Partnership for Strong Communities: Complete Guide to Mission, Statewide Policy Advocacy, Research and Data Resources, Connecticut Affordable Housing Conference, Coalition Building, and Equitable Housing Leadership Throughout Connecticut

1. What is Partnership for Strong Communities?

Partnership for Strong Communities stands as Connecticut’s premier statewide housing policy, research, and advocacy organization dedicated to promoting equitable change in Connecticut’s housing landscape. Founded on the principle that everyone in Connecticut deserves a safe, stable, and affordable home in a community of their choice, the Partnership works to reshape housing policy, advance evidence-based solutions, and unite diverse stakeholders around a common vision of housing justice and opportunity for all Connecticut residents.

Connecticut’s housing landscape mirrors the historical inequalities and racism ingrained in America’s housing system. Housing policies have restricted certain families from renting or owning homes in thriving neighborhoods, denying them access to quality education, healthcare, and the ability to pass on generational wealth. Thousands of Connecticut families are confined to unstable and often unsafe housing situations and neighborhoods, with limited pathways to economic advancement and stability. Partnership for Strong Communities works to address these deep-rooted injustices through comprehensive policy advocacy, rigorous research, strategic coalition building, and community engagement that centers the voices of those most affected by housing inequity.

Understanding Housing Affordability in Connecticut

An affordable home is one where the resident uses no more than 30 percent of their income to pay for housing costs and still meets their other expenses. Residents who live in affordable homes have funds to meet essential needs such as food, healthcare, education, and other living requirements. Affordable homes mean that residents also have the ability to purchase goods and services in their communities, creating and supporting community economic stability. This definition of affordability guides all of Partnership for Strong Communities’s work and policy advocacy.

Unaffordable housing hurts all Connecticut residents and communities. Inability to pay rent or mortgage often leads to eviction, foreclosure, and even the experience of homelessness. Loss or disruption in housing can mean disruption in a family’s ability to go to work and children’s ability to be prepared for school. Those who cannot afford their housing can be forced to live in overcrowded or substandard homes where residents lack privacy, a place to do homework, an adequate place to sleep, and more. Unsafe homes expose children and families to lead paint, mold and other allergens, and are often located in under-resourced and unsafe neighborhoods. The Partnership works to address these cascading harms through comprehensive policy solutions that expand housing affordability and opportunity.

Comprehensive Approach to Housing Justice

Partnership for Strong Communities employs a comprehensive, multi-faceted approach to advancing housing justice in Connecticut. The organization combines policy advocacy at the state legislature with rigorous research and data analysis that informs evidence-based solutions. Through coalition building, the Partnership unites diverse stakeholders including housing developers, service providers, advocates, municipal officials, and residents around common goals. Community engagement ensures that those most affected by housing challenges have voice and leadership in shaping solutions. And strategic convenings through the annual Connecticut Affordable Housing Conference create space for learning, networking, and collective strategizing.

This integrated approach recognizes that transforming Connecticut’s housing landscape requires simultaneous action on multiple fronts. Good policy alone is insufficient without the political will to enact it—hence the importance of coalition building and grassroots organizing. Policy advocacy is strengthened by rigorous research that provides evidence and data supporting proposed solutions. And sustainable change requires building the capacity of organizations and communities to implement solutions effectively, which the Partnership supports through convenings, technical assistance, and resource sharing.

The Four Pillars of Housing Policy

Partnership for Strong Communities’s work focuses on four core policy pillars that together create a comprehensive framework for housing justice. Affordability encompasses policies and programs that help people afford their homes, including rental assistance, homeownership support, and protections against unaffordable rent increases. Creation focuses on increasing the supply of affordable housing through investment in development and preservation of affordable homes, with particular attention to deeply affordable units serving the lowest-income households.

Choice addresses barriers that limit where people can live, including exclusionary zoning, discrimination, and lack of housing options in high-opportunity areas. The Partnership advocates for policies that expand housing choice and promote integration and opportunity. Stability includes protections that help people remain in their homes, such as just cause eviction protections, fair rent commissions, right to counsel in eviction proceedings, and support services that help households maintain housing stability.

These four pillars—affordability, creation, choice, and stability—provide a framework that ensures comprehensive attention to Connecticut’s housing challenges. Effective solutions must address all four areas simultaneously rather than focusing narrowly on just one dimension of housing policy.

Partnership-Based Model

True to its name, Partnership for Strong Communities’s mission is carried out through partnerships. The organization facilitates, nurtures, and leverages crucial relationships with and among partners to harness collective power for systemic change. Rather than working in isolation, the Partnership brings together housing developers, service providers, advocates, municipal officials, policymakers, researchers, faith communities, and residents to work collaboratively toward shared goals.

This partnership-based model recognizes that no single organization can address Connecticut’s housing challenges alone. Sustainable solutions require coordinated action across multiple sectors and stakeholders. The Partnership serves as convener, coordinator, and catalyst—bringing people together, facilitating strategic collaboration, providing research and analysis that informs collective action, and advocating for policies that create favorable conditions for partners to do their work effectively.

2. Mission, Vision, and Core Values

Partnership for Strong Communities’s work is guided by a clear mission and vision that articulate the organization’s ultimate goals and the strategies employed to achieve them. Understanding these foundational principles helps clarify what the Partnership does, why it matters, and how the organization approaches the work of advancing housing justice throughout Connecticut.

