In a state where housing has become increasingly unaffordable for working families and low-income people who’ve made their lives there, LISC supports small-scale developments in suburban and rural areas. Part of the work is helping towns that once rejected affordable housing begin to see how the integrity and strength—even the survival—of their communities depend on it.
Sometimes, an alarm has to go off for a community to understand the needs of its members. That’s what happened in Old Saybrook, CT, a picturesque town at the confluence of the Connecticut River and the Long Island Sound, complete with a white clapboard light house and a theater named for its famous former resident, Katharine Hepburn.
The alarm sounded when a group of teachers working in an afterschool program realized that some of their students were living in rundown shoreline motels, the only housing their working parents could afford, or in tents during the summer because of skyrocketing seasonal rents. The teachers went to Old Saybrook’s chief executive, demanding that something be done.
Spurred by the crisis, local advocates formed HOPE Partnership, a nonprofit dedicated to creating affordable housing in Old Saybrook and its environs. In 2012, in collaboration with the Women’s Institute for Housing & Economic Development, they opened Ferry Crossing, a cozy community of 16 new homes serving families who earn less than 80 percent of the area median income (AMI). Nine of the families approved to move in (out of hundreds of applicants) were already living in Old Saybrook—in relatives’ basements or friends’ garages or homeless. The development was built on town property, leased to HOPE for a 99-year term. LISC smoothed the path to construction with technical assistance and $200,000 in predevelopment loans.
In fact, LISC has been supporting projects like Ferry Crossing in rural and suburban towns across Connecticut for more than ten years, and to date has helped create 571 affordable homes with another 597 in the pipeline. Funding from the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority has made the work possible.
By helping residents expand choice and opportunity in places that have become increasingly unaffordable and targeting others that need investment, LISC and its partners are trying to make the state more accessible and inclusive, and economically stronger, according to Andrea Pereira, who has been director of Hartford and Connecticut Statewide LISC since 1998.
In Hartford that means working to revitalize corners of the city that have been underinvested for decades. And in towns like Litchfield, a tony village in the northwest part of the state, it means supporting affordable housing projects so lower-income families have access to quality schools and open space.
“If people want to live in Hartford, they should be able to live in a vibrant Hartford,” Pereira said. “If they want to live in Litchfield, they should be able to live in Litchfield.”
LISC partners with local housing organizations, often started by a few concerned residents, in collaboration with elected officials and, sometimes, housing authorities. The nascent groups need guidance to document the community’s needs, identify partners and sites, and carry out the development process. LISC helps these groups to network and share strategies for getting projects off the ground, especially in the face of local opposition to affordable housing.
Connecticut, in fact, has one of the most extreme income gaps in the country: as of 2016, it is home to the second most unequal metro area in the nation (Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk) where the top 1 percent makes 73.7 times more than the other 99 percent.
The state’s housing costs have also stymied its growth because workers won’t relocate to a place where their net income, after rent, will be lower than it currently is. In many areas, the population, and the tax rolls, have thinned to the point where schools are closing.
Bob Petricone, a native of northwest Connecticut and the president of Litchfield Housing Trust, believes that in order to regain integrity and strength, not to mention people, towns like Litchfield must retain, and attract, a range of families. “We’re aiming for three things: to develop housing so that young people in families don’t have to leave, so that the people who work here can live in the community, and so that we have a more diverse community, in every sense of the word.” Since its inception, the trust has developed 47 units, all but four of which are owned by their occupants.
Kim Humiston is one of those small-town natives who nearly had to leave her home turf and job in northwestern Connecticut in order to find an affordable place to live. Strapped by her low pay as school bus driver and her husband’s college fees, the family bounced from apartment to apartment, trying to find something manageable in a peaceful neighborhood near good schools. “I wanted my kids to have what I had growing up,” said Humiston.
The couple and their three children were sharing Humiston’s mother-in-law’s home in New Milford when she saw an ad in the local paper for a new development geared to residents making 80 percent AMI. South Commons, as it is called, was going up in nearby Kent, CT, a postcard-pretty town with tree-lined streets and a good school district that boasts small class sizes. LISC was an early supporter, providing a $385,000 loan to the development, which was also made possible through federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits.
A month after submitting an application, the family moved into the three-bedroom townhouse that has been their home ever since. “If we hadn’t found South Commons, we’d have left the area, or we’d still be moving around,” Humiston said.
In spite of the clear benefits of affordable housing in suburban and rural Connecticut, getting it built remains a challenge. For one, financing for small-scale projects of 10 to 20 units, or even fewer, can be hard to come by.
“If a small town wants to develop housing on a modest scale, and they don’t already have sewers and water at a site, they’re going to have a higher per-unit cost,” Pereira explained. “So our strategy is to engage lots of communities and do as many small projects as we can to build a critical mass of affordable housing.” Along with technical assistance, LISC provides grants so local groups can hire consultants or staff to navigate the assemblage of state financing, historic tax credits and other forms of capital that make these small deals work.
Objectors can throw up obstacles in the form of everything from exclusionary zoning to lawsuits. “Towns that see affordable housing as a problem rather than an opportunity can spend a lot of money ‘defending’ themselves against it,” said Pereira. Currently, an important legislative bulwark for affordable housing hangs in the balance: a statute that says developers in towns with less than 10 percent affordable housing can appeal a municipality’s veto of a project.
But education and experience, say Pereira and LISC’s partner advocates, are ultimately the most effective tools for bringing people around to the broad social and economic benefits of affordable housing in small towns.
For Lauren Ashe, director of HOPE Partnership in Old Saybrook, building Ferry Crossing wasn’t just a matter of housing development. “It opened peoples’ eyes to the need, that they have neighbors and classmates who can’t afford dinner, never mind the latest fashions,” she said “[Our work] is a matter of continuing to tell the story and to ask what more we can do.”