For the first time in nearly 30 years Connecticut will have a new member of Congress representing the state’s 1st Congressional District and with the new role comes the opportunity to share new ideas on affordable housing reform.
Former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, a Democrat, and Dr. Amy Chai, a Republican, are running for the 1st Congressional District seat, which represents parts of Hartford, Litchfield and Middlesex Counties.
Bronin recently secured his party’s nomination after defeating longtime incumbent Rep. John Larson in August’s primary election.
Bronin told Connecticut Public the federal government can play a larger role in affordable housing development than many realize. He wants the federal government to return to a more involved role in affordable housing development.
“Go back and look at the GI Bill, throughout much of the 20th century, the federal government was a huge part of creating housing opportunity, and in more recent decades, it's done less and less,” Bronin said.
Revamping existing federal affordable housing finance programs is one of Bronin’s legislative priorities.
“We have to reform and update a lot of the federal housing finance tools,” Bronin said. “There are important tools like Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) that make a big difference. But, first of all, we don't put enough resources into them, and second of all, I don't think they're flexible enough.”
As Hartford’s mayor, Bronin said several areas of the city were revitalized and converted from seas of parking spaces to new housing opportunities.
Chai, the Republican candidate, previously ran as an Independent against Rep. Rosa DeLauro in 2022.
Chai said she has two legislative plans for housing reform and has drafted federal legislation that would expand limits on private equity firms purchasing single family homes.
“I've long been interested in stopping some of the private equity abuses,” Chai said. “Because I'm a doctor, I know what it's done to medicine. I've always kind of been anti the scooping up of resources by private equity and sucking us all dry and then spitting it out.”
Chai said she has firsthand experience with private equity’s encroachment on single-family homes. When trying to sell her parents’ home, the top bidder was a private equity firm.
“I sold it to the lowest bidder. That was a young couple,” Chai said. “I'm already making money, I don't need extra money. I want someone in the neighborhood. That’s nice, but not everybody can afford to do that. People do sell to the highest bidder. Investors are using the low-income housing market for profit on a national level, and I think it's causing some problems.”
Chai also has plans for a pilot program in Hartford that would construct affordable home ownership opportunities on underutilized properties. If the program were to be a success, Chai said she’d try to get it expanded nationwide.