Mission Statement

Partnership for Strong Communities’s mission is to promote equitable change in Connecticut housing policy by coordinating advocacy, advancing research, and uniting diverse partners. This mission statement encapsulates several key commitments that shape all aspects of the organization’s work.

The emphasis on equitable change reflects the Partnership’s explicit commitment to addressing racial and economic inequities embedded in Connecticut’s housing system. The organization recognizes that housing challenges disproportionately affect people of color, low-income families, people with disabilities, and other marginalized communities. Advancing equity requires not just expanding housing opportunities generally but specifically addressing disparities and dismantling systems that perpetuate segregation and exclusion.

The focus on housing policy indicates that Partnership for Strong Communities works primarily at the systemic and policy level rather than providing direct services or developing housing. While the organization supports and collaborates with developers and service providers, its primary contribution is shaping the policy environment through legislative advocacy, regulatory work, and local policy change campaigns that create favorable conditions for housing solutions to flourish throughout Connecticut.

The three strategic approaches—coordinating advocacy, advancing research, and uniting diverse partners—describe how the Partnership accomplishes its mission. Coordinated advocacy ensures that housing supporters speak with a unified voice powerful enough to influence policy. Rigorous research provides evidence-based analysis that informs effective solutions. And uniting diverse partners creates the broad-based coalition necessary to build political will for transformative change.

Organizational Vision

Partnership for Strong Communities envisions a future where everyone in Connecticut has a safe, stable home that is affordable to them in an equitable community of their choice. This vision statement articulates the ultimate goal toward which all the organization’s work is oriented.

The vision’s universalism—everyone in Connecticut—reflects the Partnership’s belief that housing is a fundamental human right that should be guaranteed to all residents, not a privilege available only to those with sufficient income. The specification that homes must be safe and stable sets standards that go beyond just shelter to include quality, habitability, and security of tenure. The requirement that housing be affordable to them recognizes that affordability is relative to individual and family income, not a single price point.

The phrase equitable community of their choice addresses both fair housing and community development dimensions. Equitable communities provide access to quality schools, healthcare, transportation, employment opportunities, and other resources that support family thriving. The emphasis on choice recognizes that housing justice requires not just availability of affordable housing but options across diverse communities and neighborhoods, ending patterns of segregation and exclusion that have characterized Connecticut’s housing landscape.

Core Values and Principles

Several core values guide Partnership for Strong Communities’s work and organizational culture. Racial and economic equity form the foundation of all the Partnership’s analysis and advocacy. The organization explicitly centers racial justice, recognizing that Connecticut’s housing challenges are rooted in historical and ongoing racism and discrimination. Policy solutions must actively address rather than ignore or perpetuate these disparities.

Evidence-based advocacy ensures that the Partnership’s policy positions are grounded in rigorous research, data analysis, and best practices from Connecticut and other states. The organization believes that effective advocacy requires accurately understanding problems, evaluating potential solutions based on evidence, and communicating findings clearly to policymakers and the public.

Collaboration and partnership reflect the organization’s commitment to working with diverse stakeholders rather than pursuing an isolated agenda. The Partnership believes that sustainable change requires broad-based support and that coalition building creates power greater than any individual organization can achieve alone.

Community voice and leadership ensure that those most affected by housing challenges have authentic power in shaping solutions. The Partnership works to amplify resident voices in policy processes and supports community organizing that builds grassroots power for housing justice.

Transparency and accountability guide the Partnership’s operations and relationships with stakeholders. The organization commits to clear communication about its work, priorities, and decision-making processes, and holds itself accountable to partners and the communities it serves.

Theory of Change

Partnership for Strong Communities’s work is guided by a theory of change that explains how the organization’s activities lead to desired outcomes. The Partnership believes that transforming Connecticut’s housing landscape requires changing policies and systems that create and perpetuate housing inequity. Policy change requires building political will among policymakers and the public. Political will is built through rigorous research that demonstrates needs and effective solutions, coordinated advocacy that demonstrates broad support for change, coalition building that unites diverse stakeholders, and grassroots organizing that mobilizes community power.

This theory of change explains why the Partnership invests in research, policy advocacy, coalition building, and community engagement simultaneously. Each component reinforces the others—research informs advocacy, advocacy builds coalitions, coalitions mobilize communities, and community power drives policy change. Together, these strategies create the conditions for transformative change in Connecticut’s housing policy and outcomes.

3. Statewide Policy Advocacy and Legislative Leadership

Policy advocacy represents Partnership for Strong Communities’s most visible and impactful function. Through strategic legislative campaigns, regulatory advocacy, and municipal policy work, the Partnership advances policies and secures resources that expand housing affordability, increase housing production, expand housing choice, and strengthen housing stability throughout Connecticut. The organization’s advocacy creates the policy environment that enables developers to build affordable housing, helps residents afford and maintain housing, and promotes equitable access to opportunity across communities.

2026 Legislative Priorities

Partnership for Strong Communities’s policy priorities for the 2026 legislative session focus on four key areas aligned with the organization’s framework of affordability, creation, choice, and stability. These priorities are developed through consultation with partners and reflect consensus about the most important policy opportunities to advance housing justice in Connecticut.

