Gov. Ned Lamont, state and federal lawmakers and housing advocates stand together to denounce President Donald Trump’s executive order directing states to remove people from the streets, possibly by committing them for mental health or drug treatment without their consent.
But unity is absent due to continued friction after the governor vetoed Democrats’ bill intended to create more housing and ease the affordability crisis and shortage facing the state.
“President Trump, homelessness is not a crime,” Lamont said. “Not here in Connecticut and not in America. You have heard the stories of homelessness and who they are. These folks need help, not handcuffs. These folks need housing, not handcuffs.”
Lamont continued: “When I think about the homeless. I think about the folks that are our neighbors. Folks that want folks to look out for them just like we want people to look out for our family if they were in need. That is what Connecticut is about. That is why we are standing up for this executive order and standing up for all of our citizens.”
Trump’s executive order signed last week tasks Attorney General Pam Bondi and the secretaries for health, housing and transportation to prioritize grants to states and local governments that enforce bans on open drug use and street camping.
Housing advocates said Trump’s executive order criminalizes homelessness and erases decades of progress the state has made in addressing the problem. Housing advocates said they worry most about potential federal funding cuts of $60 million for housing programs.
Further, the advocates said there is still more progress needed to provide more affordable housing for residents in the state without the passage of comprehensive housing legislation this session. Lawmakers said that while Trump’s order was an edict and not a law they cautioned that there was a crucial need to protect democracy for future generations.
While U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Trump’s executive order was an edict and not a law, he warned that democracy was at risk after responding to a question from a reporter about whether lawlessness could occur with federal ICE agents rounding up homeless people.
“At this moment silence is complicity,” he said. “We need everyone to stand up and speak out. Yes there is a threat that ICE could round up people who are undocumented and homeless. They are in effect conducting raids with masked, unmarked ICE agents all around the country and in Connecticut. We need to be prepared for this fight. All of us need to be in it. We are at a moment of supreme crisis. Not just in housing. In so many different areas of our life where the rule of law is at stake and democracy is at risk.”
Blumenthal said that Trump wants to criminalize homelessness and invoke the “old Jim Crow laws that have been discredited as a potential approach to dealing with a social problem.”
Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services Commissioner Nancy Navarretta said the executive order threatens everything Connecticut has built to combat homelessness.
“It ignores that many of our state hospitals and residential programs are already at capacity and promotes the harmful narrative that homelessness is best solved by force and confinement,” she said. “Coercion is not care. This is an attempt to blame mental illness and addiction as the root cause of homelessness. The reality according to our recent data is that only 30% of those experiencing homelessness in Connecticut report serious mental illness. And fewer than 1 and 5 report a substance use disorder.”
Jennifer Paradis, executive director of the Beth El Center, co-chair of the Regional Alliance to End Homelessness described growing up homeless when her parents lost their home due to medical bills. She described living on couches and on comforters on the floor in high school.
She said her parents were living in their van working five jobs between the two of them to make ends meet but it took four years to regain shelter.
“This is an executive order that weaves together falsehoods and preys on fear of our neighbors and our communities,” said Paradis.
Paradis said further: “What we are talking about is people trying to survive.”
She gave examples of people who do not know where their next shower will be or where they will lay their head at night.
“Is any of this a crime?” she asked. “Homelessness is not a crime. Seeking community is not a crime. Poverty is not a crime.”
She emphasized the importance of the state passing a comprehensive housing bill.
Lamont vetoed HB 5002, a sweeping housing reform bill crafted by Democratic lawmakers, this summer.
After initially saying he’d sign House Bill 5002, Lamont vetoed it under pressure from Republicans and town leaders who feared the bill weakened local control and imposed one-size-fits-all solutions on municipalities.
Asked how he reconciled supporting solutions for the homeless while vetoing the housing bill, Lamont said the state doubled down on affordable housing over the last few years.
“I want a bill we can all get behind,” he said. “We are working on that every day.”
While supporting Lamont in denouncing the president’s executive order, several housing advocates urged the governor to “seek passage of and then sign a bill substantially the same as HB 5002.”
“We appreciate Governor Lamont’s words but will not be heartened until we see him act,” said the advocates from Open Communities Alliance, Connecticut Voices for Children, LISC Connecticut, Desegregate Connecticut, Connecticut Fair Housing Center, The Housing Collective and the Partnership For Strong Communities.
U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-East Hartford said this is not a Democrat, Republican or unaffiliated issue.
“This is a people’s issue,” he said. “This is about real people and real lives and where they stand. We are not going to throw them out in the cold. They are not going to be evicted and they are going to have houses.”
The Associated Press and the Connecticut Mirror contributed to this report.