HARTFORD, Conn. -- A landmark bill that would make housing a human right for all Connecticut residents is making its way through the General Assembly.

Known as the "Act Establishing a Right to Housing," Senate Bill 194 would reduce the impact of criminal and eviction history on housing access, increase access to legal counsel for evictions and foreclosures, and more.

Sarah Fox, policy director for the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, said while the bill is aspirational, the hope is to set a precedent for a long-term solution.

"It's about providing more than charitable giving," Fox explained. "And actually building better systems and recognizing that the homelessness response system is every bit of the fabric of our state's emergency response system."

The bill has no official fiscal note yet, but according to Fox, concerns have been raised about funding, since the proposal includes federal COVID-19 relief dollars to rent hotel rooms, provide safe, legal parking lots for RV dwellers and camping areas with sanitation facilities.

Matthew Morgan, executive director for Journey Home Connecticut, said the measure aims to not only face issues exacerbated by COVID-19, but also the ties between homelessness, mental-health challenges and substance abuse.

"Even doctors can't necessarily sort out all the time which is the cause of which, if it's the homelessness that's causing the substance abuse, or the mental illness that's causing the homelessness," Morgan observed.

In last year's annual count, the homeless population topped more than 2,900 in Connecticut. This year's numbers have yet to be released, but are likely to be higher with widespread financial hardship due to the pandemic.

Morgan and Fox both have firsthand experience with homelessness.

Fox said her own struggle to get housing, then seeing her mother experience homelessness and later be placed in permanent supportive housing, are examples of what the bill aims to achieve.

"Having her housed and having her healthy, it changed everything for me and my family," Fox recounted. "When you're terrified about having someone in your family be homeless, or when you're homeless, you're living in a constant state of panic. You really can't meet your basic needs and you can't think about the future."

Senate Bill 194 is in the General Assembly's Joint Housing Committee. Public comment is open until March 19.


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A coalition of advocates is using a novel approach to address the housing shortage in Missoula, helping renters become owners.

Prices and availability continue to be a problem in Montana.

Neighborworks Montana and the North Missoula Community Development Corporation are expanding the co-op concept in Missoula, notorious for its housing shortage.

Neigborworks Montana Executive Director Kaia Peterson said co-ops are successful because they hire the property management company that works for them.

"So, these are existing apartment buildings, and what we're doing is instead of an individual investor owning that building, we're helping the residents form a cooperative," said Peterson. "So, the residents are creating a business together - in the business form of a cooperative - and that cooperative buys and owns and operates the building."

Co-op ownership eliminates the possibility of an investor buying the building and increasing rent if the property value increases. The group hopes to replicate the model across Montana.

North Missoula Community Development Corporation's Executive Director Brittany Palmer said the co-op model also keeps the property in local hands and allows residents to decide, collectively, how to best use the money people are paying to live there.

"Them hiring the property management company that works for them, rather than for a landlord," said Palmer. "It goes towards also things like maintenance which they get to decide when and what maintenance and repairs are made."

The corporation owns the land underneath the buildings, so even if the co-op dissolves in the future, the corporation still decides what happens with the property. They've produced a documentary about Missoula's first co-op called Wolf Avenue Collective.

The Utah Foundation polled municipal officials across the state to gain their insights into affordable housing. The report found many officials feel they face barriers when attempting to introduce more affordable housing into their communities - and they say those barriers often come from residents.

Shawn Teigen, president of the Utah Foundation, said anxieties people may have around affordable housing may not be accurate.

"When we think about affordable housing, we think about more density. And that comes along with perhaps more traffic. And that may not be reality, but that's what a lot of people are thinking about," Teigen said.

However, those anxieties can create restrictions for those who advocate for more diverse housing options. In the survey, 79% of respondents said municipal officials pursuing affordable housing over residents' concerns face political consequences. Teigen added some officials must choose between fighting for their beliefs in the need to make housing more affordable - and remaining in office to help their constituents with other matters.

The Foundation says its report was not designed to offer specific solutions, but to illuminate the issues Utah residents face today.

Drew Maggelet, director of housing for the Call to Action Foundation, one of the report's sponsors, said affordable housing is something everyone believes in. It's the placement, standards and implementation they may disagree on.

"There is not really a coherent or clear path forward as it concerns the best way to do this. There's a very large discrepancy between what people consider 'affordable.' There is a very large discrepancy about how to fix it," he explained.

The report polled officials in communities of at least 5,000 residents and examined populations across the state. One option being discussed is making changes to zoning policies for so-called "middle housing" - a strategy that includes allowing multifamily housing in established single-family neighborhoods.

A new design competition is looking to find better housing for Fargo's aging population.

Like many other states, North Dakota has a growing number of people increasingly burdened by their own homes. Oftentimes, they want to stay in their communities but their properties might be too large, too expensive to maintain or too unsafe to occupy.

Janelle Moos, associate state director of advocacy for AARP North Dakota, said there are not enough options for people looking to downsize.

"A lot of housing and zoning has really promoted single family homes or very large scale apartments," Moos explained. "We've kind of lost that middle ground to say, 'There are other types of housing that exist and can coexist and what people want, right?'"

AARP is asking interested architects, designers, builders and students to submit designs for those midlevel units, including a duplex, triplex or cluster subdivision. Moos pointed out the goal is to show off the viability of age-friendly homes and hopefully come away with some plans for future development.

More than 65% of North Dakota residents named housing as the state's biggest overall need in a survey last year.

The competition closes in early October and the winner is eligible for a cash prize. Moos noted people can then hire the designer, obtain a building permit and begin construction.

"The hope is that it's not just a conversation and it's not just a hypothetical," Moos emphasized. "We want to come away with several really viable, buildable, missing middle housing plans with universal divine design elements. So, by that I mean truly age-friendly."

Judges and advisers include government officials, design experts and architects from across the state. Nationwide, one group estimates a need for more than 800,000 senior housing units by 2030.