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A construction worker moves paneling for the foundation of a building that will be part of Oak Grove, an affordable housing complex in Norwalk, Connecticut on December 4, 2023. A new land use data tracker, created by New York University’s Furman Center, determines how easy or difficult it is to construct housing in each state. The tracker places Connecticut in the middle of the pack. Credit: Ryan Caron King / Connecticut Public

The vital value of a home goes well beyond the roof and walls that protect us from the cold. Maya Angelou knew: “The ache for home is in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”

But finding that special home — that “safe place” — is very hard to do in Connecticut, where the short supply and huge demand has raised prices and limited, or eliminated, choices for so many.

In fact, it’s so hard to find an affordable and appropriate home in many states that a rancorous, partisan Congress of virtually-never-agreeing Republicans and Democrats just – hold onto your hats – agreed on a new housing law that will ease, though not solve, the nation’s high-price-low-supply plague.

What will solve the problem? As one Connecticut member of Congress observed recently, it’s state and municipal officials who control the real answer: allowing higher density zoning and cutting local red tape.

But many elected officials don’t. They don’t think about the housing shortage or lack the political courage to do something about it or are simply heartless. When it comes to their responsibility to ensure that everyone has that “safe place,” they’re asleep.

So, for their benefit – and, more so, for the benefit of those who need a home that they can afford, and that meets their particular needs – here is what both of us recently learned as we entered the housing market, at different stages of our lives.

Danielle’s story: 

Eight years after finishing graduate school, I decided it was time to buy a house. But despite many advantages – knowledge about housing, having supportive parents and the ability to save for a downpayment – I found what so many have: finding an affordable entry-level home in Connecticut is almost an impossible undertaking.

I earned a master’s degree in 2018. To save money, I lived with my parents while working.  That eventually afforded me the opportunity to enter into the rental market, where I was confronted the dilemma many renters experience: making a home out of an aging apartment building, with water damage, pest infestations, plumbing and other infrastructure issues to take advantage of a lower cost to rent.

Even with the savings accrued by staying in a cheaper (yet arguably less healthy) home, I still didn’t have nearly enough saved up for a downpayment. What I did have was what so many renters don’t – a modest inheritance from a relative, additional financial help from my folks, and a flexible work environment that would allow me to buy my first home.

Savings, familial support, a generational inheritance and my own knowledge of Connecticut’s housing market combined were still almost not enough to achieve my vision for homeownership. Even the decision to put an offer on a potential house was stress-inducing – making a big life decision like purchasing a home shouldn’t be something you rush, yet with limited housing available within my budget and a fast-paced market where sales can happen anywhere from days to weeks after they’re listed, I felt immense pressure to put an offer in as soon as I returned home from touring the house I was interested in.

The bottom line: It was privilege which allowed this to happen. As a white, cisgender woman who didn’t have to worry about facing discrimination in my housing search, making a livable wage at a job that allowed me the time and flexibility needed to move through the homebuying process, a high credit score from paying my bills on time (made possible by having a reliable source of income), and having never been evicted from a past home, all worked together to help make the purchase of my first home an option.

Alongside these factors, the inheritance I received from the passing of a family member, and my ability to qualify for CHFA’s Time to Own – Forgivable Downpayment Assistance Program - which helped contribute to my offer and provided a helpful, informative online homebuying course – also served as resources that made homeownership possible.

With these privileges, I had a much easier time than most. Many would-be buyers in the current market find themselves working multiple jobs, paying for expensive childcare, contending with the continuously rising cost of living, navigating discrimination, or having to do all of this without support from their families or employers. With so many barriers to entry, it’s no wonder a growing number of Connecticut residents are foregoing homeownership. It’s more of a pipe dream today than a reality.

So the next time public officials insist they want to see more homeowners, not renters, in their communities, tell them those renters would like to buy a home, but it’s not that easy – even for the fortunate, and darn near impossible for the others.

David’s story:

After 37 years owning a home in West Hartford, we were typical downsizing Baby Boomers now reentering an eye-opening, troubling rental market.

We had more resources – thus, theoretically, more choices -- than many renters. But the market, we quickly found, was unfriendly and unforgiving.

The better choices were very expensive, even though my wife and I had saved for a lifetime, and very few were available. Many other apartments, while affordable, were old – aging fixtures, plumbing and HVAC systems, no parking, few windows to let in light – and we could only imagine what was crawling around inside the walls.

And there weren’t many of those, either.

The real issue, though, was the sobering, unsettling realization that the security we’d felt owning a home – controlling everything from the temperature to the decorations and knowing no one could take our home away from us – was gone.

Now, we were renters, at the mercy of landlords who could hike the rent, maintenance workers who wouldn’t come to fix the plumbing, and neighbors who wouldn’t turn down the music. Our safe place was gone. The lease was for one year. Was it possible we’d be evicted or for some other reason be forced to move?

Suddenly, I realized renters – with lower incomes, less savings, tiring jobs, unpredictable hours, undependable transportation, unaffordable healthcare and many more moving parts in their lives -- uniformly faced those problems.

And if the car's transmission broke or their hours at work were reduced, they’d miss a month’s rent and then all bets were off. Eviction and homelessness would follow.

The upshot: I couldn’t believe I’d advocated for more rental housing, more rental subsidies, more fair rent commissions and more rights for renters for so long with such a narrow view of what renters faced. I was so much more fortunate than most of them – the ability to afford more, with the use of a car to get around and thus, in theory at least, a much wider selection to choose from – that I’d been oblivious to much of what they routinely face. And yet my wife and I still had a hard time.

The silver lining: I began thinking it’d be eye-opening for us housing advocates to challenge zoning commissioners and selectmen to take a few weeks to search for an apartment they might be willing to live in. They’d face what we did and, as a result, learn what we did. And perhaps, the more open-minded among them might open their towns’ doors for creation of more housing options.

If policymakers in the state want to encourage more people to become homeowners, there are many opportunities they could take to fund or support programs that can provide help to more people with more barriers to entry.

A policy guide for municipal and state officials who want to promote affordable housing creation and homeownership:

Danielle Hubley is Advocacy & Education Manager for Partnership for Strong Communities. David Fink is a former Hartford Courant reporter and editor who was a housing policy consultant for 22 years.