It’s also at risk of ending in the next two years.

Connecticut’s right to counsel program launched in 2022 with $20 million in federal COVID relief money through the American Rescue Plan Act. That funding runs out this year, making right to counsel one of many social service programs in the state facing a fiscal cliff as the one-time dollars run out.

From January 2022 to November 2024, Connecticut has saved about $36.6 million it would have otherwise spent on emergency shelter services, foster care placements and Medicaid spending, among other social services, according to a report published at the end of last month.

The program has also offered legal aid to nearly 5,500 households, representing close to 13,000 individuals, many of them children.

“If they don’t have an attorney to represent them or give them help at any point during these proceedings, the odds of them being evicted go up exponentially,” said Angela Schlingheyde, executive director of the Connecticut Bar Foundation, which oversees the program.

Evictions and homelessness have a widespread impact on families, particularly on children. Losing housing can affect physical health, mental health, educational outcomes, access to employment and access to transportation, among other things.

Program organizers are asking for $6.75 million in the biennium budget.

Lawmakers this year are in a debate with Gov. Ned Lamont’s office over the state’s spending caps, often referred to as the “fiscal guardrails.” Some say they want to see more spending on social services, while the governor has said the limits help ensure the state can pay down its debt.

The annual report on the right to counsel program, compiled by consulting firm Stout, highlights many of the financial benefits for Connecticut of keeping people housed, as well as information about who the program is serving, their outcomes after getting legal aid and their housing circumstances.

The percentage of tenants who had legal representation in areas served by the right to counsel program has nearly tripled in the time since the program started, from around 7% to 18%.

“Having the attorney, it may not prevent them from having to move, but it can prevent them from having an eviction on their record, and it can help to get them an extended period of time to be able to leave their current home and find a new place to live, which will reduce trauma to the family and hopefully allow the children to continue going to school where they were always going to school,” Schlingheyde said.

Landlords have criticized the program, saying it slows down the eviction process when tenants have legal representation and if the process is slower, they will be choosier about who they allow to rent their properties.

Most program clients were able to achieve their goals, which commonly included preventing an involuntary move, preventing an eviction judgment and getting at least a month to find a new place, according to the report.

The report also found that right to counsel clients were more likely to be women and people of color, and that those populations were disproportionately impacted by eviction, compared to their share of the population.

For example, about 11% of Connecticut’s population is Black, compared to about 44% of right to counsel clients. While 63% of the state’s population is white, 15% of right to counsel clients are white.

And 51% of the state’s population are women, compared to 67% of right to counsel clients. Female-headed households were also more likely to have children in the home.

This is reflective of national data that shows that because of historic and systemic inequities, people of color are more likely to be impoverished and experience housing instability.

Giovanna Shay, litigation and advocacy director at Greater Hartford Legal Aid, said the program is also seeing more senior citizens who are facing eviction and homelessness. Right to counsel is overseen by the bar foundation and legal aid providers hire the attorneys.

“Landlords are seeking to raise the rent, and they’re seeking to evict tenants who can’t pay higher rents,” Shay said. “That’s also very, very hard on the elderly and those on fixed income.”

Over the past couple of years, more tenants and advocates have reported that renters are getting evicted by out-of-state, corporate landlords who purchase properties and evict people en mass.

Just over 1 in 5 right to counsel clients lived in properties whose owners live outside of Connecticut. Those clients were more likely to have month-to-month or oral leases rather than written, annual leases.

They were also more likely to have had problems with their landlord, including with subpar living conditions or previous eviction filings, according to the report.

Schlingheyde said the goal was to better understand “how that was impacting the overall system in Connecticut.”

Shay said since its inception, the program has grown. There are more attorneys, and the program has expanded geographically. Still, there are more people facing eviction than the program can help.

“Connecticut is in a housing crisis,” Shay said. “That crisis is affecting a lot of people, but our poorest residents really face losing their housing and potentially even being unhoused.”

In a meeting Tuesday, the committee voted to approve the funding, which will be distributed over the next four years for what’s known as the Housing as Recovery initiative. It’s by far the biggest investment OSAC has made since first convening in March 2023.

