Proposed reform to state eviction laws — which would have required landlords to provide a reason for evicting someone, a concept known as “just cause” — will not move forward this year, proponents said Tuesday.
As the legislature’s 2025 session approaches its final weeks, Housing Committee Co-Chair, Rep. Antonio Felipe, D-Bridgeport, said he doesn’t expect House Bill 6889 to come up for a vote in the House. The bill, which had broad support from Connecticut renters and housing advocates, passed the Housing Committee in March.
Although lawmakers who endorsed eviction reform said many of their colleagues privately supported it, not enough of them were willing to go public with that support by voting in favor of the bill.
“I don’t think there is any path forward at this point,” Felipe said Tuesday morning. “I believe we have the votes. I don’t believe those votes are all willing to be public at this point.”
Last year, Felipe faced problems in the House with a similar bill that would have reformed evictions in Connecticut. Although Senate leadership believed they had the votes, the House wasn’t able to secure enough support.
Felipe championed the just cause eviction bill again this session. The bill would have banned no-fault evictions, which typically occur at the end of a lease, in buildings with five or more units, after the tenant had been there for at least a year. Connecticut has similar protections in place for renters with disabilities and seniors.
Tenants say this type of eviction may be used in retaliation when renters complain about housing conditions or to evict every resident of a building or complex when new ownership purchases the property.
Negotiations over the bill have been going back and forth for weeks. Members of the Democratic party were split, even in the committee process.
H.B. 6889 drew some of the most heated debate and the largest number of speakers of any bill the Housing Committee considered this session.
Landlords opposed the bill, saying it would make it harder for them to evict problem tenants.
“There is no more cause for the ‘just cause’ bill today than there was when the legislature rejected it last year, because it does not protect Connecticut’s apartment communities and will not build one new apartment home to relieve the state’s housing shortage,” the Connecticut Apartment Association said in an April press release about the bill.
Ultimately, the bill faced a similar fate this year.
Luke Melonakos-Harrison, vice president of the Connecticut Tenants Union, said Tuesday that the news of its demise was disheartening, particularly considering the hundreds of renters who testified and the broad support it drew from advocacy groups focused on housing, homelessness, health and labor unions.
“I don’t understand what these Democrats are so afraid of,” Melonakos-Harrison said, adding that about a third of Connecticut residents are tenants compared to a much smaller number of landlords.
“It’s such a massive constituency that I struggle to understand why legislators, so many of them, seem to recognize landlords as a constituency with shared concerns, but don’t seem to recognize tenants as a constituency,” Melonakos-Harrison said.
The statewide Connecticut Tenants Union has gaining political power for the past few years, formalizing its structure and increasing lobbying activities. But lobbying groups representing landlords maintain a more established presence in the state Capitol.
While the bill was under consideration, some Connecticut residents received phone calls asking them to oppose the measure. “Imagine living next to someone who makes you feel unsafe, and there is nothing you can do about it. Can we count on you to oppose this bill?” one caller said.
House leadership earlier this month said support had been difficult to gather within the party caucus. Speaker of the House Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said he’d fielded concerns from lawmakers who feared that if new owners couldn’t evict renters, they wouldn’t be able to make renovations and rental housing would deteriorate.
Members of the Democratic caucus also raised concerns that it would be hard for landlords to evict “bad tenants,” Ritter said. Landlords have repeatedly raised the same issue — that if someone is smoking or being disruptive, it’s sometimes easier to evict them through a no-fault eviction.
“You have people saying, ‘If you don’t incentivize people to come in, and then they can’t charge higher rents, they’re going to let their buildings be decrepit, deteriorate, and then flip it,” Ritter said. “And we could not solve that in the caucus. That was probably the single biggest issue.”
House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, said it’s a tough balance to strike between tenants’ rights and landlord issues.
Republican lawmakers broadly opposed the bill.
“I had serious concerns with this same proposal last year, which would have established a general right for any tenant to remain in a rental unit after a lease term expires in perpetuity. It didn’t even come up for a vote in the House because it’s a problematic concept,” said Housing Committee ranking member Rep. Tony Scott, R-Monroe, in a text message after the launch of the just cause campaign.
Sen. Rob Sampson of Wolcott, ranking member of the Housing Committee, has said the bill would violate landlords’ rights and that government shouldn’t encroach on private contracts like leases.
It wasn’t clear whether Gov. Ned Lamont supported the bill. At a recent press briefing, he gave what he admitted was a neutral response when questioned about his stance.
“Look, rents are going up a lot,” Lamont said. “There’s a lot of sudden shock. A lot of people are at risk of losing a place to stay. So I understand the worry about that. You also want to get a balance and make sure we have people continuing to invest in a state like this with rental units.”
This story was originally published in the Connecticut Mirror.
