WATERBURY, Conn. — The City of Waterbury hopes to breathe new life into abandoned buildings and help the unhoused.
The city plans to buy former church properties from the Hartford Archdiocese to be renovated and repurposed. It’s a plan that’ll take time and money, but the city is hoping that by next winter the defunct former Sacred Heart Church will be a shelter for the homeless.
“We're trying to reutilize some of these buildings in ways that are really enhancing the community,” said Waterbury Mayor Paul Pernerewski.
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The project will cost $950,000, but the City of Waterbury says you can’t put a price tag on helping the community.
“Crime, homelessness, poverty, educational problems are all interrelated, and we can’t solve one without solving all the rest,” said Pernerewski.
Waterbury’s mayor says most societal ills come back to a lack of housing, and in Waterbury nearly 50 people are sleeping in tents or cars.
“Homelessness is on the rise in Waterbury and everywhere,” explained Pernerewski.
It’s why the city is purchasing the former Sacred Heart Church, “to create a homeless facility,” said Edwin Rodriguez of St. Vincent DePaul Mission Shelter in Waterbury.
It’s not just the church. The surrounding rectory would become a halfway house and the school would be a reintegration center for formerly incarcerated individuals.
“Train them so they can be productive members of our society, which again prevents them from becoming homeless,” said Rodriguez.
The ultimate goal is to create an ecosystem of transition and rehabilitation, “where they can come and get some real-life job training for skilled jobs that are going to pay far more than minimum wage,” said Pernerewski.
Until now, when the city shelters inevitably reach capacity in the winter, the homeless are put up in a downtown hotel at a cost of about $250,000 for just a few months.
“That’s probably like a third of the expense that we would utilize for just a few months so I think economically it’s beneficial to the city,” said Rodriguez.
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The buildings, which sit on a two-and-a-half-acre parcel, are falling into disrepair but can be quickly renovated, perhaps utilizing the labor of those they seek to serve.
“It’s two for one. They’ll get the training, and we will get some benefit to the building as well,” said Pernerewski.
The city is making the purchase with leftover COVID recovery funds and exploring funding options for renovations through state grants and community partners like the Salvation Army.
The city expects to close on the purchase in two months.
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Matt Caron is a reporter at FOX61 News. He can be reached at mcaron@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook, X and Instagram.
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