Under affordability, the Partnership advocates to expand the Rental Assistance Program (RAP) to close affordability gaps, prevent homelessness, and safeguard against federal voucher disruptions. Rental assistance helps thousands stay housed, avoid crisis, and remain connected to their communities. As federal support continues to be unpredictable, Connecticut must lead by expanding, modernizing, and protecting RAP to ensure residents can afford their homes.

Under creation, the Partnership works to maintain and target authorized state bonding to preserve and build more deeply affordable homes. Connecticut must prioritize bonding allocations for development and preservation of deeply affordable housing that prioritizes seniors, people with disabilities, and low-income families. Adequate and sustained public investment is essential to creating the affordable homes Connecticut residents need.

Under choice, the Partnership advocates to increase equitable zoning and planning reforms and continue to protect the Affordable Housing Land Use Appeals Procedure (Section 8-30g). By advancing zoning and planning reforms and upholding 8-30g, Connecticut can create more inclusive communities and ensure that people of all incomes have access to affordable homes in communities of opportunity throughout the state.

Under stability, the Partnership works to expand Just Cause eviction protections, support Fair Rent Commissions, and strengthen the Right to Counsel Program to prevent unjust evictions, harmful rent increases, and reduce displacement. Strengthening and expanding renter protections will help more renters stay secure, reduce avoidable evictions, and ensure fair treatment across Connecticut.

Legislative Advocacy Process

Partnership for Strong Communities maintains an active presence at the Connecticut State Capitol throughout the legislative session, which runs from January through June each year. The organization’s legislative work follows a strategic process that includes monitoring legislation affecting housing and related issues, analyzing bills to understand their potential impact on housing affordability and equity, testifying before legislative committees to provide expert input on proposed legislation, meeting with legislators and staff to educate them about housing issues and build support for priority bills, coordinating coalition advocacy through sign-on letters and coordinated testimony, and mobilizing grassroots advocacy from partners and residents to demonstrate broad support for policy priorities.

This comprehensive advocacy approach combines insider lobbying with grassroots mobilization, policy expertise with community voice, and coalition coordination with strategic communications. By engaging multiple pressure points simultaneously, the Partnership maximizes the likelihood that priority legislation will advance through Connecticut’s legislative process and be enacted into law.

Budget Advocacy

In addition to legislative policy, Partnership for Strong Communities engages extensively in budget advocacy to ensure adequate state funding for affordable housing programs and services. Connecticut’s biennial budget process provides critical opportunities to secure resources for housing development, rental assistance, homelessness services, and housing-related support services.

Budget advocacy involves analyzing the Governor’s proposed budget to identify housing allocations and gaps, developing coalition budget recommendations specifying recommended funding levels for various housing programs, testifying at budget committee hearings to make the case for housing investment, meeting with legislative leadership and appropriations committee members to advocate for priority funding, and working through budget negotiations to preserve and expand housing funding even when competing priorities threaten to reduce allocations.

The Partnership’s budget advocacy has helped secure significant state investment in affordable housing including bonding for housing development and preservation, operating support for affordable housing, funding for rental assistance programs, resources for homelessness prevention and services, and support for fair housing enforcement and education. These budget victories translate into concrete resources that enable housing development, help families afford housing, and prevent homelessness throughout Connecticut.

Local and Regional Policy Work

While Partnership for Strong Communities focuses primarily on state policy, the organization also supports local and regional policy advocacy that advances housing affordability and equity. This includes providing technical assistance to advocates working on local zoning reform, supporting campaigns to establish or strengthen local affordable housing trust funds, educating municipal officials about housing policy options and best practices, facilitating regional collaboration on housing strategies, and connecting local advocates with research, data, and policy analysis supporting their campaigns.

This local and regional policy work recognizes that housing policy is made not just at the state level but also through municipal land use decisions, local investment in affordable housing, regional planning processes, and community-level advocacy. By supporting policy change at multiple levels simultaneously, the Partnership helps create comprehensive change in Connecticut’s housing landscape.

Policy Impact and Victories

Partnership for Strong Communities’s advocacy has contributed to significant policy achievements in recent years including increased state bonding for affordable housing development and preservation, expansion and modernization of rental assistance programs, passage of Just Cause eviction protections in several Connecticut communities, strengthening of tenant protections including Right to Counsel in eviction proceedings, zoning reforms that facilitate affordable housing production, and preservation of key policies including Section 8-30g that support affordable housing creation.

These victories demonstrate Partnership for Strong Communities’s effectiveness at building coalitions strong enough to pass meaningful housing policies even in the face of opposition. Success requires not just good policy ideas but also strategic coordination, persistent advocacy, rigorous research supporting policy positions, and the ability to demonstrate broad support among diverse constituencies.

4. Research, Data, and Housing Data Profiles

Partnership for Strong Communities conducts in-depth research and produces valuable timely resources that inform policies and empower communities. The organization works to foster deep understanding of affordable housing challenges, solutions, and pathways toward a more inclusive and thriving Connecticut. Rigorous research and data analysis form the foundation of the Partnership’s evidence-based advocacy and provide essential tools that partners throughout Connecticut use in their own work advancing housing solutions.

Housing Data Profiles: Comprehensive Town-by-Town Analysis

The Partnership for Strong Communities’s Housing Data Profiles represent one of the organization’s most valuable and widely-used resources. These free profiles provide comprehensive housing data for all 169 Connecticut towns, offering detailed information that helps Connecticut residents, developers, legislators, municipal officials, advocates, and researchers understand housing conditions, needs, and opportunities in every community across the state.

