Community Resources

ADDRESSING CLIENTS’ NEEDS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR FAIR HOUSING RIGHTS IN ENGLISH, SPANISH, MANDARIN, VIETNAMESE, FARSI, RUSSIAN, ITALIAN, KREYOL, ARABIC, KHMER, AND TAGALOG, CLICK HERE

More COVID-19 resources can be found on our website here.

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Foreclosure advice: Until the pandemic, the Center provided several different ways for homeowners in foreclosure to get assistance. Since most of these involved in-person meetings in courthouses, those avenues for assistance have shut down. However, beginning on August 7, the Center will start holding Foreclosure Advice Virtual Sessions. Homeowners facing foreclosure will be able to sign up for advice sessions over video or phone, and get some individualized questions answered in a way they – under normal circumstances – could at our in-person clinics or through the Judicial Branch’s Volunteer Attorney Program. The program will begin on August 7, with 8 slots weekly, and expand if there’s enough demand from homeowners and capacity for us. Homeowners can sign up, answer a few short questions, and be set up with an appointment pretty quickly.

Outreach

• Public Official Outreach: Center staff continue to participate in Facebook Live, community Zoom meetings, and tele-townhalls with legislative officials. If you would like our assistance reaching your constituency, please contact our outreach coordinator shussain@ctfairhousing.org

• Staff continue to hold fair housing trainings and COVID-19 housing resource workshops via Zoom with social service agencies, direct service providers, and invested stakeholders. If your agency would find a short resource webinar or fair housing training helpful during this crisis please contact Shaznene Hussain, the Center’s Education and Outreach Coordinator, at Shussain@ctfairhousing.org

Call to Action:  Tenants in Connecticut are calling on Governor Lamont to stop all evictions indefinitely and cancel the obligation to pay rent. Connecticut leads the nation in income inequality, and this burden is disproportionately shouldered by Black and brown communities: nearly 60% of Black renters and 55% of Hispanic renters are cost-burdened compared to people who are white. For more information on tenants’ demands and to sign the petition, click here. To participate in the daily actions on Mondays and Wednesday, click here.

 What we are hearing from our clients: 

• Tenants attempting to apply for TRHAP assistance are experiencing long wait times in getting through to someone who can take their application and depleting minutes on pay-as-you-go phones.
• The TRHAP program does not have a TTY line making it difficult for people who are deaf or hard of hearing to apply for benefits.
• Tenants continue to seek assistance on how to pay their rent when they have lost their income due to COVID-19 
• Tenants are being threatened with termination of their lease in response to extended eviction moratorium 
• Landlords are raising rents in response to housing shortage cause by inflow of new residents into Connecticut 
• Landlords are harassing tenants for rent 
• Tenants are being denied housing based on how many children they have 
• Tenants using housing subsidies to pay their rent continue to face source of income discrimination