Mayor: I Don't Believe McDowell [Video]

Mayor Richard A. Moccia says he doesn't believe Tanya McDowell when she says Norwalk is where she and her five-year-old boy have lived most often as a homeless mother and child.

"She might've said a lot of things," Moccia said in an interview Monday, and he says he doesn't believe a lot of what she's said. Word of McDowell's arrest on April 15 has sparked news reports and comments from bloggers well beyond Connecticut.

The mayor said he's read many comments and news reports about the case since McDowell's arrest on April 15. He's been interviewed about McDowell's case by a "socialist newspaper" published in the United Kingdom and by Fox News, in addition to news organizations in Norwalk and Connecticut. Advocates for the homeless and others have commented on the case, as well.

Gwen Samuels of Meriden, chair of the Connecticut Parents Union, a three-month-old group that advocates for parents, said McDowell should not have been prosecuted.

"I do understand Norwalk's position, and if I was a taxpayer, I'd be concerned, too," Samuels said Monday. "But arresting a parent cannot be the only answer. ... No parent should be arrested for sending their child to another school district."

Parents should have the choice to have a child go to a different school system, and they should be able to pay for it with money from their hometown school district, out of the money that district would already have been spending on the child, Samuels said.

"I think they were so busy trying to get someone that they missed the bigger picture," Samuels said of Norwalk law enforcement and city officials. School officials, she said, "had an obligation to make sure they didn't violate this child's rights."

Samuels' group is organizing a news conference outside state Superior Court in Norwalk on Wednesday morning, just before McDowell is to appear in court on the first-degree larceny charge.

Moccia also says he doesn't believe that McDowell's child was ejected from Norwalk Public Schools.

"She withdrew the kid," he said. "The Bridgeport school system asked for the records."

When told that McDowell says she received a telephone call from a school official who informed her that the child would have to leave Brookside Elementary School because McDowell didn't live in Norwalk, Moccia said, "That's her version."

When told the federal McKinney Vento Act requires school officials to give the benefit of the doubt to families claiming they're homeless, at least while school district officials investigate the matter and hold a hearing if there's any dispute, Moccia referred back to his earlier statement that McDowell withdrew her child from Brookside Elementary School in Norwalk. The withdrawal was McDowell's decision, not one made by school officials, he said. 

She did so, Moccia said, when she lost the services of her babysitter, Ana Marquez. Marquez lived at Roodner Court, the public housing complex off of Ely Avenue in South Norwalk. When McDowell enrolled her child in Brookside Elementary School in September 2010, she signed a notarized statement which said her son lived with Marquez in Roodner Court.

School officials passed on the statement to Norwalk Housing Authority officials, who then began eviction proceedings against Marquez for an alleged violation of Marquez' lease agreement.

According to an affidavit Norwalk police used in an application for McDowell's arrest warrant, "Marquez was being evicted because she allowed McDowell to use her [Marquez's] address to enroll her [McDowell's] child in the Norwalk school system."

Moccia said he doesn't even believe McDowell was without a home: "She was not technically homeless. She had a place in Bridgeport. She slept at that place, and the kid slept at that place."

McDowell said in an interview Monday what she had told police previously: In September, when she enrolled her child in the Norwalk school system, she was staying overnight at a friend's home at 66 Priscilla Circle in Bridgeport. She and her son also stayed overnight at the Open Door homeless shelter in Norwalk before that.

At one point in an interview Monday, McDowell said she never slept overnight in her van in Norwalk or elsewhere. Later in the interview, she said she was primarily in Norwalk while her son was at Brookside Elementary School, and before and after.

McDowell said Monday that the Priscilla Circle address is again her temporary place to sleep overnight. She must leave while the homeowner is out during the day and doesn't even have a key to the place, she said.

When McDowell's description of her circumstances was related to Moccia in the interview Monday, he replied: "How 'bout the weekends? What's the son doing on the weekends? What's the majority of the time?"

The McKinney Vento Act agrees with McDowell's definition of homelessness, not Moccia's. "The term 'homeless children and youths' means individuals who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence ..." (Section 725 (2) A)

The language of the act expands on that definition, in part, by also defining "homeless" as including "children and youths who are sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason ..." (Section 725 (2) B)

Moccia gave two reasons why he didn't believe McDowell's version of events. First, he said, she has a criminal record: "She's been convicted. She's been arrested. ... Do any of those actions reflect on how accurate she's being now?"

Second, he said, McDowell didn't use many of the services the city offers to homeless people, such as medical care at the community health center, meals offered at the Open Door homeless shelter or Christian Community Center.

"She has all the ability to access these resources," Moccia said. "She certainly knows the system well enough to know she could've taken advantage of them."

McDowell did access some resources. As part of her earlier stay at the homeless shelter, she enrolled her child in a day-care program at NEON, she said.

She was helped in enrolling the child at Brookside Elementary School, a school she picked out because other people she knew had children there and told her it was a good school. She has also been getting assistance in a NEON program for people searching for employment.

Moccia said he's also received many emails criticizing him for supporting the arrest of McDowell. "I probably got about 75 saying the same thing, from people who don't know the details."

But "exactly two emails," he said, came from Norwalk.

Moccia pointed out that the city recently published a plan to end homelessness in Norwalk, largely by providing more and better coordinated services to the homeless.

"Do they really think we don't care about homeless people?" he asked of his critics. "We want a continuum of resources for them. We want to get these people out of shelters and working. "I'm not an ogre. The city's not an ogre."

None of Moccia's duties as mayor make him a direct decisionmaker regarding any aspect of McDowell's dealings with Norwalk government or social service agencies in the city. As mayor of Norwalk, Moccia sits on the city Board of Education as well as the Police Commission, and he appoints members of the Norwalk Housing Authority governing board.

In addition, NEON, a nonprofit organization, receives a large grant from the city budget that Moccia has a large influence in shaping. Moccia's daughter, Suzanne Vieux, is the chief prosecutor in State Superior Court in Norwalk, and signed McDowell's arrest warrant application.

"You know, I'm not politically correct," Moccia said. "I'm not going to back down on this. She [McDowell] can have emails across the country calling me names on this."

Update 2:24 p.m.:

This article has been updated with a video of the mayor from this morning. Moccia said that McDowell at first (in September 2010) told school officials in a written document that her son was living at the Roodner Court housing complex on Ely Avenue. She next said that she and her son were staying at 66 Priscilla Circle, Bridgeport. The mayor said he does not trust her to tell the truth now when she says she has been homeless, or that she was homeless in Norwalk when she enrolled her child at Brookside Elementary School in September.

Sal Liccione of Westport, a volunteer at homeless shelters there and in Norwalk who was himself homeless in the past said Tuesday in reaction to Moccia's comments published earlier today that "The mayor is wrong. Dick is very, very wrong. ... Of course she should've told the truth, but most homeless peope are very, very shy. ... Most homeless people are not going to tell people they're homeless."