Housing is a basic human right, and equal access to housing is a civil right guaranteed under our laws. To create a more just society, we must work to end housing policies and practices that allow the government and private gatekeepers to disproportionately lock out marginalized communities from safe and stable housing. Historic and ongoing segregation and housing discrimination in our country have prevented Black people and other people of color, women, LGBTQ people, families with children, people with disabilities, immigrants, and many more from living in safe, affordable housing.
Throughout our history, we have litigated and advocated for housing access. We sued to try to end the Trump Administration’s proposed gutting of the federal Fair Housing Act and advocated against the Trump Administration’s proposed discrimination against undocumented people in public housing. In the courts, we successfully sued to prevent Fairfield’s zoning regulations from discriminating against people living with HIV, sued on behalf of the NAACP to try to prevent a Milford housing program that would have disproportionately hurt Black and Latinx people, and spoke out in cases to defend affordable housing laws and prevent the demolition of affordable housing in Norwalk.
The ACLU of Connecticut envisions a world where everyone — regardless of our race, where we’re born, our gender, whether we have a disability, whether we are living with a record of arrest or conviction, or whether we are a survivor of domestic violence — has equal access to safe, affordable, and stable housing. We seek to end housing discrimination against people living with a record of arrest or conviction and to reallocate money from prisons to instead go toward housing access. We support efforts to advance tenants’ rights and establish a right to housing in Connecticut law.
We support efforts to ensure unhoused people are able to live with dignity and full human and legal rights. We oppose the criminalization of homelessness and poverty, including unconstitutional city ordinances that try to ban people for asking for money or help and the creation of hostile architecture.
