By Chris Powell
Nearly everyone in Connecticut purports to agree that the state needs more low-cost housing — just not wherever such housing happens to be proposed. The right place for low-cost housing is almost always someplace else.
Opposition to low-cost housing is easy to understand if not always justified. Low-cost housing is associated with poverty, and poverty is associated with antisocial behavior. Many people have fled the cities because of the pathologies of poverty that come out of low-cost housing. That is what exclusive zoning in the suburbs is about.
But housing is now so expensive that people who aspire to the middle class and would make perfectly good neighbors are being excluded and oppressed.
So maybe housing advocates should take some inspiration from Connecticut’s colonial history.
Back in the 1600s and 1700s as Europeans carved themselves a home out of the frontier in Connecticut, newcomers were not allowed to decide for themselves where they would live. The problem wasn’t the Indians as much as earlier Europeans themselves.
Life was hard and the settlers didn’t want just anyone living among them. They wanted only newcomers able to support themselves and unlikely to become a burden on the community. So newcomers were told to present themselves to a town meeting and apply to become an “admitted inhabitant.” Anyone rejected was “warned out” — that is, told to scram.
So when they present their proposals to municipal planning and zoning board hearings, developers of low-cost housing might do well to bring along a dozen or so people who would like to occupy the proposed housing and who would be able to pay the rent or mortgage and potentially strengthen the community.
This would put the faces of the self-supporting on the need for housing.
Of course some of those faces might belong to people already connected to the town — children or grandchildren of town residents or people already employed in town. Most probably would not have criminal records, but even those who did might be given a chance to explain how they have rehabilitated themselves and want to pay their own way, be good citizens, and add something to the community. Indeed, if housing wasn’t so expensive, [ITALICS] everybody [END ITALICS] might be able to add more.
Growth used to be considered good, a sign of health, something to be proud of. But in recent years Connecticut has become notorious for its lack of economic and population growth and, worse, for exporting its children to states that provide greater opportunity and are more welcoming. This defect in Connecticut won’t be fixed without more and less expensive housing.
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CARELESS COLLEGES: Government in Connecticut often seems to be a huge manufacturer of financial liability for the public, an impression confirmed the other day by a report in the Journal Inquirer about the State Colleges and University System, which operates the four regional state universities and the 12 community colleges.
According to the report, in the last three years the system has paid $2.5 million to settle lawsuits and employee complaints, perhaps the most disgraceful case being the firing and rehiring of Manchester Community College chief executive Nicole Esposito, who, in addition to being restored to her job, was paid $775,000 to withdraw her lawsuit charging sex discrimination.
Illegal discrimination is claimed by a bunch of the pending complaints against the system. Other complaints involve the denial of promotions.
Of course not all the complaints may be valid. The college system may generate so many financial claims not just because it is badly managed but also because the system is coming to be seen as a soft touch, willing to pay to settle complaints on a nuisance basis since the money to be paid is nobody’s money — that is, taxpayer money.
Governor Lamont and the General Assembly should be investigating this. While the legislature got rid of its Program Review and Investigations Committee years ago, presuming that state government’s operations no longer need scrutiny, the legislature still has a committee with jurisdiction for higher education. The committee is good at finding ways of spending more money. The many financial claims against the colleges and university system show that the committee could use some practice in economizing.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years.
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Chris Powell column 