Success Village cleanup offers hope, raises questions in Bridgeport community

Volunteers hauled old furniture, broken appliances and years’ worth of unwanted belongings into dumpsters scattered across Success Village on a recent Saturday morning, working side by side with residents determined to restore pride in the 96-building housing cooperative.

For many, it was more than a cleanup. It was a chance to reclaim a community that had endured years of financial turmoil, deteriorating living conditions and uncertainty.

For others, it served as a painful reminder that while trash can be hauled away in a day, rebuilding trust takes much longer.

Success Village is one of Connecticut’s largest housing cooperatives, spanning roughly 50 acres on the Bridgeport-Stratford line. The community includes 96 residential buildings and more than 900 cooperative units, housing about 2,000 residents. Many are seniors, veterans, working families and people living on fixed incomes. Shared courtyards and green spaces, including Success Park, have long made it a close-knit neighborhood where generations of families have put down roots.

In recent years, however, Success Village has become known for a different reason. Years of financial mismanagement under the former board left the cooperative millions of dollars in debt, with unpaid property taxes, mounting utility bills and failing infrastructure. Residents paying monthly common charges went for months without reliable heat and hot water while facing uncertainty about the future of their homes.

A court-appointed receiver took over management in 2024 to restore basic services and stabilize the cooperative’s finances. Earlier this year, state lawmakers considered legislation that would have forgiven interest on delinquent property taxes tied to the crisis while providing financial relief to residents. But the bill did not receive a final vote in the Senate before the legislative session ended.

Avason Cuevas, who has lived in Success Village for 20 years, knows firsthand what the community has endured. She remembers surviving months without reliable heat and hot water, heating water in a garbage can so she and her family could bathe while caring for her mother and undergoing treatment for breast cancer herself.

“It was like living in a meat freezer,” Cuevas recalled.

Cuevas said residents expect the cooperative’s management to respond when they report problems, especially after years of living without reliable basic services. She said many residents are hardworking people who simply want the services they pay for and for older residents to feel safe in their community.

The cleanup could be a step toward a more positive future for the community, as Cuevas sees it.

“I’d like for the place to look much cleaner and just to have a good environment,” she said.

But not everyone viewed the community cleanup through the same lens.

Morgan Schick, who has lived in Success Village with her wife for six years, said she and her neighbors have spent years organizing informal cleanups, picking up litter throughout the property and advocating for more attention to the neighborhood.

“We’re known as the trash cleaners,” Schick said. “We go around with pickers. Now even our neighbors go around with us.”

Schick said she was collaborating with the cleanup organizers at first, but at some point she and her wife were left out of the planning. She said she didn’t have a problem with the event taking place,

“It was the people and the timing behind it.”

Schick said after living through the community’s recent history many residents have become skeptical of public efforts involving political figures — like the cleanup event.

“It turned into a cleanup that I believe turned political,” she said. “It was just a slap in the face.”

While residents benefited from the dumpsters and the volunteers who gave their time, Schick said she believes rebuilding trust requires more than a one-day event.

“What would a genuine effort look like?” she said. “Just keep being there for us and not allowing us to be taken advantage of.”

Despite their differing views of the cleanup, Cuevas and Schick ultimately described many of the same hopes for Success Village.

Cuevas wants residents’ concerns heard and basic services restored.

Both want Success Village to move beyond the years of instability that have defined it.

The cleanup may have cleared away piles of debris, but it also revealed a community still working through the weight of its past.

‘A reason to come out and come together’

The cleanup brought together local churches, nonprofit organizations, residents and elected officials from Bridgeport.

For Pastor Curtis Baldwin Jr. of Gateway to Heaven Ministries, participating was an easy decision after receiving a call asking whether his congregation could help.

“We’re excited to be here,” Baldwin said. “What I want the city to understand is this: Reach out to more churches. Let’s get the church back involved. Without the church, we ain’t a community.”

His congregation regularly participates in neighborhood cleanups throughout Bridgeport, and Baldwin said churches have a responsibility to show up wherever they’re needed.

“We want to show them that there are some real people out here, real churches that are just willing to help. Anytime they call me, we’re coming,” he said.

That same spirit motivated volunteers with Build Bridgeport From Within, a nonprofit focused on neighborhood revitalization and workforce development.

Founder Al Ramirez said his team’s role wasn’t simply cleaning the grounds. Volunteers spent much of the day helping elderly and disabled residents move bulky items they had been unable to remove on their own.

“There were a lot of disabled folks and elderly folks that couldn’t get that stuff to the dumpster,” Ramirez said. “Without that extra help, they really needed it. They were very grateful.”

Ramirez said community events like the cleanup have taken on added importance in recent years.

“Ever since COVID, people are in their houses,” he said. “Giving people a reason to come out and come together just shows that people care. People in Bridgeport care.”

Councilwoman Maria Pereira, who helped organize the event, said the cleanup was about more than collecting trash.

“For me here today is not just about cleaning the community,” Pereira said. “It’s about community building.”

She said the event required weeks of planning across the sprawling 50-acre property and was intended to bring neighbors together after years of hardship.

“What they’ve been through is really horrific,” Pereira said, recalling the months residents went without heat and hot water. “They’re deserving, like everybody is, of decent, clean, affordable, safe housing.”