At a cost of $14.25 million a year, the initiative will help as many as 500 people annually. That includes vouchers through the state’s Rental Assistance Program and $9,500 per person to cover the cost of trauma-informed case management services, which include treatment programs, budgeting guidance and training for tenants to be successful, from managing responsibilities like security deposits and utilities to understanding their legal rights. Each client will also have $5,000 set aside to ensure they have basic necessities like furniture and utilities. Finally, the committee allocated $400,000 per year for program evaluation.

“This is a really exciting project, it really has implications for helping so many people,” said Nancy Navarretta, OSAC’s co-chair, during the committee’s Tuesday meeting.

The initiative passed with unanimous support from the OSAC’s 53 members.

The size of Tuesday’s funding approval was notable given frustration expressed by advocates as recently as December, when only $21 million in requests had been approved nearly two years after the committee first convened.

Connecticut has a lot of money to spend on this life or death issue. The state has so far received more than $158 million in settlement funds paid by pharmacies and opioid manufacturers following litigation. The state expects to receive $600 million over an 18-year period — and likely more once additional lawsuits are settled. OSAC is tasked with spending that money.

The committee’s decision this week to invest deeply in housing comes during a time when homelessness is on the rise. From 2023 to 2024, Connecticut’s homeless population increased by about 13%. Recent data from providers shows more than 5,000 people are experiencing homelessness.

Homelessness and behavioral health issues including addiction are deeply intertwined. Addiction can cause people to lose their housing, and often worsens when they become homeless.

The committee heard a presentation on the issue in November, its last meeting before Tuesday’s vote.

Alice Minervino, director of housing and homelessness services for the state Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, told the committee stable housing has improved the odds of recovery for people with addictions. She said people experiencing homelessness sometimes use drugs to cope with mental or physical health conditions related to their lack of housing. The department has some existing programs to house people with addiction, but this program would expand those services.

“They have to find a place to go,” Minervino said during the November presentation. “They can spend a lot of time on their feet walking around. There’s also an increased chance of being victimized, being in fights or being attacked, and this increases people’s medical issues, which increases their pain, and if they have a mental health condition, that can increase. So people use substances to try and mitigate those conditions.”

Dr. Gail D’Onofrio, a professor of medicine core addiction at Yale University, said during the meeting that it’s hard to find shelter beds for people with active addictions, particularly opioids.

Most Connecticut shelters don’t have sobriety requirements, but also don’t have the staff to handle people who aren’t following shelter rules because of their addiction, Kara Capone, chief executive at Community Housing Advocates in Hartford, said in an interview.

Service providers have said for years that they’re underfunded, which leaves staff salaries low and makes it hard to recruit and retain employees. “The issue is if somebody is not being cooperative or being combative because of intoxication, then that shelter can’t keep them housed,” Capone said. “It’s a risk to the health and safety of others.”

About a decade ago, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development adopted a policy called rapid rehousing to address homelessness. The concept calls for getting people housed as quickly as possible before addressing underlying issues such as addiction. Connecticut service providers have embraced this housing first approach, Capone said.

OSAC passed two other recommendations on Tuesday, including the expansion of harm reduction centers at a cost of $7 million over a three year period, and a safe use hotline for $1.5 million for three years.

This type of hotline, which would be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, seeks to prevent overdoses by giving people who are using opioids a person to talk to on the phone while they’re administering the drug, so emergency services can be alerted if they overdose. People using alone were identified as having an especially high risk of death in a recent report produced for the OSAC by Yale researchers. People experiencing homelessness are also overrepresented in overdose deaths, according to the report.

The proposal, from Sen. Julie Kushner, D-Danbury, and Rep. Raghib Allie-Brennan, D-Bethel, comes after a rocky launch to the 2023 law that granted manufactured housing residents the right to form an association and make offers to purchase their homes when the parks go up for sale. Under the law, they are required to match competitive offers and have the right of first refusal before other buyers.

