community food distribution grew into New Haven’s Coordinated Food Assistance Network (CFAN) in 2019. Perhaps a garden-focused working group could also grow into something financially sustainable.
Monday’s meeting marked the latest since the Food Policy Council came back to life last November. It now meets every first Monday of the month at City Hall.
Since April, the focus for the group — which is led by Whalley/Edgewood/Beaver Hills community leader and gardener Nadine Horton — has been discussing with the city how it will continue to support the former Gather gardens.
As of last Monday’s meeting, there were plenty more questions than answers — even though water has now begun to flow at the Davenport Community Garden.
On Monday, Horton shared a draft ordinance she had created with the help of artificial intelligence. That very early proposal encourages the city to put out a Request for Proposals (RFP) to hire a contractor to establish and fund a two-year pilot program overseeing urban agriculture services for the city. That work would include maintaining the city’s community gardens.
Horton said that the Food Policy Council itself is not able to take over management of these gardens. That’s because the council does not have the power as volunteers with full-time jobs to do the full scope of work that Gather once did.
Instead, the council is considering calling on the city to contract with a third-party organization to oversee the gardens as part of a pilot program. If all works out well after one or two years, Horton said, then the Food Policy Council and the community can advocate for the contracted management position to be added into the city’s budget.
The contractor would need to have liability insurance for the gardens, which Gather previously held, Horton said.
The idea came about when council members reflected on the development of CFAN, which the city now has written into its budget. This fiscal year, New Haven has allocated $350,000 to CFAN to help with food assistance and resource distribution year-round.
Gather Board President Kyle Pederson attended last Monday’s meeting. He asked if the RFP would include a budget to help the contractor manage the gardens because “that coordinating role requires a lot of different capacities. Maintenance, fixing things and building things, having agriculture background, and having interpersonal relationships with partner organizations.”
He also suggested a structure be established for how the gardeners will work with the coordinator. “I just say that as an observation because it’s one of the challenges I think in terms of filling a hole like this.”
Food Policy Council member Susan Harris suggested it might be worth asking if the Community Services Administration (CSA) has leftover funding from a large urban agriculture grant the city previously received. Horton agreed, noting that in a follow-up meeting members will aim to determine if the department has funds that could be reallocated to an RFP.
The key issue, Horton continued, is that the city does not know which department can oversee and manage the community gardens, which she described as “vital.”
Because there is no designee for overseeing the spaces, Horton said, “right now, there’s no one in the city we can ask questions to regarding the gardens,” which leaves the community gardeners in a limbo for upcoming seasonal prep.
Horton said that next steps for the group will be connecting with the community and interested stakeholders who want to join a working group. The working group will be tasked with gathering information from the active garden spaces and their communities to know what they absolutely need to kick off a 2027 gardening season. That info will also help inform the council in regards to what the RFP needs to include.
The working group will likely start meeting in September or October, Horton said.
Other council members suggested the working group begin mapping out existing resources from partners that could meet to discuss the gardens’ needs for next season. Organizations like Common Ground, Sound School, the Livable City Initiative (LCI), and the Regional Water Authority were all suggested as groups to reach out to.
Horton also suggested a partner help organize a training for the community gardeners to track spending for each space and learn how to manage water usage so the city does not have to take on too large of a bill. She recalled being told by city leadership that the gardens must work toward being self-sustaining because the city currently doesn’t have the funds to foot the bill to manage them.
“If we don’t figure this out soon, there may be no growing season for any of us,” Horton said.
Pederson emphasized that the effort will require a collective to run. He suggested the RFP include language explaining that whatever lead organization is brought in to manage these gardens must work within a collective model.
“Gather on its own struggled to be responsible for this all so we’ll need all gardeners, nonprofits, and city supports all together,” Pederson said.
So far, Horton said the city has agreed to provide the land, water, and insurance for the gardens — but who will provide seedlings and soil and garden bed materials still has to be figured out. She said the working group will also discuss potential future partnerships with groups ranging from Home Depot to EMERGE to the Urban Resources Initiative (URI).
Long-term, Horton said she hopes for the council’s work to lead to policy and state advocacy for urban agriculture. “These gardens make a huge impact” on their neighborhoods and the city at large.
Horton also called on the city to act with urgency in filling the food system policy director role. The Elicker administration fired Latha Swamy from that position in July after she allegedly made at least $5,000 in personal purchases with her city-issued credit card.
Horton said she underscored the importance of filling this position during a recent brief meeting with Community Services Administrator Eliza Halsey and Deputy Administrator Carlos Sosa-Lombardo.
“There’s no sense of urgency or priority with this and that was frustrating,” she said. “Bottom line is we’re going to have to keep the pressure on them, we can’t let up. If we don’t feel like we have a champion in that role then we need to take it a step further. Whether that’s the mayor, we’re doing what we need to do because we have to keep this a priority.”
At the same time, Horton said, the city doesn’t have a homelessness director. She said the pressure has to be kept on to ensure the city’s most vulnerable groups are prioritized. She’s aiming to have a follow-up meeting scheduled with the city by mid-august.
Nadine Horton (right): “There’s no sense of urgency or priority with this and that was frustrating.” Credit: Maya McFadden photos
Gather’s Kyle Pederson (left): Gardens need a collective-support model to thrive.