A fight over housing segregation is dividing one of America s most liberal states msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
For a year, two sisters and their five children have languished in a neglected, Hartford apartment despite numerous complaints about the cockroach infestation, heat and power outages, broken appliances and other issues. The poor conditions they've lived with are all too common.
Monthly CT VIEWPOINTS opinions from around Connecticut
Right to counsel is just as much a racial justice issue as a housing policy issue
Yehyun Kim :: ctmirror.org
Protestors stand with signs asking to stop eviction in front of an apartment building in North End, Hartford. People from different parts of Connecticut gathered after hearing that a family with two children is going to be evicted in the cold during the pandemic.
Despite the state and federal moratoriums on eviction, nearly 3,000 Connecticut families have faced eviction in the past 10 months. Over half of these families were Black or Latinx, even though these groups combined comprise less than a quarter of the overall population.
Few tenants facing eviction have an attorney. Top lawmakers are poised to change that.
Yehyun Kim :: ctmirror.org
A group of people protest outside the Hartford apartment of a woman facing eviction during a snowstorm Feb. 18. She had an attorney and the decision was delayed while a settlement is being negotiated. On that same day, judges across the state gave permission for eight landlords to evict tenants. None of those tenants had an attorney.
Facing eviction this winter, Alice attempted to email to Hartford Housing Court the documents needed to qualify for the eviction moratorium program established by the federal government during the pandemic, but her paperwork didn’t arrive.
Yehyun Kim / CTMirror.org
Facing eviction this winter, Alice attempted to email to Hartford Housing Court the documents needed to qualify for the eviction moratorium program established by the federal government during the pandemic, but her paperwork didn’t arrive.
At her hearing on Tuesday, Alice cried as she told a judge she meets all the requirements for the moratorium, to whom at Hartford Housing Court she sent her documents, and that she will be homeless if the judge allows a state marshal to remove her from her one-bedroom apartment in the West End of Hartford. The CT Mirror is not disclosing Alice’s last name in this article at her request.