CONNECTICUT, USA — At 60 years old, Ezra Welch suddenly found himself in uncharted waters.
“I worked my whole life and I never expected to be sleeping in my car in the Walmart parking lot,” he said. “I’ve gone through a couple health scares, a couple job losses,” Welch said. “The last couple years have been very challenging,” he said.
He was evicted from his apartment and left with no place to live.
“There are no new places in Connecticut that will let you in the door unless you’ve got like 5,000 or so,” Welch said. “I went to seven different hotels none of them would accept the vouchers. I went to three different YMCAs, they all had no vacancies."
Forced to sink or swim, he was able to find temporary housing at a hotel. But what the future holds is still unknown.
In Connecticut. where evictions are still exceeding pre-pandemic levels, Welch is not alone.
According to the CT Fair Housing Center, 22,749 evictions were filed in 2022, a jump from 2019 when there were 19,104.
So far, this year those numbers are closer to 2019’s but still higher.
“The pandemic really did exacerbate what was already a sad trend,” said Joseph Osborne, head of the Windham Mills Tenant Union. He said the end of the eviction moratorium in 2021 was the beginning of the wave of evictions.
“A lot of tenants were misinformed in regards to their responsibility as far as rent. People thought that because there was a moratorium that they didn’t owe rent. So, they stopped paying rent,” Osborne said.
Now, rising rental costs are adding to the problem.
“That is a crisis. And that is happening everywhere. Some of the numbers have been astounding where I’ve heard of people’s rents going up over $1000,” Osborne said.
From 2022 to 2023, the fair market rent for a one-bedroom apartment went up 21% in the Bridgeport area, 15% in the Hartford area and 13% in the New Haven area.
Landlords argue that’s because of rising costs everywhere else, from electricity to insurance.
“Most landlords are going to try to help people to do a degree but they can only wait so long you know they have expenses that keep piling up too,” said John Souza, president of the CT Coalition of Property Owners.
Souza said the eviction process can be a lengthy and expensive one that landlords often try to avoid.
“Eviction court is the only way to resolve the differences between the landlord, there’s no other system,” Souza said. “It costs a fortune for the landlord in lost rent. Most of the time unfortunately you have to hire a lawyer so it adds to the cost of the system too by having to have lawyers involved,” he said.
For tenants, there is help. The state recently rolled out a Right to Counsel program that offers free legal representation for people facing eviction.
Something that can come crashing down on anyone.
“You’re only one health scare away, you’re only one car crash away, you’re only one your spouse or somebody gets sick and passes away covid, who knows,” Welch said.
Read part 1,Connecticut's housing crisis: The big picture, here.
Read part 2, The state of real estate in Connecticut, here.
Read part 3, Connecticut's Housing Crisis: Radical rent prices squeeze people's wallets, here.
Gaby Molina is a reporter and anchor at FOX61 News. She can be reached at mmolina@fox61.com. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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