by Stefano Mancini | Apr 1, 2026 | Advocacy, Homelessness, Leadership, Warming Center
As a member of the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, DESK helps lead statewide conversations with policymakers about how we can best serve our guests. In fact, our Client Engagement Specialist, Claudette Kidd, spoke at the Capitol this February with CCEH! This year, we have budget and non-budget requests for the session that will end on May 6.
We are making several policy requests so that the state has a more robust response, including:
SB 364: A mandate for the state to establish stable, year-round extreme weather protocols (so we don’t keep getting caught off-guard every time it snows or is hot!) taking effect in October 2026 in preparation for next winter.
HB 5260: Anti-criminalization legislation, requiring municipalities to prioritize a services-based response to people in crisis, as opposed to a law enforcement response, also taking effect by October 2026.
Budget requests go in front of the state’s Appropriations Committee. This year, we are asking for:
$10 million annually to provide services that prevent people from slipping into homelessness in the first place — Prevention.
$12.3 million annually for emergency shelter and warming/cooling centers during extreme weather conditions — Response.
$15.8 million annually to pay for the people who are staffing outreach, drop-in centers, diversion, intake, and shelter — Response.
$32.3 million to fund case management for people who have been housed through the state Rental Assistance Program — House.
Interested in getting involved?
Find out who your state representative and your state senator are. Go here and enter your address.
Figure out if your state representative or senator serves on the Appropriations Committee by going here: click on the “Committee Membership” bar at the top, and look at the list of names.
If your state representative or senator is on the committee, that means they’re powerful! They decide what goes into the budget. So you should call them up. Find their phone number by navigating to their webpage from the list of House members or Senate members. Here’s a phone script you can use. (You’ll probably just get a staffer or an answering machine — but that’s OK! Leave your message regardless.)
If they are not on the Appropriations Committee, they still hold some influence over their colleagues who are on the committee. You should feel free to call them (using the same details above), or you can send them an email. Find their email address by navigating to their webpage from the list of House members or Senate members. Here’s an email template you can use.
Spread the word to colleagues, friends, family, or anyone else who (a) lives in Connecticut, (b) wants to do more for their community, and (c) thinks we don’t do enough to end homelessness in our state. April showers are going to bring May flowers sooner than we think – don’t wait to raise your voice for our neighbors.
Our policy work amplifies the work that we – and our 3,000 yearly volunteers – do on the ground, every day. Join in the solution on the ground by volunteering, hosting a drive, or donating.
by Stefano Mancini | Mar 23, 2026 | Advocacy, Homelessness, Leadership, Staff & Board, Warming Center
And we don’t speak alone. As a member of the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness and the Statewide Harm Reduction Partnership, we add our voice to an array of service providers, policymakers, and people with lived and living experience.
Among those voices is Claudette Kidd, DESK’s Client Engagement Specialist. On top of her day-to-day duties at DESK, Claudette serves alongside advocates and legislators as a member of the End Homelessness Caucus. Last month, as they prepared for the start of the legislative session, Claudette joined the Caucus for a press conference in Hartford, in which she spoke about her lived experience in shelters and how that experience has helped her better engage with her clients, meet them where they are, and connect them to services and resources to improve their lives and overall wellbeing.
With the statewide Cold Weather Emergency on everyone’s mind, Claudette took the opportunity to underscore the dire need to get all unhoused individuals inside. She advocated for $12.3 million in Extreme Weather Life-Saving Funding through the state budget and through S.B. 364, An Act Concerning Extreme Weather Protocols, which would meet the recent rise in unsheltered homelessness with 24-hour low-barrier operations in every community across the state, transportation, warming capacity, and heat response. She says that “the need for support does not stop at 5:00 PM when my shift ends, and staff in this field often work beyond scheduled hours to accommodate the urgent needs of clients who are trying to find a safe and warm place to stay.” Claudette spoke while she also was managing a complex multi-medical client case all day (and she had forgotten her glasses at home!). We are proud of her and grateful for her work at DESK to support and advocate for our guests. With this legislative session only lasting until May, the time to advocate is right now. The bill received a favorable report from the Joint Committee on Public Health and will be taken up soon by the full Senate, while the state budget cycle continues marching forward – making it crucial that DESK’s network of advocates makes their voice heard.
