What Exactly Is The Connecticut Housing Crisis?

 What is the actual Connecticut Housing Crisis? Can it be defined? Can any of the Legislative geniuses that are constantly crying about the same explain in simple terms what it actually is? Is it a lack of apartments, condominiums, and houses for people to live in the state? Is there a lack of rental housing for people who are unable to work due to a disability and live on government subsidies? Is there a lack of rental housing for people who do not work, can work and live on government subsidies? Is there a lack of rental housing for people who do work, but do not earn enough money to pay for all their personal and family expenses, especially for rent? Is there a shortage of one family homes in the state that cannot be purchased due to high property taxes and high mortgage rates? Is there a lack of housing for Senator Chris Murphy's "Undocumented Americans" to be developed into future voters?

 

Considering all of the above, please define the “Connecticut Housing Crisis” for me. However, before you do, kindly provide answers the following: 

If Connecticut has a shortage of housing, then where are these people living in Connecticut since they purportedly cannot afford rents or mortgages? In 2023, Connecticut has about 148,506 citizens live in subsidized housing (https://usafacts.org/answers/how-many-people-live-in-subsidized-housing/state/connecticut/). That is approximately .04% of the state's population. But to this point how many people are actually homeless in the state? Connecticut has a population of approximately 3, 625,000. We find that Connecticut has a "point in time" count in January. This  "is a count of sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness on a single night in January. HUD requires that Continuums of Care (“CoC”s) conduct an annual count of people experiencing homelessness who are sheltered in emergency shelter, transitional housing, and Safe Havens on a given single night. CoCs also must conduct a count of unsheltered people experiencing homelessness every other year (odd numbered years). Each count is planned, coordinated, and carried out locally." (https://www.hudexchange.info/programs/hdx/pit-hic/#2025-pit-count-and-hic-guidance). For February 2025 they are apparently over "5,000" people homeless in the state. (https://www.wtnh.com/news/connecticut/never-seen-it-this-bad-rates-of-homelessness-on-the-rise-in-connecticut/). That is .00137% of the state's population that is homeless.  According to the state budget, Connecticut funds fifty-three emergency shelters and thirty-nine transitional housing program state grants. If one contacts Connecticut's 211 network, they will find sixty-two homeless shelters that can be contacted. (https://www.211ct.org/searchterms=Homeless%20Shelters&page=1&location=Connecticut&service_area=connecticut). Connecticut will spend in for various Housing and Homeless services/programs/subsidies $101,123,923 in 2026 and $114,323,923 in 2027. If we focus on the "5,000" who are "homeless" one may wonder why these people cannot be sheltered if the state is spending over $100 million dollars on these programs to help them? (If you are keeping score at home, this translates to more than $20,000 expended each year for each purportedly homeless person).

Needless to say, any reasonable person with reasonable intelligence sees this situation and realizes that nothing seems to add up with this housing shortage situation. And regrettably, the ostensible insanity of “building where they ain’t,” continues. This past week a bi-partisan celebration of the building of 154 institutional-style housing units occurred. https://www.wshu.org/connecticut-news/2025-07-09/ct-new-britain-affordable-housing-crisis . Spiked by state loans, tax credits, and giveaways, the average $2,100 per month rental price of a unit here is well above what most in the “need of housing” class can pay. But I would assume this is not a problem since continual subsidies are perpetually imagined, as the rents collected from whatever sources continually fill the coffers of wealthy investors. However, no one ever seems to mention that once the subsidy payments outstrip the market rentals, this project like hundreds before will be on the fast track to becoming the next Father Panik Village or Barnum Court and will meet the same fate. Unfortunately, politicians lie and deceive themselves that they have a magic solution, however dollars and cents will always determine the outcome of any pipe dream or illusions.

But alas, there are far better solutions than the messes described above. Unless you watch my good friend, Tony De Angelo on “Thirty With Tony” or listen on the “Lee Elci Show,” you probably did not know that Connecticut currently has seventy-two “Qualified Opportunity Zones”. (OPPORTUNITY LOST -TONY DE ANGELO LEE ELCI 7- 8- 2025)  A Qualified Opportunity Zone is an economically distressed community located within the United States or its territories, designated for the purpose of attracting private and rental housing investment a and stimulating economic development through powerful Federal tax incentives conditioned upon a long term community commitment by the investor or builder (https://opportunityzones.com/location/connecticut/).  As Tony had mentioned on July 8, Connecticut is in such bad economic shape that almost a full third of the state could qualify as an economic Opportunity Zone under the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Further, a third of these new zones must be in rural areas! But in a high tax, excessively bureaucratic and Trump-hating state like Connecticut, there is little to no chance of either attracting investors into zones with no commitment to police and public safety and/or getting this exciting concept through the heads of politicians with severe cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

OPPORTUNITY LOST -TONY DE ANGELO LEE ELCI 7- 8- 2025

But why actually talk about propounding solutions that work since such solutions would eliminate the need for many redundant bureaucrats and political hangers-on? Can anyone rationally explain as to why the Connecticut Democrat Party wanted to force through the ill-conceived and draconian housing bill HB 5002 shifting zoning from the 169 cities, towns and villages to a state run, non-elected bureaucracy? Considering the above, it now makes sense since we now see that in a socialistic economy the citizen becomes more and more dependent upon the state governmental bureaucracy for every aspect of their life and their survival through subsidized housing, free state medical care, free public transportation and subsidized food.  Please take just one look at the figures mentioned earlier. Connecticut would be far better off if it consolidated taxpayer monies and fully audited the money it spends in housing and improve its efficiencies and allowed free market solutions to its "housing/homeless" crisis. Instead, it chooses a politically entrenched socialistic corridors of power for personal financial gain that continually worsens the problem. Such, is the "Connecticut Way"

Wasting time, money, and productive energy is a hallmark of the Democrat-driven Connecticut political system, so much that even when it is provided with workable and positive solutions will ignore them continually, only to drive society from bad to worse and forever ensure their employment and false sense of purpose.