Each Housing Data Profile includes demographic information about population characteristics and trends, housing stock data including total units, types, age, and condition, affordability analysis showing housing costs relative to incomes, affordable housing inventory documenting subsidized units and programs, income and employment data providing economic context, comparative information showing how each town compares to county and state averages, and trends over time illustrating how conditions have changed. This comprehensive data set provides a complete picture of housing conditions in each Connecticut community.

The Housing Data Profiles serve multiple purposes and audiences. Advocates use the data to make the case for affordable housing investment and supportive policies in their communities. Municipal officials use the profiles to inform housing planning and policy decisions. Developers use the data to identify opportunities for affordable housing development. Legislators reference the profiles to understand housing needs in their districts. Researchers use the data for analysis and academic work. The profiles’ accessibility and comprehensiveness make them an indispensable resource for anyone working on housing issues in Connecticut.

The State of Housing in Connecticut Report

Partnership for Strong Communities publishes The State of Housing in Connecticut as an annual report created to bring visibility, clarity, and urgency to Connecticut’s housing challenges and opportunities. This flagship research publication provides comprehensive analysis of housing conditions, trends, challenges, and policy recommendations across the state. The report synthesizes data from multiple sources to paint a complete picture of Connecticut’s housing landscape and identify priority areas for policy intervention.

The State of Housing report serves as an essential reference for policymakers, advocates, media, researchers, and anyone seeking to understand Connecticut’s housing situation. The report’s release each year generates media attention and public discussion that elevates housing on the policy agenda. Legislators reference the report when considering housing legislation. Advocates cite the findings in their advocacy campaigns. The report provides the shared fact base that enables productive policy conversations grounded in evidence rather than anecdote or ideology.

Issue-Specific Research and Analysis

Beyond the Housing Data Profiles and State of Housing report, Partnership for Strong Communities produces issue-specific research and analysis on particular housing challenges and policy opportunities. Recent research has examined topics including rental assistance program design and impact, eviction trends and prevention strategies, zoning reform options and outcomes, affordable housing preservation challenges and solutions, housing conditions and health impacts, racial segregation patterns and fair housing strategies, housing instability and homelessness prevention, and innovative financing mechanisms for affordable housing development.

This research provides deep analysis that informs policy development and advocacy. When the Partnership advocates for specific legislation, the organization can point to rigorous research demonstrating need, evaluating potential solutions, and projecting likely impacts. This evidence-based approach strengthens advocacy by grounding it in facts and analysis rather than just values and preferences.

Connecticut Housing Funding Landscape Map

In collaboration with LISC Connecticut and with support from the Connecticut Project, Partnership for Strong Communities has created a comprehensive map of state and federal resources available for housing development in Connecticut, particularly affordable housing. This tool offers detailed and up-to-date information to improve access to funding, increase transparency, and promote collaboration and long-term planning. All information has been sourced from publicly available data or submitted by the agency or fund administrator.

The funding landscape map helps developers, municipalities, and housing organizations identify available financing for housing projects, understand program requirements and application processes, plan projects by knowing what resources are available, coordinate funding from multiple sources, and track how resources are deployed across the state. This transparency and accessibility tool removes barriers to accessing housing financing and supports more effective use of public resources for affordable housing development and preservation.

Research Partnerships and Collaboration

Partnership for Strong Communities collaborates with academic institutions, research organizations, and other partners to conduct research and analysis. These partnerships expand research capacity, bring additional expertise and methodologies, facilitate academic research on Connecticut housing issues, and connect research to policy and practice. The Partnership has worked with faculty and students from the University of Connecticut School of Public Policy and other institutions, creating mutual benefit through research that advances both academic scholarship and practical policy applications.

Through these collaborative relationships, Partnership for Strong Communities helps bridge the gap between academic research and policy application, ensuring that scholarly insights inform policy debates and that policy questions stimulate academic inquiry. This bidirectional relationship strengthens both research quality and policy effectiveness.

5. Connecticut Affordable Housing Conference

The Connecticut Affordable Housing Conference (CAHC) represents Partnership for Strong Communities’s flagship annual convening and the premier gathering for affordable housing professionals, advocates, policymakers, and community members throughout Connecticut. This free, virtual conference brings together diverse stakeholders to convene, collaborate, and drive meaningful change to improve and expand housing affordability, creation, choice, and stability across the state. CAHC provides an essential opportunity for learning, networking, and collective strategizing about Connecticut’s housing challenges and solutions.

Conference Structure and Format

The Connecticut Affordable Housing Conference typically takes place over two days in November each year. The 2026 conference is scheduled for November 16-17, 2026. The conference is held virtually, making it accessible to participants throughout Connecticut and beyond without requiring travel. Most importantly, CAHC is completely free and open to all thanks to generous sponsors who support the Partnership’s mission of advancing housing justice in Connecticut.

Conference programming includes plenary sessions featuring prominent speakers who address major housing policy issues and trends, concurrent workshops on specialized topics allowing participants to dive deep into specific subjects, panel discussions bringing together multiple perspectives on key challenges, networking opportunities through virtual breakout rooms and discussion spaces, resource fairs where organizations showcase programs and services, and recognition of outstanding contributions to affordable housing in Connecticut. The conference program is carefully designed to serve professionals at different levels from emerging advocates to experienced practitioners, and across different sectors from development to policy to service provision.

