Yale Daily News

In one of the most substantive messages of her campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris promises to make rent more affordable and home ownership more attainable. 

According to a new report, the Bridgeport-New Haven metro area is the fourth most competitive rental market in the country due to an insufficient housing supply — 16 prospective renters compete for one rental unit. 

Housing activists and homeless people in New Haven repeatedly call for more affordable housing in the city. Mayor Justin Elicker puts housing at the top of his agenda. Could Harris’ plan to build three million affordable units nationwide and provide up to $25,000 in grants to first-time homebuyers give New Haven the relief it needs?

New Haven already offers up to $27,500 in a down payment assistance program to buy a home for residents in certain income brackets. Elicker said Harris’ proposal would complement New Haven’s program well, ensuring that more individuals can become homeowners. 

But Jeffrey Gentes, an attorney for the Connecticut Fair Housing Center who works on fair lending and foreclosure prevention, is skeptical that Harris’ proposed grants would make homeownership more attainable for a significant group of people. 

In 2009, New Haven introduced an $8,000 tax credit for residents who were first-time homebuyers or had not owned a home in at least three years. According to Gentes, this policy increased prices sellers could get for homes and increased money in realtors’ and builders’ pockets.

“The $8,000 homebuyer credit in 2009, that’s cute,” Gentes said. “But it didn’t do anything to regulate mortgage servicers or keep them actually doing what they were supposed to do in terms of modifying loans for existing homeowners.”

What New Haven really needs, he said, is more housing units that people can actually afford because, right now, “rent is preposterous.”

Elicker does not foresee Harris’ proposed grants to first-time homebuyers driving prices for units higher than they already are, saying that the grants are “not significant enough to dramatically change the housing market.” He does see the grants contributing to family equity that can be passed through generations, which would benefit the community in the long term.

Elicker, however, agreed that the ultimate problem is the lack of enough units. 

“​​There’s just such a deep need for additional housing and affordable housing that Harris’ plan would significantly help our city and our state,” Elicker said. 

Elicker said Connecticut currently needs 70,000 new housing units. Harris’ plan to use federal tax incentives to build three million affordable units, he believes, “would be a pretty significant incentive for developers to do the investment that we want to see happen” in New Haven.

Mark Colville, lead organizer of the Unhoused Activists Community Team, believes that this plan will “never happen” and will certainly not contribute to more affordable housing in New Haven. 

U-ACT is currently holding an encampment on New Haven Green, and many participants have pointed to the city’s lack of affordable housing as the root of their homelessness.

Colville feels these types of promises at the national level are almost never kept, particularly when it comes to addressing homelessness. He feels the federal government has given up responsibility for housing, which has instead become a “capitalist venture.”

Elicker noted that under the Biden-Harris administration, New Haven has been able to build more than 2,000 new units — more than 40 percent of them affordable — using American Rescue Plan funds given to the city. He said government assistance is often the key for developers to build housing units in New Haven. 

The Harris-Walz campaign could not be reached for comment.

Kamala Harris is the former Attorney General of California.