By Chris Powell
Maybe someday housing prices in Connecticut will come way down and housing construction will go way up.
Maybe someday the state’s economy will be stronger.
Maybe someday inflation will be repealed as federal government policy.
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Maybe someday the state will restore standards in public education and stop graduating so many uneducated young people qualified only for menial work.
Maybe someday the state will reform its welfare policies so it does not produce so many fatherless, neglected, demoralized, and disturbed children.
But in the meantime Connecticut has a growing population of people who are not able or inclined to fend for themselves, or to do it honestly. Homelessness and mental illness are worsening and government is not prepared to deal with them. Their burdens keep falling mainly on the cities and inner suburbs, since that’s where the shelters, public housing, least expensive private housing, and social services are.
While Governor Lamont’s administration will facilitate construction of private, multi-family housing where there is little political opposition, the governor is not inclined to support legislation that would force more housing on municipalities that don’t want it and override more of their zoning. So it may take many years before the economy, education, housing construction, and welfare policy manage on their own to reduce homelessness and mental illness.
But these problems are urgent and should be addressed comprehensively by the whole state. For Connecticut has thousands of damaged lives needing repair.
Poverty, homelessness, and mental illness are not new in Connecticut. The state has faced them for almost three centuries. Indeed, to address them today the state might do well to look back to the policy response of olden times — the “town farm.”
Town farms were more than shelters for the homeless. They were big rooming houses operated by municipal government and situated on substantial agricultural acreage. Town farms would house and feed the indigent and mentally ill but also require them, insofar as they were able, to contribute to the production and maintenance of the farm — to earn their keep. While town farms were primitive, they could make money and teach their residents job skills and to take responsibility for themselves.
Surely government today could do better with a town farm approach than by shuffling the homeless and mentally ill among the streets and overcrowded shelters. Connecticut already has some “supportive housing” operated by social-service organizations for people recovering from drug addiction and mental illness — efficiency apartments in buildings equipped to provide medical and counseling services to tenants. The Lamont administration proposes to open hundreds more such units for people recovering from addiction.
The state might establish similar facilities that would put the homeless in efficiency apartments, give them some privacy, stability, and peace of mind, feed them, treat their ailments consistently, and provide day care for their children — on condition that the tenants work to maintain the facility or get jobs or training outside the facility, pay rent, and restore themselves.
Of course such facilities would have to be closely supervised, and the disruptive mentally ill excluded. But an enhanced sort of town farm might help rebuild lives far more than mere shelters can.
Municipalities won’t undertake such projects, lacking both the resources and inclination. State government would have to handle siting, construction, and operation of new town farms, though their operation could be delegated to capable social-service organizations.
Since supportive housing facilities have been established in some places without much controversy, maybe enhanced town farms might be established without much controversy too. But controversy would always be a risk, and rehabilitating the homeless and mentally ill will always require the governor and state legislators to spend political capital along with state money.
With a high approval rating, Governor Lamont has such capital to spend. The longstanding Democratic majorities in the General Assembly may have such capital as well. Some of it should be deployed on homelessness and mental illness, especially since winter still has weeks to run.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
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Chris Powell column 