Educational Programming and Workshop Topics

CAHC offers a diverse array of sessions tailored to advocates, policymakers, housing and service providers, lenders and funders, and the public. The conference spotlights strategies and solutions that help advance the vision that everyone in Connecticut has a safe, stable, affordable home. Workshop topics address the full spectrum of affordable housing issues including housing finance and development strategies, preservation of existing affordable housing, tenant protections and renter rights, fair housing and combating discrimination, zoning reform and land use policy, homelessness prevention and response, supportive housing models and services, healthy housing and environmental quality, community development without displacement, innovative partnerships and financing mechanisms, and policy advocacy strategies and organizing.

Workshop presenters include practitioners with hands-on experience, policymakers and government officials who can explain programs and priorities, researchers who provide evidence-based analysis, residents with lived experience who share authentic perspectives, and national experts who bring insights from other states and contexts. This mix of presenters ensures that conference programming balances practical how-to information with policy context, academic research with community voice, and Connecticut-specific content with broader lessons from the field.

Who Attends CAHC

The Connecticut Affordable Housing Conference attracts diverse participants representing all facets of Connecticut’s housing ecosystem. Nonprofit housing developers attend to learn about financing, policy developments, and best practices. Municipal officials participate to understand state policy and connect with partners. Housing authority staff attend to learn about program innovations and policy changes. Fair housing advocates participate to advance their work combating discrimination. Service providers working on homelessness and housing stability attend to understand housing policy context.

Tenant organizers and resident leaders join to build advocacy skills and connect with allies. Architects, planners, and consultants serving affordable housing attend to understand sector needs and trends. Financial institutions and investors participate to learn about affordable housing opportunities. Legal service providers attend to understand eviction prevention and tenant rights. Students and emerging professionals join to learn about the field and make connections. State agency staff participate to share program information and hear stakeholder feedback.

This diversity creates a unique environment where people from different perspectives interact and learn from each other. A session on zoning reform might include municipal officials, developers, fair housing advocates, and residents, all bringing different insights that enrich the conversation. The conference builds not just individual knowledge but also relationships and understanding across diverse constituencies that strengthen collective work throughout the year.

Virtual Format Advantages

The Connecticut Affordable Housing Conference’s virtual format provides several important advantages that expand access and participation. Attending virtually eliminates travel costs and time that might prevent participation, particularly for those in rural areas or with limited budgets. Virtual attendance accommodates scheduling constraints by allowing people to attend some sessions without committing to full days. Recorded sessions enable on-demand viewing for those who cannot attend live or want to review content. Virtual platforms can facilitate engagement through chat, polling, and breakout rooms. And the virtual format supports accessibility features including closed captioning and interpretation.

Most importantly, offering the conference free of charge removes financial barriers that might exclude grassroots advocates, residents, students, and others with limited resources. Partnership for Strong Communities believes that knowledge and networking opportunities should be accessible to all, not just those who can afford conference registration fees. The free, virtual format embodies the Partnership’s commitment to inclusive participation and broad engagement in advancing housing justice.

Conference Recordings and Resources

Partnership for Strong Communities records Connecticut Affordable Housing Conference sessions and makes them available online following the conference. This creates an enduring resource library that extends the conference’s impact far beyond the two days of live programming. People who could not attend can watch sessions on demand. Attendees can revisit sessions they found particularly valuable. Advocates can share specific sessions with colleagues, elected officials, or community members to educate them about housing issues.

The conference recording library serves as an ongoing professional development resource and advocacy tool that continues generating value throughout the year. Sessions can be assigned as training for new staff, incorporated into community education efforts, or referenced when working on specific issues addressed in presentations. This resource maximization ensures that the significant investment in conference planning and content development benefits the broadest possible audience.

6. Coalition Building and HOMEConnecticut

Coalition building lies at the heart of Partnership for Strong Communities’s work and represents the organization’s distinctive contribution to Connecticut’s affordable housing movement. By bringing together diverse stakeholders under a common vision and coordinating collective action, the Partnership creates the broad-based political power necessary to advance ambitious policy goals and transform Connecticut’s housing landscape. Through HOMEConnecticut and other coalition initiatives, the Partnership unites partners across sectors, regions, and constituencies to speak with a unified voice for housing justice.

HOMEConnecticut: Connecticut’s Broad-Based Housing Coalition

HOMEConnecticut is a broad-based network of partners that coalesces to ensure everyone in Connecticut has access to safe, stable, accessible, and affordable housing. This coalition brings together housing developers, service providers, advocates, faith communities, labor unions, healthcare organizations, business groups, municipal officials, and residents around shared goals of expanding housing opportunity and advancing housing justice throughout Connecticut.

HOMEConnecticut functions as the primary vehicle for coordinated housing advocacy in Connecticut. When major housing legislation is being considered, HOMEConnecticut mobilizes coalition members to testify, contact legislators, share stories, and demonstrate broad support. When budget negotiations threaten housing funding, HOMEConnecticut coordinates advocacy to preserve and expand resources. When new threats to affordable housing emerge, HOMEConnecticut rapidly responds with unified opposition backed by diverse constituencies.

The coalition’s power comes from its diversity and breadth. Legislators see that housing isn’t just one constituency’s priority but something that organizations across multiple sectors support. Business groups support affordable housing as essential to workforce stability. Healthcare organizations recognize housing as a social determinant of health. Faith communities view housing as a moral imperative. Labor unions see housing connected to worker wellbeing. This diverse support makes housing a bipartisan priority that transcends typical political divisions.

