Advocates say CT needs over 137,000 affordable housing units. They want it fairly allocated to more towns.

Jahaira Vega said she was in shock when she received an eviction notice from her landlord requiring her and her two daughters to leave their apartment after 16 years of living in West Hartford.

She knew the landlord was upset with her for reporting heating and electrical issues in her apartment, but Vega said she never imagined having to relocate her family to another home.

It is stories such as Vega’s that prompted the Growing Together Connecticut coalition of 38 local organizations to hold a briefing to address the high cost of housing within the state and call for change.

The coalition is advocating for more affordable housing in the state, using a four-step equitable zoning proposal that, among other things, seeks to update local regulations to allow more housing in more towns and have the state provide incentives and enforcement. The state needs about 137,300 housing units,, according to coalition estimates.

Open Communities Alliance Executive Director Erin Boggs, a member of the coalition’s steering committee, said the state now is one of the most expensive to find housing and one of the most segregated.

“These things go together because when you take most of the state off the table for development and beautiful, denser, more cost-effective housing, the only, and only a few, municipalities step up to the plate welcoming such housing, you inevitably wind up with soaring housing costs, disinvestment from particular areas, barriers and accessing others,” Boggs said. “This is a formula for family economic hardship, and statewide economic stagnation. It’s not surprising that there are currently over 100,000 vacant jobs in our state, workers need a place to live that they can afford.”

Boggs noted the recent election season, during which many who ran for office, especially those who won, recognized that affordability has become a critical issue for state residents.

While Boggs acknowledges some affordability issues are driven by international politics and national economics beyond control of an individual state, she said some of the affordable housing issues can be attributed to restrictive municipal zoning the state can address.

“Connecticut municipalities are currently in a Darwinian race to the bottom, practically competing to limit the number of cost effective housing units built. This hurts people all across the state and holds our state back economically,” she said.

“Every single household that earns a little bit less is harmed by this, whether it’s a Black or Latino household that has less income and wealth due to generations of discriminatory policies, a recent college grad just entering the workforce, a first responder, a teacher, a frontline worker, a health care provider, a senior on a fixed income, all of these households, all of these families are hurt when we allow zoning to be misused.”

Boggs believes that one of the solutions to getting more affordable housing in the state is the equitable zoning proposal the coalition developed. The proposal has four steps and looks to towns to exert local control in a way that aligns with state and federal law, she said.

Boggs said that the steps include: figuring out how much affordable housing is needed in the state, allocating it in a fair way to towns, having towns update planning and zoning to make room for that housing with help from the state in terms of technical assistance, and the state making recommendations for future incentives and enforcement to make sure the process works.

She said that if the proposal is passed into law it will lead to hundreds of thousands of new homes (both affordable and market-rate), which will mean more housing choices, more neighborhood revitalization, and more thriving communities.

Karen DuBois-Walton, president of Elm City Communities/Housing Authority in New Haven and co-chair of the Equitable Urban Revitalization Subcommittee for the coalition, said it has spent the past year talking with experts and holding listening sessions across the state.

While DuBois-Walton said she is proud of the work done to get the coalition to this point, the state needs to grow.

“It’s the name of our coalition. And that’s what legislators have told us they want. And that’s what our governor has explicitly said Connecticut needs,” DuBois-Walton said.

“But Connecticut cannot grow, if housing stock does not grow. And as our economy has rebounded from a pandemic, we’ve seen so many of our gains eaten up in rapidly rising housing costs. Growing our state without growing our number of homes compresses us. It makes our wallets tighter, and forces us to bid against each other for the homes here. Growth without housing becomes not a zero sum game. But a negative sum game,” she said.

“It’s not enough to just build more homes, we need to protect residents who face the hardest circumstances. And Growing Together CT will do that, by supporting good tenant protections this legislative session. We can build more homes through smart planning and zoning reforms,” she said.

Guest speaker The Rev. Vanessa Rose of First Church Fairfield said she can attest to the segregation in the community she serves and the “deplorable lack of affordable homes” in her community.

“Our nation is experiencing a housing affordability crisis. And this is affecting our neighbors, our brothers and sisters who love Connecticut, want to stay and work here, and should have the opportunity to have homes that they can afford, a place to connect with family, a place to celebrate holidays and birthdays, a safe place,” she said. “A place to build neighborhoods, each home connected together forms a larger beloved community where neighbors can support one another.”

Rose also said that when people like Vega are evicted, they are ripped from communities where they have established support systems, and can no longer send their children to schools where their teachers and peers know them and their learning style.

For Vega, a single parent, there was a struggle to pay higher rent and, despite having a state housing voucher and endless searches for another apartment, many landlords declined to rent to her, due to the eviction being on her public record.

Eventually she was able to find a landlord who was willing to overlook her eviction, with the help of a realtor, and is now in a new apartment with her girls.