HARTFORD, Conn. – A federal report released this week says homelessness increased more than 17 percent in Connecticut this year, but housing advocates say the raw numbers don't tell the whole story.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development report counted almost 4,000 people as being homeless in the state in the 2018 "Point-In-Time" count. But that figure includes almost 600 people evacuated from Puerto Rico to Connecticut by the Federal Emergency Management Agency following Hurricane Maria.

According to Richard Cho, CEO of the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, the number of state residents who are homeless remained about the same as last year.

"While that's not necessarily cause for celebration, the numbers that HUD reported did not break down the families who are being sheltered through this special circumstance from those that would be experiencing homelessness otherwise," says Cho.

He says overall, there has been a 25 percent decrease in homelessness in Connecticut since 2007.

Cho points out that 280 homeless Connecticut families have been housed this month alone, due in part to improvements in the response to homelessness that have evolved in the last several years.

"We've developed a system that is able to identify people who are experiencing homelessness," says Cho. “We put them on a list, and we ensure that there's an accountable plan to help those individuals and families reconnect to housing."

He adds that Connecticut was the first state in the nation to effectively end chronic homelessness among veterans.

But Cho believes that homelessness persists mostly because wages are not keeping up with the rising cost of housing.

"While we can work better to make sure that we can help individual families leave homelessness once they enter it, the challenge is how do we stop that inflow into homelessness in the first place? And to me, we can only do that once we solve this affordable housing crisis," says Cho.

More information about Connecticut's efforts to end homelessness is available online at 'CTcandata.org.'


get more stories like this via email

Groups challenging the criminal consequences for failing to pay rent in Arkansas say they'll take another run at it, perhaps as a class-action lawsuit, after their initial case was dismissed.

Arkansas is the only state that treats nonpayment of rent as a criminal offense instead of a civil debt, and a nonprofit that provides free legal services contends that is unconstitutional.

Phil Telfeyan, who heads the group Equal Justice Under Law, said the goal of the suit was to end the law - and now, more work must be done.

"There's the Legislature that is trying to repeal the law, which we are extremely supportive of," he said. "But there's also a court challenge - there's a litigation process that is still under way - that federal courts have the authority, if a law is unconstitutional, to strike it down."

Telfeyan added that the consequences of the law are more dire since the federal moratorium on evictions has ended. And earlier this year, Arkansas declined most of the $146 million made available in federal Emergency Rental Assistance. Gov. Asa Hutchinson said the state hadn't spent all the previous allotment, and cited a strong economy and job market as reasons for rejecting the funds.

Equal Justice Under Law filed the suit in 2021 with the University of Arkansas' Little Rock Bowen Legal Clinic. Telfeyan said some landlords are willing to work with tenants who fall behind on rent, either by negotiating a reduced payment or some flexibility. But his organization has seen just as many property owners who won't work with their renters.

"One of Equal Justice Under Law's clients was unable to pay rent, not through any fault of their own, but actually because of the landlord's error," he said. "The landlord had a problem with the plumbing and so our client was not able to use the restroom, the toilet, the shower and so forth - they had to pay extra money to shower elsewhere. And that landlord actually started a criminal proceeding."

As the legal challenges continue, he encouraged renters to let their voices be heard, including contacting their legislators.

The average cost of keeping a roof over your head in Utah's metro areas is a lot more than it used to be - if you're renting.

A recent University of Utah study found that rental prices in the state's major cities increased faster in the past two years than they did over the entire prior decade.

Dejan Eskic - a senior research fellow at the University of Utah's Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute - said rising home prices have pushed many Utahns into the rental market, increasing the demand and driving up leasing costs.

"Prior to COVID, about 49% of households statewide could not qualify for the median-priced home," said Eskic. "They were priced out, basically, where at the end of the second quarter this year, they were up to 78%."

Eskic says between 2010 and 2020, rental rates in the Salt Lake City area increased by about 2.5% a year. But in the last two years, those rates jumped by about 10.5% per year.

That means a two-bedroom apartment that cost $983 a month in 2010 now costs more than $1,600 - a 64% increase.

Two years into the pandemic, the report found that more than two-thirds of Utah households could not afford a median-priced home.

Tara Rollins, Director of the Utah Housing Coalition, said the prevalence of national corporate landlords in Utah has changed the nature of the rental market.

"Housing is no longer just a shelter or an investment for a Mom and Pop," said Rollins. "It is a portfolio. And so every year, that portfolio has to perform better and better and better."

Rollins said policymakers need to develop programs to assist Utahns, particularly workers in lower wage tourism and service jobs.

It would also help to create incentives that bring more locally-based investors into the rental market - in hopes those landlords would have a bigger stake in community building.

"I'm all about stabilizing people in their housing," said Rollins. "Because right now, at this point, if you have a roof over your head, you really want to keep that roof over your head."

Evictions are on the rise in Virginia after numerous protections provided by federal and state rental assistance programs ended.

According to the Richmond Eviction Lab, the number of renters in Virginia fearing eviction during the first quarter of 2022 was 58%, almost double from the fourth quarter of 2021.

Christie Marra, director of housing advocacy at the Virginia Poverty Law Center, said a "perfect storm of evictions" has been brewing for some time now. She pointed out tenants' protections have practically evaporated over the last few months, but identified an important one remaining.

"The tenant still has what we call a right of redemption, which simply means that they have the right to pay everything they owe the landlord up until 48 hours before the sheriff comes, and they have to stop that eviction, in most cases," Marra explained. "There are a few exceptions to that for tenants who rent from small mom-and-pop landlords."

Numerous landlords have filed eviction cases to be prosecuted over what advocates said are unrealistic periods of time. Marra cites one apartment complex in Chesterfield called Rollingwood prosecuting 59 cases in one week. Another has 99 eviction cases to be prosecuted over a 10-day period. She does not want people to think it is about people unable to pay their rent, rather she charges there is a larger issue with evictions becoming part of a larger corporate landlord's business model.

Though the numbers are rising, Marra feels elected officials at each level of government can take action to slow it down or stop it entirely. At a local level, she suggested having a right to legal counsel to provide tenants with more equal footing when fighting eviction cases. On a state level, she hopes to see some pandemic-era requirements return.

"We had, during the pandemic, a requirement that made landlords give tenants 14 days to pay late rent, between the time they get the notice that, 'Hey, you didn't pay your rent. Here's what you owe. Here's the rent, here's the late fee. Please pay,' and the time they can take them to court," Marra recounted. "Five days is not enough time."

More time allows people to get their next paycheck, which Marra feels will help people make late payments more quickly. Federally, she feels emergency rental assistance needs to be made available all the time, not just in times of great crisis.