Amid housing shortage, new CT coalition focuses on local policy change

A new Connecticut coalition aims to advocate for pro-housing policies with a more grassroots approach, focusing on local change in suburbs and rural areas. Two Connecticut advocacy groups announced Wednesday they’re launching the Housing for All Network , a statewide network of local groups working on increasing and preserving their towns’ housing supplies. “Residents know what they need within their own communities to build support for housing, and so [we’re] really putting the power in the local residents’ hands to be able to — with the support of the Housing for All Network — expand their impact,” said Margaret LeFever, program director for Housing for All. The initiative is led by the Housing Collective and the Connecticut for All Justice Fund. Norma Martinez-HoSang, director of Connecticut For All, said her group is supporting the movement through their Justice Fund. They’ll offer support primarily in New Haven, Middlesex and Hartford Counties. “Our broad vision is to be able to have a statewide view of what’s happening, and then making those connections within the network, and adding training or other capacity needs with local groups, so that we could strengthen the work,” Martinez-HoSang said. The network allows groups in different parts of the state to connect and access training, technical support and small grants through the initiative, LeFever said. More than 40 participating groups span all regions of the state. The initiative focuses on suburban and rural areas because, historically, much of the responsibility for building affordable housing has fallen to urban areas, LeFever said. Suburban and rural areas have also often shown more opposition to rental housing. Addressing Connecticut’s housing crisis has been a state-level political focus for the past several years. Connecticut lacks thousands of units of housing that are affordable and available to its lowest-income renters, and many put more than a third of their income toward housing costs. During a November special session of the state legislature, lawmakers passed legislation that, among other things, required towns to come up with plans to increase housing stock and set goals for the number of units they’ll build. The coalition is composed of a variety of groups ranging from tenant unions to local advocates for racial justice. In eastern Connecticut, members of the Coalition on Diversity and Equity or CoDE, sees housing as a key part of their work. The group first formed in Hebron and hosted a rally after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020. They’ve since created a nonprofit that aims to educate residents of Andover, Columbia, Marlborough, East Hampton and Hebron about ways to create more diverse and equitable communities, said Donna Jolly, the group’s co-founder. “There are predominantly single-family homes, large homes on large lots. So we began to learn more, talk to some statewide experts about the issues of affordable housing,” Jolly said.