Letter to the Editor - 3-21-24

On approaches to the affordable housing issue

We have read it many times in the Lakeville Journal: you can’t have a successful local economy without affordable housing, especially at the lower end of the market. Our teachers, health workers, first responders, and small business employees all need affordable housing in the towns where we live — not an hour away.

On March 10, our Representative Jahana Hayes announced that she has secured nearly $9 million for Community Project Funding in the Fifth District, including help for Salisbury, New Britain, Morris, and Goshen to provide new units of affordable housing and expanded homeless shelters.

In contrast her opponent, Eversource lobbyist George Logan, has listed among his biggest contributors the private equity firm Blackstone, whose proposed acquisition of the landlord giant Tricon will drive up rents and make the housing crisis worse.

Like the Trump real estate gang, Blackstone has a terrible track record of cheating its workers of living wages on the one hand and increasing rents with the other.

The contrast couldn’t be sharper: Congresswoman Hayes is securing more affordable housing and improvements for the towns in her district. Her opponent’s campaign contributors plan to raise rents nationwide, and he knows what his contributors expect of him.

President Biden’s Infrastructure Law has brought money into Connecticut’s Fifth District to re-invigorate the post-pandemic economy. Keep Jahana Hayes in office and Blackstone out of our elections!

Frank Fitzmaurice

Sharon