2025 Agenda


Build Homes

Towns Take the Lead Planning and Zoning

Lead organization – Open Communities Alliance

Create a new statewide zoning process in which municipalities take the lead in planning and zoning with the goal of allowing for a fair portion of their region’s need for affordable housing. The process would include incentive and enforcement elements.

Keep Homes

Just Cause Eviction

Lead – CT Fair Housing Center (with partners, including the Tenants Union)

Expand Just Cause laws to cover all tenants except those in owner-occupied 1-4-unit buildings. Just Cause requires landlords to have grounds for filing an eviction or refusing to renew a lease, like a tenant’s failure to pay rent or abide by the lease.

Collateral Consequences in Housing Applications

Lead – Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (with partners, including the ACLU of CT)

Under this proposal, landlords would be prevented from using blanket housing denials based on non-felony criminal convictions and felony convictions after a lookback period. For convictions within the recent past, landlords must make an individualized assessment of applicants within the limits of federal law. Individuals with a criminal history who are discriminated against in their efforts to find housing could file a complaint with the CHRO.

Invest in Homelessness Response

Lead – Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness

Support the funding request of the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness and the Coordinated Access Network for $33.5 million to support the state’s response to homelessness.

  • HB 6893
  • Status: Passed out of the Housing Committee, referred to Appropriations Committee
  • Learn more

Support CT Families

Guard Against the Benefits Cliff

Lead – Mothers and Others for Justice

This proposal would change the qualifications for a set of key state-controlled benefits for lower-income households to exclude the income of adult children (formerly dependents) and stipends provided by nonprofits.

  • HB 6941
  • Status: Passed out of the Housing Committee on 3/6
  • Learn more [coming soon]

Create a Child Tax Credit

Lead – CT Voices for Children

Create a $600 tax credit per child with a possible max of 3 children per household.

Problematic Affordable Housing Appeals Act Bills

Each of these bills weakens the Affordable Housing Appeals Act (CGS Sec. 8-30g) by trading points towards an 8-30g moratorium, normally available only if actual affordable units are developed, for policy changes that don’t necessarily mean more affordable housing will be built.

  • S.B. 1252 – An Act Establishing Priority Housing Development Zones: This proposal would award points toward an 8-30g moratorium based on plans that encourage greater residential density, without requiring any affordability. Density is often a precondition for affordability, but they don’t necessarily go together.
  • H.B. 7031 – An Act Including Accessory Apartments In The Calculation Of The Threshold For Exemption From The Affordable Housing Appeals Procedure: This bill would award points toward an 8-30g moratorium for the construction of accessory dwelling units, which may or may not be affordably priced and/or deed-restricted as affordable. Such units are often not even put on the market because they are intended for a family member.
  • S.B. 1277 – An Act Concerning Affordable Housing For Certain Disabled Or Elderly Veterans: This proposal would award 8-30g moratorium points for housing set aside for certain disabled or elderly veterans, is problematic because it is based not on the type of unit, but the personal characteristics of the occupant, which can change over time and would be difficult to enforce. At the same time, it might require a building owner to hold units vacant until qualifying people were found, at significant cost.

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