New London — When 32-year-old Tim Hassell first walked into the New London Homeless Hospitality Center, what he saw shocked him.

No one in the 40-bed facility actively was using drugs or drinking alcohol — those activities are prohibited. But it was clear, Hassell said, that many of them had spent the earlier part of the day doing exactly those things.

Just seven months into recovery from a longtime heroin addiction, he knew he’d be in trouble if he stayed; even seeing someone who’s high can be a trigger.

Luckily, shelter employees settled Hassell into a bed at the Covenant Shelter, a smaller, quieter, mixed family and singles facility about one mile away.

Still, because of a U.S. Housing and Urban Development policy Connecticut began implementing for publicly funded shelters about three years ago — it’s known as Housing First — shelters aren’t allowed to deny someone entry because they are intoxicated or high. They can deny a person only for being disruptive.

“I’d rather go somewhere where it’s not allowed than where they’re hush-hush about it,” Hassell said. “But it’s just the way things are run, I guess.”

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On Monday, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy pointed to the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness’s annual census as a sign Housing First is working.

According to the nonprofit’s point-in-time count, Connecticut’s overall homeless population decreased 13 percent during the last year and has decreased 24 percent since 2007, when the state began collecting data.

In short, the model works like this: If a person calls 211 seeking shelter, officials do everything they can to get that person into a shelter that day. Employees then work full-time to find a more permanent housing solution for the person based on his or her situation. The goal is to do that within 30 days.

From there, the shelter uses its funds to pay for a security deposit and assist to varying degrees with a person's rent. Employees connect their former guests with services they need and check in with them often, if necessary. Need a job? Check out this employment agency. Have a substance abuse issue? Head to that treatment provider.

According to Steve DiLella, director of Individual and Family Support Programs for the state Department of Housing Divisions, Housing First is not much different from the longer-term transitional housing model that used to be preferred. If done well, formerly homeless people have access to the same services — they just get to take advantage of those services while living in their own place rather than a shelter.

“In the past, people would be turned away from shelters because of substance abuse issues,” DiLella said. “They were never able to gain access to housing, which led to a chronic homelessness issue.”

DiLella said there are cases where, if a person clearly is in the throes of an unmanageable addiction, he or she can be sent to a substance abuse program before being set up with housing.

“When you look at the decreases in homelessness, you see the policies are working,” he said, pointing out that the state has about 40 publicly funded shelters, including both of New London’s. “If they’re not working for a particular individual, you have to have conversations with that person and get them to a level of care that would be successful.”

Phyllis Cappuccio, executive director of the Covenant Shelter, isn’t ready to call Housing First an overwhelming success.

In the past, clients of the shelter would stay for several months, during which time they could go through job training, learn budgeting and take other steps to prepare them for managing their own place.

“With the new model, it’s, ‘No job? No problem,’” she said. “‘Substance abuse issue? We’ll take care of that later.’ It’s all about getting them into housing.”

Cappuccio said she has “utter sympathy” for those who are homeless and also in recovery.

“People can and often do come back here after having been using drugs or alcohol that day,” she said. “As long as they’re not disruptive, we don’t do a thing about it.”

That, she said, is “very explicit” in the shelter’s three-year contract, which this fiscal year covers more than $187,000 of the shelter’s about $550,000 budget.

In the shelter’s contract, too, is an outline of how many families and single people they’re expected to house.

Cappuccio said the shelter ended its job training and other programs when the state converted to Housing First. Its case managers became housing coordinators, tasked solely with finding apartments reasonable for guests — the term preferred over clients — and convincing landlords to agree to the deal.

The model, she said, seems to work well for families that were barely getting by when disaster struck — a lost job, a sudden illness, a broken-down vehicle.

Others, however, have come through the Southeast Coordinated Access Network, which is the group that responds to 211 calls in the region, multiple times in the past couple years.

Many of those people technically were making enough money to take over by the fourth month in their new apartment, Cappuccio said, explaining that Covenant typically covers a person's first three months of rent. But, because they didn’t know how to manage money well, or had an underlying addiction to alcohol or opioids, or struggled with an unaddressed mental health issue, they didn’t manage to pay the rent.

It should be noted that people in such situations — people who have an apartment but will lose it within 14 days — aren't included in the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness's annual census, even though they fall under Category 2 of the U.S. HUD's criteria for defining "homeless."

From 2015 to 2016, United Way of Connecticut records show, calls to 211 increased in all of the state’s Coordinated Access Network areas except Greater Hartford.

In southeastern Connecticut, there were almost 800 more calls for shelter in 2016 than in the previous year — a nearly 18 percent increase. About 3,450 of the region’s 2016 calls came from women, while just more than 1,800 came from men.

“It’s still too new to have a read on how successful it has been,” Cappuccio said of Housing First.

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The current stint isn’t the first time Hassell has been without a home — he has couch surfed and even slept in his car in the past.

But it is the first time he has stayed in a shelter. It’s a move he felt was necessary when, while staying at a friend’s house after completing a 45-day program at Stonington Institute, his friends pulled out some drugs they intended to use. He packed up his things and left immediately.

Hassell’s opioid addiction began at age 23, when a soccer injury “snapped in half” one of his legs.

It was about 2006 or 2007, he said, and he left the doctor’s office with “a shelf full of pills.” He took the pills as prescribed and was addicted before he knew it.

Hassell’s addiction took him down a road well traveled by hundreds of others in the state — one that’s filled with fractured relationships and criminal court cases. For Hassell, two such cases continue today, despite the alleged crimes having occurred more than a year ago.

Hassell has tried his hand at sobriety before, too.

“I think I’ve gone through four detoxes and five programs,” he said. “I would just go to the program to shut my ex-wife up, to make my mom happy, to make the court happy. It was never for the right reasons.”

Hassell gives credit that he has made it this far to a North Stonington landscaper who took a chance by employing him. He leaves early in the morning to catch a bus to wherever he’s working that day, spends much of his time outside, which he loves, and often doesn’t return until late.

He feels he also is staying sober for the right reasons this time.

“I have my kids back in my life,” he said, explaining that they’re 4 and 6. “I have money in my pocket. I have things going for me. I know one slip-up and it’s gone.”

Soon, he’ll have an apartment of his own. For now, he spends as much time as he can away from the shelter. If he’s having a rough time, he imagines one of his kids having to tell people his dad was an addict who overdosed and died.

“Now, having a clear head, I see what I used to look like,” Hassell said. “Walking down the street, I can tell you, ‘That person’s high. That person’s high.’ ... I don’t ever want to go back there again.”

l.boyle@theday.com