The Haus MAVEN Project is the brainchild of three women — Babz, Ife, and Markeshia — who believe that sisterhood and homeownership are an irresistible combination of purpose that can spark conversation and new imaginings for intentional, intergenerational living.

Inspired by the Black porch culture of Martha’s Vineyard and the American South, we aspire to create a sanctuary for rest, for resistance, and for remembering. So, WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!

Our home is in the historic Newhallville section of New Haven, Connecticut. A predominantly Black neighborhood, Newhallville once hummed with the dreams of people who traded the prick of cotton fields for the bite of snow. Today, the neighborhood hums with the tension between absentee landlords and lifelong homeowners, the tension of Black upper and middle class flight, and concentrated poverty, all in the shadows of high-dollar development.

Once central to the transportation and manufacturing history of our city, Newhallville was home to the carriage factory of its namesake George Newhall and later the Winchester Arms Co. Today, it is among the neighborhoods in New Haven with increasingly fewer owner-occupied housing and even fewer small businesses. The Haus MAVEN Project is our response to the thorny challenge of stabilizing neighborhoods, providing affordable housing, and creating opportunity.

We are Black. We are women. We are believers in the change-making, people-powered force of community.

This is our HAUS, and we live HERE.