Building and Maintaining Diverse Coalitions

Partnership for Strong Communities invests significant effort in building and maintaining diverse coalitions that can sustain collective action over time. This coalition building work includes recruiting new partners from diverse sectors and communities, facilitating dialogue and trust-building among partners with different perspectives, developing shared understanding of housing challenges and solutions, finding common ground and shared goals that unite diverse constituencies, managing tensions and disagreements that inevitably arise in diverse coalitions, and celebrating victories that reinforce coalition cohesion and commitment.

Effective coalition building requires skillful facilitation that allows all voices to be heard while still enabling decisive action. Partnership for Strong Communities navigates this balance by using transparent processes that build trust, focusing on shared goals rather than divisive tactics, accommodating diverse perspectives on implementation while maintaining unity on core principles, and being willing to disagree on specific issues while preserving the coalition around broader shared commitments.

Geographic and Community Representation

Partnership for Strong Communities works intentionally to ensure that coalitions include representation from all regions of Connecticut and from diverse communities including communities of color, low-income communities, rural areas, urban centers, and suburban towns. This geographic and demographic diversity ensures that coalition advocacy reflects the full range of Connecticut’s housing challenges and opportunities rather than just concerns from one region or community type.

The Partnership maintains statewide reach through regional housing forums that bring together partners in different parts of the state, partnerships with local and regional organizations throughout Connecticut, communications that reach all corners of the state, and governance structures that ensure geographic representation in coalition leadership. When the Partnership advocates at the state Capitol, legislators from all districts hear from constituents who are coalition members, creating broad political support for housing policies.

Partnerships and Collaborative Relationships

Beyond formal coalitions, Partnership for Strong Communities maintains collaborative partnerships with organizations throughout Connecticut’s housing ecosystem. These partners bring specialized expertise and serve specific constituencies while collaborating with the Partnership on shared goals. Key partners include LISC Connecticut which provides community development and financing support, Open Communities Alliance advancing fair housing and integration, CT Fair Housing Center combating housing discrimination, nonprofit housing developers creating and preserving affordable homes, local and regional housing authorities administering housing assistance, service providers supporting housing stability, and municipal governments implementing local housing policies.

These collaborative relationships expand the Partnership’s reach and impact. On legislative campaigns, partners coordinate messaging and advocacy. On research projects, partners provide data and community connections. On convenings, partners help recruit participants and contribute content. Through these partnerships, Partnership for Strong Communities helps create an ecosystem where different organizations contribute unique strengths while working toward shared goals of housing justice and opportunity.

Regional and National Network Participation

Partnership for Strong Communities participates in regional and national housing networks that connect Connecticut’s work to broader movements. The New England Housing Network (NEHN) unites affordable housing organizations from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont to share strategies, coordinate on regional issues, and learn from each other’s experiences. Partnership for Strong Communities serves as Connecticut’s state partner in the Opportunity Starts at Home campaign, a national coalition working to advance federal policies connecting housing to health, education, and opportunity.

These regional and national connections bring valuable perspectives and resources to Connecticut’s housing work while also allowing Connecticut to contribute to broader movements. The Partnership learns from innovations in other states, accesses national research and best practices, coordinates on federal policy advocacy, and builds relationships that support Connecticut’s housing advancement while also contributing to progress nationally.

7. Community Engagement and Grassroots Organizing

Partnership for Strong Communities recognizes that sustainable housing policy change requires not just insider advocacy but also grassroots community power. The organization works to engage community members—particularly those most affected by housing challenges—in advocacy, organizing, and leadership development that builds long-term capacity for housing justice. Community engagement ensures that policy solutions reflect authentic community needs and priorities rather than just professional perspectives, and that residents have genuine power in shaping decisions that affect their housing and communities.

Centering Resident Voice and Leadership

Partnership for Strong Communities works intentionally to center the voices and leadership of people with lived experience of housing instability, affordability challenges, homelessness, and other housing issues. This commitment reflects the principle that those most affected by housing challenges must have authentic power in defining solutions rather than being passive beneficiaries of policies designed by others.

Centering resident voice involves creating space for residents to share their stories in policy processes including legislative testimony, recruiting and supporting resident advocates to speak at hearings and meetings, compensating residents for their time and expertise rather than expecting free labor, providing training and support that builds residents’ advocacy skills and confidence, and structuring decision-making processes that give residents genuine power rather than token participation. The Partnership believes that residents are experts on their own experiences and that policy solutions are more effective when informed by this expertise.

Community Education and Outreach

Partnership for Strong Communities conducts community education and outreach to build broader understanding of housing issues and solutions. This education work helps counter misconceptions about affordable housing, builds support for policies that expand housing opportunity, mobilizes community members to engage in advocacy, and creates informed constituencies that hold elected officials accountable on housing issues.

Community education takes multiple forms including public forums and town halls discussing housing challenges and solutions, presentations to community groups, religious congregations, and civic organizations, educational materials including fact sheets, infographics, and videos explaining housing issues, media outreach generating news coverage that educates the public, and social media campaigns reaching broad audiences with accessible housing content. This educational work creates the public understanding necessary for political will to support transformative housing policies.

