Mayor: COMPASS, Foxon Shelter To Be Fully Funded

by Thomas Breen

The city’s non-cop crisis response team and a city-owned hotel-turned-homeless shelter on Foxon Boulevard will both continue operations next year thanks to a newly announced combination of city and state funding.

Mayor Justin Elicker provided those updates to the Independent Tuesday in email comments sent over by city spokesperson Lenny Speiller.

The Independent had asked about the fate of COMPASS and the 270 Foxon Blvd. shelter following Tuesday morning’s announcement by the mayor that he has proposed directing tens of millions of dollars in new revenue from the state and Yale towards a host of initiatives, including reducing his originally proposed mill-rate increase, sending $13.9 million more to the city’s schools, and providing $350,000 for food aid.

That budget announcement did not include any mention of COMPASS or the 270 Foxon Blvd. shelter — for which sufficient continued funding had been uncertain as recently as last month. A host of regional homelessness services advocates held a press conference at 270 Foxon on April 17 where they warned that, without the state stepping up, the 51-room non-congregate shelter could close down next year.

In an email statement Tuesday, Elicker wrote that, thanks to “a combination of city and state funds, both the Elm City C.O.M.P.A.S.S. program and Foxon Boulevard Emergency Shelter will be fully funded through the next budget year.”

COMPASS will be funded through roughly $670,000 in city funds and $600,000 in state funds from the Connecticut Judicial Branch, representing a combined sum of $1.27 million allocated to the program. COMPASS includes a team of social workers and peer counselors that responds to certain 911 calls involving adults struggling with mental health, substance use, and homelessness. In between those crisis calls, the teams conduct proactive outreach. Since launching in November 2022, COMPASS has ramped up operations to cover 19 hours a day, seven days a week, with three shifts between 8 a.m. and 3 a.m. each day.

The Foxon Boulevard hotel-turned-shelter, meanwhile, will be funded through roughly $600,000 in city funds and $900,000 in state funds from the state Department of Housing, representing a combined allocation of around $1.5 million. The city purchased the former Days Inn hotel at that site for $6.9 million in 2023. Just like COMPASS, the shelter is operated by a local nonprofit called Continuum of Care.

Both COMPASS and the shelter had previously been funded with federal pandemic-relief dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). All remaining ARPA money must be spent by the end of 2026.

“We couldn’t be more ecstatic,” Continuum of Care Vice President John Labieniec said in a phone interview Tuesday.

“The goal is to get annualized funding” for both of these programs going forward, so that COMPASS and the Foxon shelter aren’t caught in a funding “limbo” year after year. “There’s obviously a need” for both programs given their level of use. “I just hope we can move forwards getting money annualized and [these programs] fully funded.”