Housing activists and tenants are relaunching an effort to increase Connecticut’s eviction protections.
The state’s existing Just Cause Eviction law protects seniors and disabled tenants from being evicted from their home at the end of a lease without being given a reason, such as lack of payment or damaging property.
New Haven resident Sun Queen was evicted from her apartment after more than a decade.
“After 14 years of building a life inside the same apartment, I received the notice to quit, 14 years of memories, stability, community reduced to a piece of paper telling me to disappear,” Queen said. “Not because I destroyed property, not because I stopped paying rent, not because I endangered anyone, but because the system says a landlord can still erase a life with paperwork.”
The Connecticut Tenants Union is once again spearheading the movement to expand Just Cause, with support from several state lawmakers.
Democratic State Sen. Martha Marx, who represents parts of New London County, is among the lawmakers supporting a bill that would expand the law to protect all renters in buildings with 5 or more units.
“They can just say, ‘See, ya, you're out of here. You're evicted for no reason,’” Marx said. “ There are so many reasons why people are evicted from their homes and they are their homes.”
Marx suggested landlords may use no fault evictions to circumvent anti-discrimination housing laws.
“Don't think people aren't evicted because of the color of the skin, because of the people who they love, because of what they cook, because of what church they go to, or because of what gender they are, or even because they're fat or thin, or even because they have children, there are so many reasons or because they smoke a little weed,” Marx said.
Landlords say the evictions are an important tool in providing safe and comfortable communities.
Expanding just cause has been considered by state lawmakers for several years, and gained approval by the state’s Housing Committee but was never raised for a vote by the entire chamber.
“The end of a lease is a time when both parties can say, ‘Hey, I want to stay,’ or ‘Hey, I want to go. I'm moving somewhere else,’” Connecticut Apartment Association Secretary and Landlord Lauren Tagliatela said. “We use lapse of time very judiciously and very rarely, but it is an important tool to have.”
