Last year, a total of 20,585 evictions were filed in Connecticut by Nov. 21 , and while the year was not over when that data was released, the state had already seen the highest number of filed evictions since 2017, according to a new report from Connecticut Voices for Children, a New Haven nonprofit that publishes research on economic issues that have an impact on the state’s children, particularly those who belong to economically disadvantaged groups.
Earlier this month, Connecticut Voices published a report entitled “Addressing Connecticut’s Eviction Crisis: Policy Options for Medium- and Long-Term Reforms,” which drew from two dozen sources and over 20 years of data to illustrate the scale of the problem and to point out solutions the organization says could help alleviate the crisis. Samaila Adelaiye, a research and policy fellow at Connecticut Voices, co-authored the report with Madeline Sale from the Yale School of Public Health.
“We are trying to bring attention to the fact that Connecticut residents are more likely to be cost burdened than the U.S. as a whole,” Adelaiye explained. “They pay more than 30% of their income for housing and this impacts individuals whether they own their homes or rent, but renters are especially cost burdened.”
Adelaiye said that the report confirmed the organization’s suspicion that high rents relative to income would lead to a spike in evictions, even if interest rates were at lower levels.
“We’ve seen an increase in wage growth, especially with the increase in the minimum wage,” he added. “But the growth rates in rent cost have outpaced income. Another key point in the finding is that housing affordability and evictions are often racialized.”
Adelaiye observed that historically disenfranchised communities are exposed to more risk according to the study’s findings, with 59% of Black and 60% of Hispanic households in the state living in rentals rather than owning their homes. He also noted that among all renters who fall behind on rent, White renters are less likely to have official evictions filed against them.
That racial disparity becomes particularly dangerous in an environment where housing is a challenge for much of the workforce.
“Connecticut is worse than the U.S. average when it comes to the housing affordability crisis,” Adelaiye said.
Connecticut Voices for Children recommended adopting a pair of bills that would direct grants to municipalities that meet affordable housing goals funded by an “affordable housing tax” on the highest value housing. Other proposals focus on transit-oriented developments, blight remediation, and passing laws that place limits on the use of eviction records by landlords.
State Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk) emphasized a need for more housing overall in response to the crisis, noting that “there’s a number of ideas that have been proposed, and a number of them that could get through the Senate, but if they can get enough votes in the house? I do not know.”
“But the biggest thing in my opinion is having every community share in the solution to what ails us, which is to build more housing,” Duff said. “This is not just an issue for the top 10 biggest communities in the state, this is an issue for 169 communities in Connecticut.”
While the solution to the crisis may not be clear, there is solid evidence of how it can harm Connecticut residents and businesses.
Prof. Khawaja A. Mamun, the program director of the Masters in Business Analytics Program at Sacred Heart University, noted that part of the reason behind the large eviction numbers in the report stemmed from the end of Covid government emergency measures.
“They put a moratorium on eviction that expired last year,” Mamun said. “When that happened people who are not able to pay the rent got added to the list, so now we are seeing that it’s picking up.”
Mamun noted that other states are facing even higher rates of eviction, but there are important considerations outside the raw numbers. Connecticut renters are still contending with high costs and certain economic indicators typically taken as a good sign may not tell the entire story.
“If you read the inflation reports you’ll know that the rate was around 3% for the last month or so, and you can look at it as 3% annualized, but the annual rental price increase is 8.5% to 8.8% for the past six months,” Mamun explained. “Overall inflation has gone down, but the rental price inflation has not. Rent prices keep going up, which is obviously going to squeeze anyone who doesn’t have a high paying job, and also people like senior citizens who lean on social security or government income.”
Mamun credited Connecticut state programs such as housing assistance with blunting the damage of a rising eviction rate, but he underscored that in addition to the humanitarian issue of people finding themselves desperately searching for cheaper housing or becoming homeless there are profound economic impacts.
“If someone gets evicted, they have to move,” Mamun said. “Somebody getting evicted most likely won’t have their own transportation either. So, they’re going to move and that will cause disruptions in their employment. So, for a business, somebody getting evicted means that they may not only lose a nearby customer, but they could also lose an employee.”
According to Mamun, the lifelong impacts on children who can have their education and health majorly and suddenly disrupted can also have long term ramifications and increase the likelihood they may become less productive for the economy overall.
“When you have stable housing it lowers many other ills of society, Mamun said. “Crime rates will go down, you’ll have students do better at school, unemployment goes down. A lot of good things happen when you actually have stable housing.”
