HOUSING CRISIS MUST BE A PRIORITY
Building community bridges can play key role in helping to end homelessness in Connecticut
Imagine there were two people in your community living in separate apartments, each lost their job earlier this year and were unable to secure new work because of age and underlying health conditions. Both “Matt” and “Marie” are in their early 60s. Marie has a family network; her cousin offered a room in her house. With free rent and Social Security, Marie was again stably housed. Matt has no family or friend connections that can help. The social service office gave him two months’ rent and when that ran out, Matt, for the first time in his life, was facing homelessness.
Matt called 211, our statewide emergency call center, and was unable to reach anyone over the weekend (211 recently cut the call center staff to only cover during business hours). On a weekday, the 211 operator “Ann” spoke to Matt and was deeply concerned about not being able to give any direct housing assistance, or a shelter bed, as area shelters were full. For two weeks, Matt slept on a bench in Bushnell Park before a shelter bed opened.
As reported [Nov. 28, “Through the cracks. Most vulnerable struggles to get help from strained 211 system”], Connecticut’s 211 hotline received 96,000 calls from people like Matt since the beginning of 2022, each person seeking a shelter bed because they had run out of relational support and could no longer afford housing. According to ct.211counts.org, calls for shelter came in from almost every town in Connecticut over the last 365 days.
Matt was now spending his days at the library looking for work and going to various soup kitchens. One night “John,” working in downtown Hartford, saw Matt sleeping on the bench and thought, “I wish the police would keep these people out of the park.”
Once in shelter, Matt was put on a long waiting list for short-term housing assistance while he continued to look for work and an apartment. Marie, stably housed with her cousin, was able to continue her search for work without the extreme stress of homelessness. Housing is the end to homelessness. Connecticut has the lowest vacancy rate in the country, seeing a drastic increase in rents since in 2021.
Research on the effects of prevention as temporary financial assistance on housing stability and health has shown that a small amount of prevention assistance significantly reduces entries to shelter and increases savings in health care costs. (A recent large data study revealed a decrease of $2,800 in health care costs for people receiving TFA); yet we have not, as a state, prioritized this growing crisis.
What is the opposite of facing homelessness? Community bridges that connect each of us to addressing homelessness.
Here are four things to consider doing, each part of a greater solution that ends homelessness in our rich, beautiful state of Connecticut:
1. Ask Gov. Ned Lamont to increase funding for short-term prevention assistance and landlord incentives for households at risk of, and needing to exit, homelessness. Contact him at https:// bit.ly/2VJve0u
2. Create more affordable housing in every Connecticut town. Check out Desegregate Connecticut’s website: https:// www.desegregatect.org
3. Look people in the eyes as if they are your neighbor when you pass someone experiencing homelessness, offering a shared sense of humanity.
4. Understand how each of us is interconnected in relationship to housing risk, opportunities for stability, personal, and community well-being.