Supporting Local Advocacy and Organizing

While Partnership for Strong Communities focuses primarily on statewide policy, the organization supports local housing advocacy and organizing efforts throughout Connecticut. This support includes providing research, data, and policy analysis that local advocates use in their campaigns, connecting local advocates with each other for peer learning and mutual support, offering technical assistance on advocacy strategies and organizing tactics, amplifying local campaigns through communications and social media, and facilitating connections between local advocates and state-level partners and resources.

This support for local organizing recognizes that housing policy is made not just at the state level but also through municipal decisions about zoning, local investment in affordable housing, responses to proposed developments, and community-level advocacy. By supporting local organizing, the Partnership helps build distributed leadership and capacity throughout Connecticut rather than concentrating all housing advocacy at the state level.

Intersectional Webinar Series

Partnership for Strong Communities hosts an Intersectional Webinar Series spotlighting how affordable homes and housing quality intersect with other issues affecting Connecticut residents. Topics have explored connections between housing and health, housing and education, housing and economic opportunity, housing and climate resilience, housing and racial justice, and housing and disability rights. These webinars help advocates, policymakers, and community members understand housing’s role as a platform for wellbeing and opportunity across multiple dimensions.

The intersectional approach also helps build alliances between housing advocates and organizations working on related issues. Healthcare organizations become housing supporters when they understand housing as a health determinant. Education advocates support housing when they see connections to student achievement. Environmental organizations engage with housing when they recognize climate and transportation connections. These cross-sector alliances expand the coalition supporting housing justice and create more holistic solutions that address interconnected challenges.

Regional Housing Forums

Partnership for Strong Communities organizes regional housing forums throughout Connecticut that bring together stakeholders in particular geographic areas to discuss regional housing challenges, share strategies and innovations, build relationships among organizations working in the same region, coordinate advocacy on regional issues, and connect regional work to statewide policy and resources. These forums recognize that while many housing challenges are statewide, specific challenges and opportunities vary by region and effective solutions often require regional collaboration.

Recent forums have focused on areas including Eastern Connecticut, Northwestern Connecticut, and other regions facing particular housing challenges. Forums bring together municipal officials, developers, advocates, service providers, and residents to discuss how they can work together more effectively to expand housing opportunity in their regions. These regional convenings complement the statewide Connecticut Affordable Housing Conference by providing more intimate spaces for regional relationship building and problem-solving.

8. Regional Initiatives and Collaborative Projects

Partnership for Strong Communities engages in regional initiatives and collaborative projects that address housing challenges requiring coordinated action across multiple municipalities or focused attention to particular geographic areas. These initiatives complement the Partnership’s statewide policy work by supporting regional planning, facilitating intermunicipal collaboration, addressing region-specific challenges, and piloting innovative approaches that can inform statewide strategies. Regional work recognizes that while many housing challenges are statewide, effective solutions often require coordination at regional and local levels.

Northwest Connecticut Affordable Housing + Conservation Collaboration

Partnership for Strong Communities has collaborated on the Northwest Connecticut Affordable Housing + Conservation Collaboration Strategy, an innovative initiative that explores how affordable housing and land conservation can work together rather than compete. This collaboration recognizes that rural and suburban areas face particular tensions between housing needs and conservation priorities, and that creative solutions can advance both goals simultaneously.

The strategy explores approaches including concentrating development in village centers and near existing infrastructure to preserve open space, integrating affordable housing into conservation development projects, using conservation land trusts to create permanently affordable housing, coordinating regional housing and conservation planning, and developing funding mechanisms that support both housing and conservation goals. This work demonstrates how seemingly competing priorities can be reconciled through creative problem-solving and collaborative planning.

Regional Planning Partnerships

Partnership for Strong Communities works with regional planning organizations throughout Connecticut to integrate affordable housing into regional plans and facilitate regional coordination on housing issues. Connecticut has nine regional councils of governments (COGs) that coordinate planning and services across municipal boundaries. The Partnership provides technical assistance, data resources, and policy expertise to support regional housing planning.

This regional planning work helps municipalities understand that housing challenges often transcend town boundaries and require regional solutions. A town that zones out affordable housing doesn’t eliminate housing need—it just pushes it to neighboring communities. Regional planning creates frameworks for fair-share distribution of affordable housing, coordinated strategies for addressing homelessness, regional approaches to workforce housing needs, and intermunicipal collaboration on housing development and services.

Municipal Technical Assistance

Partnership for Strong Communities provides technical assistance to municipalities working to expand affordable housing opportunities. This assistance might include education about housing policy options and best practices, analysis of local housing needs using Housing Data Profiles and other data, guidance on affordable housing plan development, support for zoning reform initiatives, connections to developers and resources for affordable housing projects, and facilitation of community conversations about housing.

This municipal technical assistance helps local officials who want to expand affordable housing but need guidance about how to do so effectively. By providing accessible expertise and resources, the Partnership helps municipalities implement local policies that complement and reinforce statewide efforts to expand housing opportunity.

Collaborative Research and Pilot Projects

Partnership for Strong Communities collaborates with partners on research and pilot projects that test innovative approaches to housing challenges. Recent collaborative work has included mapping housing resources and funding streams to improve transparency and access, analyzing eviction patterns and prevention strategies, exploring innovative financing mechanisms for affordable housing, studying connections between housing quality and health outcomes, and evaluating policy interventions to identify effective approaches worthy of scaling.

