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I'm Mark Sudha. Welcome back to Power and politics. Melissa Kaplan Macy from Fairfield County Center for housing opportunity joins us now and welcome to you. Thank you so much, Mark. Great to be here. Yeah, nice to have you. Now. A recent study by Market Watch guide says a family of four in Fairfield County with a household income of $100,000 annually is considered low income. That's certainly surprising. Alarming and what are the factors involved there? So it is surprising and alarming and really driven in large part by housing costs, housing costs have just skyrocketed in Fairfield County and they just not kept up with wage growth. So the cost to be comfortable in Fairfield County for a family of 4 $100,000 just doesn't cut it anymore whatsoever. And I mean, uh other parts of the country, I think we're talking an average of about 50,000, right? We are. And so it really just speaks to the fact that again, housing costs here in Connecticut and in Fairfield County in particular have just gone through the roof and it's been something that's been coming for a long time because we're still under supplied on our housing and in the pandemic, so many people moving out of New York City, out of, you know, a lot of places coming to Connecticut. So really just exacerbating the supply problem that we have had for a very long time here in Fairfield County. And I thought that these numbers were kind of scary too. Fairfield County ranks last in Connecticut for affordable housing options and there's a shortage of uh more than 225,000 affordable housing units in, in the county, there are um, we just simply don't have enough housing. It's really just supply and demand. I feel like it's, it's this big question. It's this big, you know, conversation. It's not that complicated. We literally, we don't have enough homes, the homes we have are too expensive and people aren't moving. You know, there's not a lot of movement in the market either because interest rates have gone up so much that people who have homes are staying in their homes. And if you think about it because of the lack of supply, people who can afford the mortgages, they have can't afford to move and go somewhere else because there's nothing that would be in their price range. So speaking about somebody who bought their house, say 10 years ago, they can afford the more that they have, but they're not able to move either. So there's just no movement and there's no supply. And so we're really in a very bad situation. So that's why it's so difficult for people to afford to be here to rent, to own is almost impossible. And if you're in that $100,000 range, you would think, oh, you should be able to rent something. You should be able to aspire to home ownership. But that is just not feasible in this market. So who sets the income limits? And, and how is that determined? Who sets the income limits? I'm sorry. Um Well, in terms of what is that? 1000 like hot. So Hud, right. So Hud puts out numbers that, you know, looking across the whole country and says, you know, what is affordable within a bunch of factors in the counties in the markets and you know, they've mapped this for the whole country. So when they look at Fairfield County, they're looking at a variety of factors that go into affordability and that really is the cost of transportation, the cost of housing, the cost of groceries, all those things really come, you know, come into play, but how does really focus on the housing costs itself? So we look at housing cost burden and really your housing should not cost more than 30% of your income. So that's really how that number gets determined. So if you're spending more than 30% of your income on housing, then your housing cost burden, then you are, you know, not affording what you have So that is how they come up with those thresholds. So with all these factors stacked up against some folks, what, what can your organization do to try to help them? So what we're really trying to do um is look at the system level, you know, this is really, it's about individuals, about people and really figuring out how we look at the system that we have and why it's not working for people. Um So, what we're really trying to do is help communities focus in on how to create more homes in all communities in Connecticut, in Fairfield County, in particular, in Litchfield County and out in eastern where we work. Um And it's really about getting towns moving on solution because, you know, we have a big conversation between the state and local communities about housing, about housing development, about, you know, who is in charge and what um development should go where and where it shouldn't. And it's really down to the local communities to take some action here. So we have a great opportunity um in Connecticut, all communities have to create a local affordable housing plan, which is great because it really creates a nice dynamic where it's a response to kind of this outcry of, you know, local control state, don't tell us what to do, you know, we know best for our communities. Um But at the same time, it puts the onus on a local community to say, OK, great so tell us what you're going to do and, and do it. And so what my organization really tries to do is provide that support and capacity to help local communities move forward with real tangible solutions. And you know, the way I look at it is no one community is going to solve this challenge, right? So everyone has to do something. And I think that that piece in terms of uh you know, thinking about housing in that way is is a public good, you know, any incremental change that happens in each town isn't going to solve the whole crisis. But if we all do something to move this forward, we will make the change that we need to have. So we really try and provide that capacity, the technical assistance, you know, helping towns look at the plans they have created and pick out the pieces that they can move forward and help them actually do it. Um One thing I would highlight is that it's really challenging for a local community for a lot of reasons. Um What I'll say is capacity, right? If you're the first select person of name, any town in Fairfield County, you know, you have a small team, you may or may not have a planner or an economic development professional on your team and you have a million other things also that you're responsible for. Um So how do you not only prioritize moving such a hard issue forward? But how do you have the tools at hand to do it? And if you're that one individual town, you may not know what the best practices are because you may not be talking to your neighbor to neighboring town about what they're doing. And everybody is kind of, you know, siloing, trying really hard to do something but really making very little progress. What we're really trying to do is is to have a regional, not only collaboration and discussion, but a regional um just move together to get folks in different towns to know each other who are working on these issues, to bring people together. Um and talk about, you know, what is happening in your town, what's happening in my town. And when you start to do that, you realize actually there is a handful of solutions we're all looking at. It's not um it's not magic, you know, it's hard to do. But at the same time, you know, people, I was on another panel a few weeks ago and it was like, what's the most innovative thing you can do here, you know, to, to meet the, the moment that we have and it's really to do the planning to change the zoning and to build homes that people need, right? And that's actually not a complex set of strategies, but the path to get there is challenging given, you know, what happens in a community when you propose a a affordable housing development um you know, when people talk about housing broadly, if they're excited, when you talk about it on a particular parcel next to somebody where they live. So thank you. I'm sorry, I don't mean to cut you off. We gotta run, but thank you very much. Still ahead. The governor heads to Europe looking for jobs.

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CTPP727C_2024-07-27-18-44-00

We're getting our first look at Governor Lamont's trade mission to Germany. He didn't bring home Bratwurst. But news 12, Connecticut's John Craven tells us the governor might bring back something even better jobs. This trade mission to Germany could mean a lot more jobs for Connecticut. And we're talking about high paying ones in growing industries. Connecticut's aerospace industry already employs more than 20,000 workers. But Governor Lamott hopes this week's trip attracts even more jobs like these people don't know Connecticut. We've got to get out there. Lamont just returned from a seven day trade mission to Germany. He met with about 40 companies in the advanced manufacturing and bioscience industries. Why Germany? Germany is our number one trading partner. Germany already buys $2 billion worth of goods from our state. Connecticut is also home to more than 100 German companies including pharmaceutical giant Beringer Ingelheim in Ridgefield Welding Company, Trump and Farmington and Roto Fran and Chester, a major window and door manufacturer. You're not going to see a fortune 100 type of company and we don't have a lot of those in Connecticut. The Connecticut Business and Industry association expects the state to attract smaller companies. But those jobs come with big salaries. You're talking about highly engineered jobs. So a lot of advanced technologies, folks who are working with automation, Lamont says German companies are worried about new tariffs. If Donald Trump returns to the White House, the move could force them to move more operations here to the US. Time will tell whether we caught any fish, but right now we're hopeful and it's not just Germany. Governor Lamott has also led trade missions to Israel and France in the last two years. John Craven News 12 Connecticut. And that's all our time. I'm Mark Sudal. Thanks for watching.

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