DESK changes the lives of our guests, but tackling affordability and access issues at the state level will meet homelessness at its roots. Join Claudette and DESK in our advocacy efforts by reaching out to your legislators in support of the CCEH Legislative Agenda and join in the solution on the ground by volunteering, hosting a drive, or donating.
Interested in joining DESK’s advocacy efforts? Sign up here to get notifications and stay in the loop!
by DESK | Jan 28, 2026 | Dinner Program, Homelessness, Warming Center
by DESK | Feb 6, 2023 | Drop-in Center, In the News, Warming Center
Frigid New England temperatures present the most dire threat to those we serve at DESK. While most of us were stocking up on supplies so we could stay home and avoid the worst of it, those experiencing homelessness in our community were looking for a lifeline.
Last Thursday, Governor Lamont enacted the Severe Cold Weather Protocol. Program Manager Evan Serio and the warming center team at DESK sprang into action to assist the state’s most vulnerable population: unhoused and unsheltered individuals.
During the cold weather crisis this past weekend, DESK’s Guests were able to stay safe, charge up their cell phones, access internet, get something to eat, and receive referrals to much-needed services.
“Oftentimes, it’s a breath of relief and really just a moment to gather themselves,” said Evan Serio, Program Manager for DESK.
Serving those most in need means being there when we’re needed.
Watch the full story here on Fox 61 News and learn about how DESK is working to help people move beyond homelessness.
by Steve Werlin | Dec 19, 2022 | Warming Center
Last Friday, DESK hosted a press conference at our Drop-in & Resource Center on behalf of the Greater New Haven Regional Alliance to End Homelessness and as part of a statewide coordinated day of advocacy with the CT Coalition to End Homelessness. There was an excellent turnout of clients, staff, volunteers, supporters, elected officials, and media. Several of us spoke about the need for state legislators to commit to including in the state budget at least $5 million in cold weather response funding in the upcoming budget negotiations this winter. This year’s warming centers in New Haven are largely funded through emergency funding that was cobbled together in a very last-minute manner. Going forward, we should be able to count on the state to ensure sufficient life-saving services for unhoused people, especially during the coldest months.
Check out some of the media coverage of the event:
by Steve Werlin | Dec 13, 2022 | Leadership, Warming Center
They say it’s best to avoid politics and religion in polite conversation. But here’s another thorny topic that threatens to divide us: Winter—do you love it or hate it?
At DESK, our opinion of winter has swung back and forth over the years. Not too long ago, we really looked forward to winter as our quietest months. It’s counterintuitive when you’re in the business of basic needs, but, at one time, we saw fewer Guests at dinner in the winter because there were fewer people living on the streets: seasonal shelter beds would open every November, and unsheltered homelessness in New Haven would decrease for a couple of months. Fewer people on the streets meant fewer people at DESK.
But all that’s changed.
Over the last few years, we’ve seen the numbers of unhoused individuals on the streets increase and the number of shelter beds decrease—a mismatch of supply and demand. To respond to this need, DESK has been called upon repeatedly in recent years to step up and do more.
And we’ve responded. On a blustery night almost a year ago, DESK did something that, in our 35-year history, we had never done before: we didn’t close after dinner. Instead, we stayed open until the next morning to offer a safe place—a literal refuge—for people with nowhere else to turn.
Last winter, we stayed open overnight 47 more times. This winter, we’re taking it even further. On November 28, we began using our new Drop-in & Resource Center on State Street as a seven-night-per-week, overnight warming center. And we’ll keep this up for 140 nights, straight into mid-April: a critical, life-saving refuge for people with nowhere to go.
DESK may be known primarily for food assistance, but those we serve will tell you that we’re so much more than a “soup kitchen.” Whatever our people need—food, clothing, toiletries, overnight refuge, medical care, blankets, coats, case management, or just someone to talk to—that is what we offer. Food is a good starting point, but it’s not the only reason we open our hearts to the most vulnerable in our community. As we often joke around here: we don’t serve food; we serve people!
And as for winter, it’s a bitter-sweet opportunity for DESK to do what we do best: connect with those who are most in need. We’re looking forward to the day when we can enjoy our quiet winters again, where people come to us not because they have to, as a life-saving measure, but because they want to, as a way to find and build community. Until then, help us ensure that no one gets left out in the cold.
Join me today by giving online at deskct.org/winterwarmth.
And thank you.
