NewHavenBIZ

n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m M a r c h / A p r i l 2 0 1 9 | n e w h a v e n B I Z 49 Mary Barneby 2019 recipient of a Women Who Mean Business award Congratulations to devoted University friend and benefactor W o m e n W h o M e a n B u s i n e s s Don't fence me in One particular case that Young cites as a pivotal "wow" moment in her law career was the culmina- tion of the now-infamous "Ham- den fence case," which involved a dispute over a fence that was literally right on the line of the town of Hamden and city of New Haven, that prevented residents from West Rock, or residents from Hamden access to Wilmont Road. "It has a long and torturous his- tory of who put it up [erected the fence], when it was put up, why it was put up, etc.," Young says. "And it needed to come down. It just needed to come down. ere were residents of West Rock in one of the [housing] developments who were disabled, elderly, people of color, limited economic means and needed to be able to access grocery stores," she explains now. ese residents would have to take a bus all the way to down- town New Haven, change buses for another trek back out to Ham- den, to go to a store that was about 10 minutes away by direct route. Finally, "We were able to figure out how to get that fence taken down" through legal means, she explains. "And not everybody was happy about it, not everybody thought it was a good idea. And I respect that. But it was still the right thing to do. And I have to say that doing the legal work to get that done and then having it come down was probably one of the most significant moments for me." Young represented the New Haven Housing Authority in the effort and says, "It really came to a head because we were going to sue the town of Hamden to take the fence down. And in order for the Housing Authority to sue the town of Hamden, we had to get litigation approval from HUD, because Haven Housing Authority is federally funded. And it was through that process of providing them with all the information, background information on the fence, and its history and all of that stuff that really the federal government, I'm so proud of them, came together and said to the town, 'You have to take down the fence.' It came down. I think the important thing for us is to recognize that we all come from where we come from in our place and thoughts, and we got to reach a hand out to do better." But when the time came to see the product of her long labor come to fruition, she did not personally go to see the fence being removed. "It was too emotional. Once I knew it was going to come down, I had to take some time for myself. To think about a disabled person who's prevented from going from a bus stop that he or she could see — it was the right thing to take it down," she says now. "As the lawyer, my role in improv- ing that person's life is really limited. I'm not taking financial risks, I'm not putting together the whole development team. e heavy liing is being done by everybody else," says Young. "I'm just trying to do my piece of it to help them do that and it's really a limited piece. You have architects and developers who are putting their money together, and general contractors. ere's a whole lot of people involved. Being able to do my little piece is really rewarding." n 'I used to bang my head against the wall a lot to try and choose what I was going to do. I finally figured out that God just had a path for me.' - Rolan Young

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