Yash Roy photo
Bianca Flecha with "Cap the Rent" organizer James O'Donnell.
Bianca Flecha opened the door of her Poplar Street apartment building to find an Australia-raised tenant organizer with a pitch that resonated.
She said her rent has gone up a couple hundred dollars every year that she’s lived in her Fair Haven home.
James O’Donnell, a New Haven-based organizer with the Connecticut Tenants Union, told her that she’s not alone in experiencing such hikes — and that a new bill before the state legislature would help put a cap on those ever-rising housing costs for renters.
O’Donnell and Flecha had that at-the-doors conversation Sunday during a neighborhood canvass O’Donnell helped lead throughout Fair Haven.
The canvass was the latest doorknocking effort by supporters of a proposed state bill that would cap annual rent hikes at no more than 2.5 percent.
Over the course of the day’s canvass, O’Donnell spoke about how his own first-hand experience of rising rents inspired him to get involved in this rent-cap push. He moved to New Haven from Melbourne 18 months ago and still can’t believe that he’s paying more for a one-bedroom apartment in New Haven than he did for his three-bedroom home Down Under. That experience resonated with renters like Flecha who opened their own doors and wound up calling their state legislators to urge their support for the bill.
Yash Roy Photos
At Sunday's "cap the rent" canvass.
Sunday’s outreach effort took place as more than 50 percent of Connecticut renters are rent-burdened, or spend more than 30 percent of their incomes on rent — a crisis that is only worsening as tenants union advocates claim that the average increase of rent in the state over the last two years has reached as high as 20 percent. (This July 2022 report by Hearst, meanwhile, states that New Haven rents increased on average by 7 percent from March 2021 to March 2022. That’s on top of a roughly 6.8 percent increase the year before, according to that same report.)
O’Donnell is a mechanic at the Bradley Street Bike Co-op while his partner finishes up the third year at Yale Law School. He is also an organizer with the Blake Street Tenants Union. “I’m lucky that I have savings from my job in Australia because I’m the sole owner of my household and the rent and increases in New Haven are just becoming unsustainable,” O’Donnell said.
O’Donnell was one of a handful of organizers from the Connecticut Tenants Union who gathered at the Fair Haven public library on Sunday before heading out to knock on doors and speak with neighborhood renters to try to raise further support for Proposed Senate Bill 138: “An Act Concerning Rent Stability and No-Fault Evictions.”
That law, which has been co-introduced by New Haven state lawmakers Gary Winfield and Robyn Porter among others, would cap rent increases across Connecticut at no more than 2.5 percent per year. It would also restrict “no-fault” evictions related to, for example, expired or invalid leases. Click here to read the text of the proposed bill itself. Click here to read more about the launch of a statewide Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) push to drum up support for the bill. Click here to read about the group’s doorknocking effort in the Hill in mid-January.
According to O’Donnell, prior to 2020 the average increase in rent across the state was roughly 2.1 percent which is why advocates are calling for a 2.5 percent increase cap. SB 138 includes exemptions for smaller landlords who can apply to their local municipality for an exception to the cap.
“We’re canvassing and getting people to sign this petition because there’s nothing more powerful to a legislator than seeing hundreds of thousands of their constituents putting their weight behind a bill with stronger provisions for renters,” organizer Alex Speiser said.
Alex Speiser
During Sunday’s canvass, Poplar Street resident Bianca Flecha told O’Donnell that her rent has increased by a couple hundred dollars every year since she first moved in seven years ago.
“It’s crazy. Every year, no matter what, my rent goes up, even though my boss isn’t raising my wage, and we’re still expected to make three times of rent to even be able to live here,” Flecha said. “Plus, there’s not a lot of maintenance done…my bathroom floor is literally moving every time I step foot inside, and I dread going to the bathroom now.”
Another Fair Haven renter, Ian Pizzaro, said he hasn’t seen his rent go up over the last few years. He nevertheless signed the petition and called New Haven State Sen. and Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney to express his support for the bill, saying it would help his neighbors and protect him if his landlord decides to raise rent in the future.
Sunday’s canvassing in Fair Haven — as well as in East Hartford, Bridgeport, and East Manchester — was part of a concerted organizing effort by the Connecticut Tenants Union to drum up support for the bill. Since launching the canvassing campaign in January, the group has collected a few hundred signatures.
With two weeks to go until the state legislature is set to host a public hearing on a similar proposal with “weaker provisions” (as the canvassers on Sunday put it) like a 4 percent annual rent-hike cap that is also adjusted with inflation and no mention of ending no-cause evictions, organizers were also using the canvassing as an opportunity to scout for people to testify before state lawmakers.
Canvassers also asked residents they spoke with to call Looney’s phone number and leave a voicemail in support of SB 138.
The “Cap the Rent CT” effort began on a January zoom call which was on the same day that State legislators, including New Haven’s State Sen. Winfield and Rep. Porter introduced the 2.5 percent rent-cap bill in the Connecticut General Assembly.
Gilbertie is organizing with CTU after seeing rent go up in his area.
“I’m here because I’m going to be graduating relatively soon, and I’ve been looking at rental prices around my area and they’re frankly ridiculous for someone like me who’s going into an entry level business marketing career,” Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) senior Thomas Gilbertie said at Sunday’s canvassing event. “Rent’s gone up 10 – 20 percent across the board and that’s ridiculous, especially when more and more people are going onto the streets because of higher rental prices. So it’s time to do something about it.”
Connecticut law currently prohibits municipalities from regulating rent. Roughly 200 municipalities across the nation, meanwhile, have already adopted some form of rent control regulation. Thus, CTU and other housing advocate groups have pushed for the bill to expand regulatory options that are at the disposal of the state and municipalities. (The state does empower municipalities to set up Fair Rent Commissions, which can hold hearings on, investigating, and strike down rent increases they find to be “harsh and unconscionable.”)
Ben Smith gives a demo on canvassing before organizers head out to speak with Fair Haveners.
“This bill isn’t the end though… it’s just the beginning to make life a little bit easier for residents,” organizer Ben Smith said on Sunday. “But this is just the beginning of a path of guaranteeing affordable housing for all.”
Good afternoon Ladies and gentlemen,
My name is Michael Hayes. I am a small housing provider and developer located in New Haven area and I wish to speak to the negative effects I believe that Senate Bill 906, 907 and 909 will have on overall housing availability, housing quality and the overall economy of the municipalities.
I started providing housing in New Haven in 2005 while working as a nurse at Yale New Haven Hospital. To fund that enterprise, I was working up to 100 hours a week at the hospital and managing the properties as I built up a small housing portfolio. I took on a lot of risk and sacrificed much of my 20’s and 30’s to build what I have now. I have never evicted a residential tenant. The first time I have ever had to raise the rents of existing tenants came this year when the revaluation in New Haven, and subsequent meager drop in the mil rate, Increased my taxes 90% in some of my properties. Insurance rates, which are largely based on cost to rebuild a property also went up 30 to 40%. There was no cap on those increases. I was forced to contact my tenants and explained at length the breakdown of the cost increase per apartment and increased their rent by that amount. Up until that point, if you were a tenant of mine you could pretty much count on the fact that your rent would not go up from year to year. I only raise rents when apartments become available to new tenants, which is what allows me to keep rent stable for my long term tenants. The new tenants subsidize the old tenants. What I am doing is not unique, it is how most small landlords operate. If these bills pass I will be forced to end that practice due to what I know will come on the economic horizon based on how rent control has affected housing in the past.
Standby by for part 2...