Blumenthal, Advocates Urge Passage Of Federal Housing Bill

by Jamil Ragland CTNewsJunkie

HARTFORD, CT — U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-CT, and housing advocates urged passage Monday of a bipartisan housing bill the senator said has been years in the making that will begin to address the housing crisis facing Connecticut and the nation at large.

Blumenthal was joined by Bobbi Riddick, community impact manager for the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness (CCEH) and Erin Boggs, executive director of Open Communities Alliance, at the MLK Apartments in Hartford’s South End to advocate for final passage of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. The bill, which passed the House earlier this year, is scheduled for a vote in the Senate this week.

“This major, sweeping housing bill, includes a panoply of sweeping measures for financing, for building, for manufacture and modular housing, for all of the new advances that are not only possible but necessary to address the housing crisis that we face right now,” Blumenthal said.

The bill combines provisions from two separate housing bills, each originating in the House and Senate respectively, along with additional provisions and priorities from the Trump administration, such as limiting large corporations from purchasing single family homes.

Other provisions in the bill include aid to municipalities to start housing development, enable more use of manufactured and modular housing such as trailer homes, and provide new kinds of financing alternatives to enable communities to utilize federal grant programs and other means of facilitating housing development.

Blumenthal said that the bill has broad bipartisan support as a result of years of effort. It passed the House 396-13 in May, and the senator said that the bill advanced to the Senate floor on an 87-8 vote.

“Housing is such a fundamental need. It is essential to economic opportunity, family stability, human dignity, health and wellness. It really cuts across all the needs that people have,” he said.

Boggs said that the housing crisis has led to families struggling with high rents, first-time homeowners being priced out of the market, and children growing up without the resources they need to learn and thrive.

Recent data shows how challenging housing costs have become for Connecticut residents. A report published by the Partnership for Strong Communities earlier this year shows that half of all renters and a quarter of all homeowners are cost-burdened, meaning they spend 30% or more of their income on housing.

“This is why federal action matters,” Boggs said. “At a time when many in Washington are retreating from the federal government’s responsibility to expand opportunity and address inequity, this legislation recognizes that housing is fundamental to economic opportunity, community stability, and civil rights.”

Riddick pointed to concerning trends among the state’s population experiencing homelessness, but also noted that there is some improvement happening simultaneously. She said that more than 3,800 people were experiencing homelessness during the point-in-time (PIT) count that occurred earlier this year in January. However, she said the rate of increase in the number of homeless individuals and families has slowed significantly from last year, showing that investments in housing can make a difference.

“We know there’s no single solution to solve homelessness,” she said. “The vast majority of people experiencing homelessness are not homeless because they lack resilience, work ethic, or determination. They are homeless because housing costs have outpaced incomes, because a housing crisis may have occurred, and because there were too few affordable housing options available when they needed them most.”