Our History

 

In the spring of 2006, a group of neighbors in the East Rock area of New Haven got together to talk about a feature article in

The New York Times about Beacon Hill Village in Boston.  “We want this!” we said.  A few of us took a field trip to Boston to learn more,

and returned with an enormously helpful handbook.  We set to work, and East Rock Village (ERV) in New Haven opened in the fall of 2010

with members from East Rock and several contiguous neighborhoods. Word spread and the idea caught fire. 

By the beginning of 2012, ERV had members from Hamden, North Haven, Westville, downtown New Haven, Wooster Square, West Haven,

and Orange, with inquiries from Woodbridge and Milford.  Some of those neighborhoods began to look like villages themselves and the name

East Rock Village did not seem to apply to them. 

By 2014, ERV had morphed into HomeHaven,  an umbrella organization supporting six participating villages. We have been nationally

recognized as an exemplary “hub and spoke” village model, which promises to be a sustainable way to support seniors as they age in place.

We believe that HomeHaven  bridges two competing goals:  developing community, neighborliness, and intimacy where friends help friends;

and building an organization that is efficient, accountable, and keeps costs low.