CT Post | By: Kalleen Rose Ozanic
With renters earning wages that don’t keep up with the cost of housing, advocates say the state needs to build more affordable housing and increase the availability of rental assistance.
Renters in Connecticut must earn one of the highest hourly wages in the country to even pay for affordable housing, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition — a nonprofit that looks to influence equitable public policy.
And when affordable housing is in such high demand, lower-rent units are inaccessible to those who need them the most, housing advocates say.
“As a state, we definitely have a dearth of housing units, of homes, and that’s driving our affordability crunch, but we also don’t have earnings going up as quickly,” said Chelsea Ross, executive director at Partnership for Strong Communities, a Hartford-based organization that’s creed asserts housing as a human right. “We’re a high-cost state.”