Click here to read the report.
Connecticut’s housing crisis has reached a critical point, especially for renters. Across the state, rising rents have made it increasingly difficult for many families to keep a roof over their heads. Today, an estimated 119,000 renter households are paying more than half their income on housing, which is far beyond what is considered affordable.
At the root of the issue is a simple imbalance: there just isn’t enough housing being built, especially housing that is affordable to low-income renters. While building more affordable housing is crucial, rental assistance programs serve as an essential tool for keeping families stably housed.
The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program, commonly known as Section 8, is the federal government’s largest rental assistance effort. Though it doesn’t create new housing units, it helps make existing homes more affordable for those lucky enough to receive a voucher. But luck is indeed a big part of it. Nationwide, only one in four eligible households receives rental assistance.
Here in Connecticut, the state has stepped in to help fill the gap through its own Rental Assistance Program (RAP), which currently supports thousands of households. However, the need far outpaces the available support.
A new report from the Partnership examines what it would take to close this gap. The findings are sobering:
- 238,180 renter households in Connecticut are considered very low or extremely low income.
- Only about 50,000 of these households receive any form of rental assistance.
- That leaves an estimated 176,728 eligible households without support.
To serve all eligible families in FY2026, Connecticut would need to invest $2.5 billion annually to expand RAP. While that figure is significant, the report also explores smaller, incremental steps toward expansion. For example, increasing the number of households served by just 10%, about 649 additional households, would cost an estimated $9 million more annually, but would provide real relief to hundreds of families struggling to pay rent.
The report also outlines the broader benefits of housing stability. When families can afford a safe place to live, they experience better health, educational outcomes, and economic mobility. These are not just individual gains, they ripple out into communities and strengthen our state as a whole.
To achieve this vision, policymakers must make sustained investments in rental assistance. The report’s recommendations chart a path forward for expanding Connecticut’s RAP with the goal of ensuring more families have access to the housing security they deserve.
