KENT — Since 2019, 583 affordable homes have been completed or are under construction in Litchfield County, state housing officials said Thursday, Sept. 24, at the fifth Litchfield County Housing Affordability Summit.
The summit brought volunteers from affordable housing groups in 12 towns to the Kent Community House. Exhibits ringed the room as volunteers described their projects.
Speakers emphasized the cooperation needed to move those projects forward and encouraged the groups to keep going.
David Rich, who is stepping down after 20 years leading The Housing Collective, which works to address homelessness and expand affordable housing, praised the local groups’ persistence.
“You are catalysts for housing in northwest Connecticut,” he told attendees.
Rich said progress requires tenacity and grit. Despite uncertainty surrounding homelessness and the housing shortage, he said, “working in the Northwest Corner gives me hope.”
Jocelyn Ayer, director of the
Litchfield County Center for Housing Opportunity, urged the volunteer groups to share ideas and celebrate what they had achieved. The center works with towns and nonprofit groups to develop affordable housing.
State Housing Commissioner Seila Mosquera-Bruno, who provided the figure of 583 homes, pointed to progress in the region, including the groundbreaking for Salisbury’s Holley Place and the development of 10 net-zero homes at Haystack Woods in Norfolk.
She said the 583 affordable homes completed or under construction in the county since 2019 have received $49 million in department funding and another $100 million in public and private investment. Developers of five proposed projects, totaling 93 additional homes, have been invited to apply for financing.
“For a rural region, that is remarkable momentum,” Mosquera-Bruno said. “Litchfield County continues to show what rural communities can accomplish when collaboration leads the way.”
Nandini Natarajan, CEO of the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, said rural communities face challenges involving the scale and cost of housing projects that call for flexible solutions.
“I’m struck by the commitment and energy of the affordable housing groups,” she said.
Natarajan cited the authority’s role in financing a Sharon project to rehabilitate six homes as affordable residences and create four units in the former Community Center building.
After the speakers, attendees broke into groups for “Table Talks.” Representatives of the local housing groups were stationed around the room to explain their projects and answer questions. Groups from Barkhamsted, Cornwall, Falls Village, Goshen, Kent, Litchfield, Morris, Norfolk, Salisbury, Sharon, Winchester and Washington took part.
State Rep. Maria Horn, D-64, closed the program with a discussion of state and federal housing legislation.
Ayer sent attendees off with a call for community: “Let’s put the us back in housing.”
The summit was hosted by the Center for Housing Opportunity in partnership with The Foundation for Community Health and The Lakeville Journal. Torrington Savings Bank and Northwell Health sponsored the event.