These collaborative projects generate insights that inform both local implementation and statewide policy. Successful pilots can be scaled and replicated. Research findings provide evidence supporting policy recommendations. Collaborative partnerships bring diverse expertise and perspectives that strengthen both research quality and practical applicability.

Cross-Sector Initiative Participation

Partnership for Strong Communities participates in cross-sector initiatives that recognize housing’s connections to health, education, economic development, climate resilience, and other policy areas. The organization brings housing expertise to initiatives focused on health equity, educational opportunity, climate adaptation, economic mobility, and community development. This cross-sector engagement helps ensure that housing considerations are integrated into broader policy conversations and that solutions address interconnected challenges holistically rather than in isolated silos.

Through cross-sector participation, Partnership for Strong Communities also builds alliances with organizations working on related issues. These alliances expand the coalition supporting housing justice and create opportunities for integrated solutions that address housing alongside related challenges affecting Connecticut families and communities.

9. Getting Involved: How to Support the Work

Individuals and organizations committed to housing justice in Connecticut can support Partnership for Strong Communities’s work and contribute to advancing equitable housing solutions throughout the state. The Partnership offers multiple ways to get involved whether you’re a housing professional, advocate, policymaker, resident experiencing housing challenges, or concerned citizen who believes everyone deserves a safe, stable, affordable home in a community of their choice.

Join the HOMEConnecticut Coalition

Organizations and individuals can join the HOMEConnecticut coalition to be part of Connecticut’s broad-based network working for housing justice. Coalition members receive regular communications about housing policy developments and advocacy opportunities, invitations to participate in coalition meetings and strategy sessions, opportunities to contribute to coalition testimony and advocacy, and connections to partners throughout Connecticut’s housing community. Joining HOMEConnecticut is free and open to all who share the coalition’s vision of housing opportunity for all Connecticut residents.

To join HOMEConnecticut or learn more about coalition opportunities, visit pschousing.org to sign up for communications and updates. The Partnership welcomes all who want to contribute to advancing housing justice in Connecticut regardless of their organizational affiliation, professional role, or prior advocacy experience.

Participate in Advocacy Campaigns

Partnership for Strong Communities mobilizes advocates to contact legislators, testify at hearings, share stories, and demonstrate support for housing policies throughout the legislative session. Individuals can support advocacy by signing up for action alerts to learn about opportunities to contact legislators, responding when alerts ask you to email or call legislators on specific bills, attending virtual or in-person advocacy events at the Capitol, sharing personal stories about how housing issues affect you or your community, recruiting friends, family, and colleagues to engage in housing advocacy, and following the Partnership on social media to share advocacy messages.

The Partnership provides guidance, talking points, and support to help advocates be effective even without prior lobbying experience. Your voice as a constituent matters to legislators, and participating in advocacy campaigns creates the political pressure necessary to advance housing policies.

Attend the Connecticut Affordable Housing Conference

The Connecticut Affordable Housing Conference provides exceptional opportunities for learning, networking, and connecting with Connecticut’s housing community. The conference is free, virtual, and open to all, making it accessible regardless of budget, location, or schedule constraints. Register for the conference to attend sessions on housing issues that interest you, participate in networking opportunities to connect with peers and partners, and access recorded sessions afterward to watch or share with others.

Organizations can encourage staff to attend the conference and can sponsor the conference to support the Partnership’s work while gaining visibility among Connecticut’s housing community. Conference sponsorship helps ensure that this valuable convening remains free and accessible to all.

Use and Share Partnership Resources

Partnership for Strong Communities produces valuable resources that anyone can access and use including Housing Data Profiles for all 169 Connecticut towns, the State of Housing in Connecticut annual report, policy briefs and research reports, educational webinars and presentations, and advocacy tools and templates. These resources are freely available on the Partnership’s website at pschousing.org.

Using and sharing these resources amplifies their impact. Local advocates can use Housing Data Profiles to make the case for affordable housing in their communities. Journalists can reference research reports when covering housing stories. Municipal officials can use policy briefs to understand options for local action. Educators can assign resources to students learning about housing issues. Every time someone uses Partnership resources, it extends the organization’s reach and impact.

Financial Support and Sponsorship

Partnership for Strong Communities’s work is supported by foundation grants, government contracts, and individual donations. Financial contributions help sustain the organization’s policy advocacy, research production, conference convening, and coalition coordination. Individuals can make one-time or recurring donations to support the Partnership’s work. Organizations can become conference sponsors, providing financial support while gaining visibility among Connecticut’s housing community. Foundations can support specific projects or provide general operating support.

Information about supporting Partnership for Strong Communities financially is available on the organization’s website. All contributions help ensure the Partnership can continue its essential work advancing housing justice throughout Connecticut.

Stay Connected and Informed

Even if you cannot actively participate in advocacy or attend events, staying informed about housing issues helps build the public understanding necessary for policy change. You can stay connected by visiting pschousing.org regularly for news and updates, following Partnership for Strong Communities on social media platforms, subscribing to email updates and action alerts, watching recorded webinars and conference sessions, and sharing Partnership content with your networks.

Building public awareness about housing challenges and solutions creates the political environment that enables transformative policy change. Every person who becomes better informed about housing issues and shares that knowledge with others contributes to building the collective understanding and will necessary to ensure everyone in Connecticut has a safe, stable, affordable home.

10. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)