Developing Affordable Housing in Rural Connecticut

For the last 10 years, the production of new homes has been slow in rural Litchfield County, and most have been 1-unit homes, mainly single-family homes with three or more bedrooms on large lots. The region is in need of more 2-unit, 3-4 unit, and 5+ unit housing options, which are more affordable by nature than single-family homes. It has become more and more challenging for working families to make a home in the region, especially after rents and home prices soared during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Litchfield County is home to an incredible number of local nonprofit housing organizations working to address this housing crisis, but these groups mostly rely on the time and resources of volunteers to complete projects and identify new ones. With limited capacity and access to seed funding, planning and constructing or rehabbing an affordable housing development can take 5-10 years. It was clear the area needed an initiative that could provide day-to-day project management support and coordinate among the volunteer organizations to maximize their resources, and get projects done more quickly.

In 2022, a group of cross-sector partners from the housing and community development sectors, including the Housing Collective, came together to found the Litchfield County Center for Housing Opportunity (LCCHO) in order to address this challenge. Among other roles, the initiative would serve as a backbone supporting local nonprofits and offering technical expertise, local government connections, fundraising and capacity-building assistance, and additional resources to help address the ongoing housing affordability crisis.

The Town of Winchester, CT was facing the same challenge as other towns in the region–a consistent lack of homes affordable to households earning less than area median income. One  local housing volunteer identified an opportunity to convert a vacant elementary school into affordable housing. The town put out a Request for Proposal (RFP), but the local volunteers  recognized an undertaking this extensive would require a significant amount of technical expertise, from gathering government funding to hiring an architect.

LCCHO collaborated with these volunteers and helped to establish the Winchester Housing Partners, a new nonprofit designed to respond to these kinds of opportunities in the community. LCCHO helped the new group hire an experienced project team to ensure the proposal was viable. This group then; applied for and received congressionally directed spending to fund the acquisition of the building; helped apply for the needed permitting for the conversion; and provided seed funding to accomplish these initial steps in the process. All of this was a significant undertaking that a small, new nonprofit does not normally have capacity for. 

This is just one example of many across the county. In Sharon and Falls Village, local volunteer housing nonprofits have identified, acquired, and are renovating small existing 2-4 unit apartment buildings into dedicated affordable and sustainable housing units which will create housing opportunities for eleven households—supported by the project management support and seed funding from  LCCHO. All together, LCCHO, in collaboration with its partners has been able to help expand the pipeline of affordable housing units in development from 160 units in 2022 to 323 units in 2024, a 100% increase in roughly two years.

LCCHO’s backbone model works – it's a scalable, replicable approach that builds on and supports existing local efforts to build more affordable housing. Access to housing is a human right and LCCHO works as the technical backbone to help communities ensure this right is met.

Team

Contact the Litchfield County Center for Housing Opportunity team.