Stamford resident Brittany Lawrence moved into her home at The BLVD Apartments in downtown Stamford nine years ago. It was Lawrence’s first apartment after college.
Now, Lawrence is planning her next move as The BLVD Apartments on Washington Boulevard are in the process of being sold to the University of Connecticut. The building will be converted into dormitories for UConn Stamford.
Lawrence first received notice of the building’s sale and plans for tenant relocation from an email and notice on her door in February.
“I'm in an affordable unit, and those leases are renewable by recertification,” Lawrence said. “So if you're not going to renew after my current term, what happens? And that was my question, basically.”
Lawrence is a member of the city-run affordable housing program, Below Market Rate (BMR), which is geared toward renters earning 50% of the Area Median Income (AMI). At BLVD there are nine affordable apartments.
Displacement may force renters to move into an apartment that makes them ineligible for the middle-income program and city officials have been unhelpful, Lawrence said.
“‘Sorry’ is not going to keep people housed. ‘Sorry’ is not going to help the families that you claim to want to help,” Lawrence said. “All in all, it's a state of vulnerableness that you know is a problem because you market it to the vulnerable population.”
Lawrence fears she and other residents at the BLVD apartments will now take whatever apartment they can get.
“When you have people that have nothing, whose hopes and dreams rely on you saying ‘This is what we can do for you,’ or ‘This is what we can offer you,’ you put them in a state of desperation that they're not able to think through what those long term implications can be,” Lawrence said.
What Stamford’s BMR program means
Residents partnered with the Connecticut Tenants Union (CTTU) are advocating for reforms to the city’s Below Market Rate program.
In Stamford, the BMR program is tied to the affordable apartments, not the tenants, according to CTTU Vice President Luke Melonakos-Harrison. Unlike traditional voucher-based programs like Section 8 or Rental Assistance Program, once the tenants are moved out, they have to start over and reapply for the BMR program.
“People are clinging to these units for dear life. What these tenants are pushing for is recognition that once you're in the BMR program, for that to mean something,” Melonakos-Harrison said. “If you get displaced by something like this, they're leasing it to UConn, now all of those apartments are lost.”
Union members outlined five key requests for the city, including a freezing of the annual eligibility certification to protect tenants from disqualification due to income changes, household shifts, or evolving city policies caused by their involuntary displacement.
Tenants asked Stamford officials to give low-income renters from BLVD priority for new affordable apartments, and keep the BMR status dependent on the tenant rather than the apartment.
“Those tenants should be recognized as having a special status because they were in this program,” Melonakos-Harrison said.
The current co-owners, RMS Companies and the Wolff Company, informed tenants they need to move out of BLVD by April 2026, Melonakos-Harrison said. Neither RMS nor Wolff responded to Connecticut Public’s request for comment.
The tentative plan was for BMR renters to move into market rate housing, with RMS/Wolff paying the rent difference until the completion of the company’s next Stamford venture; the renovation of a former Burlington store into nearly 300 apartments.
UConn Stamford’s Chief Administrative Officer, Jennifer Orlikoff, said she’s impressed with RMS and Wolff’s effort to smooth over the transition for residents.
“They are going out of their way to pay for relocation costs, especially for the tenants who are below market rate,” Orlikoff said. “They are providing interim housing for them as well and just and I think, general guidance for folks who are looking for other places to live in town.”
By late August, about 100 UConn students will be moved into the BLVD building. The newly-converted apartments were part of the general flow of apartment vacancies, not the result of forced displacement, Orlikoff said.
