On Wednesday, January 18, 2023, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro delivered a rather large check with a sum of $1,438,399 to a downtown New Haven homeless agency known as the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen.

This money will be utilized to upgrade the building with:

• a basement commercial kitchen
• a redesigned first-floor daytime drop-in center
• a second-floor medical clinic run by the Cornell Scott Hill Health Center, which also includes new showers and small-meeting space
• a reworked fourth-floor administrative area
• a new elevator
• an upgraded HVAC system

The $1.4 million DESK money was part of the $26.9 billion "bevy" money that DeLauro received during her final weeks as a committee chair. This money is all allocated for community projects within the Greater New Haven area.

Discussions for such changes to the DESK building started in 2018 so both CEO Michael Taylor of the Cornell Scott Hill Health Center as well as many other community members are excited to see the project getting the funds it needs to officially begin the whole process.