But at the Shady Acres Park in Danbury, when residents tried to do just that, the deal fell apart. They weren’t sure why and feared the owner had struck a shared ownership agreement with another company to bypass residents’ rights. The attorney general is looking into the matter.

The bill put forth by Kushner and Allie-Brennan seeks to address what they see as a loophole in the regulation, and it would require more transparency from park owners. In a press release Friday, Allie-Brennan said it was a “direct response” to the situation at Shady Acres in Danbury, which The Connecticut Mirror covered in September.

Many details in the bill still need to be settled, and Allie-Brennan said it will be honed through the committee process. “The residents of Shady Acres brought these concerns to my attention, and it is clear that additional action is necessary to protect vulnerable mobile home residents,” Allie-Brennan said in the announcement.

Some Republicans opposed the 2023 bill, known as “first right of refusal,” saying it infringed on the rights of business owners.

This year’s proposal also includes fee transparency requirements and a rent cap. Manufactured housing residents argued for a rent cap, alongside tenants, in 2023. The measure didn’t make it out of committee.

Most manufactured or mobile homes are owner-occupied, but residents rent the land their home sits on. It’s often prohibitively difficult and expensive to move the homes, leaving residents paying increasing rent on their land.

Rent caps faced fierce opposition from landlord groups in 2023, who said the measure would infringe on their rights as business owners and make it difficult for them to earn a profit with rising costs. But most of the opposition was focused on rent caps for renters, not manufactured housing tenants.

Shady Acres has also had problems with maintenance at the property, particularly with aging septic tanks that need to be replaced.

Allie-Brennan’s announcement said he and Kushner are “standing in solidarity with the residents of Shady Acres and other mobile home communities across the state.”

Ginny Monk is a reporter for The Connecticut Mirror (https://ctmirror.org/ ). Copyright 2025 © The Connecticut Mirror.

The Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles said Monday the agency would undertake a “comprehensive review” of towing practices in response to an investigation by The Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica. The reporting found that some low-income residents were losing their cars because they couldn’t afford the recovery fees and had a short window to pay before towing companies were allowed to sell their vehicles.

The review comes as the 2025 legislative session opens Wednesday. The leader of the state House of Representatives said he will support efforts this session to lengthen the time period that tow truck companies have to wait before requesting the DMV’s permission to sell people’s vehicles.

“This will be a priority,” said House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford. “I mean, we are all pretty shocked by it.”

State law allows tow companies to seek permission from the DMV to sell a vehicle worth $1,500 or less just 15 days after towing it — one of the shortest such periods in the country, CT Mirror and ProPublica found.

The investigation, which was published Sunday, detailed how Connecticut’s laws have come to favor tow companies at the expense of owners. In many cases, people’s cars were towed from their apartment complexes not for violating the law, but because their complex-issued parking sticker had expired or they weren’t properly backed into a space.

As towing and storage charges mount, some towing companies set up additional barriers, like only taking cash. Others won’t release cars until they are registered in the person’s name, even if the driver just bought the vehicle and wasn’t required to register it yet under DMV rules.

The investigation found that the 15-day window was sometimes less time than it takes to get a DMV registration appointment and less than the time it takes to get a hearing for a complaint challenging a tow.

When presented with the findings, DMV Commissioner Tony Guerrera said that the 15-day window “strikes the right balance for consumers and towers.”

But on Monday, Guerrera said in a statement that his agency will propose changes to the Legislature to ensure that policies are updated and clear.

“We will undertake a comprehensive review of the issues highlighted in the article and engage in substantive discussions with legislative advocates,” Guerrera said. “Our proactive approach will involve actively participating in the legislative development of proposals to modernize the regulation of tow companies.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for Gov. Ned Lamont said he is “open to reviewing proposed changes to the law.”

Legislative leaders said they are concerned about the impact of the towing law on low-income residents particularly.

“It’s not a friendly system for people who have probably the least amount of time and resources to navigate a tricky system,” said Ritter. “So it really is a double whammy. It’s an unfair policy, and then the only way to undo it requires an inordinate amount of effort and time and resources that a lot of these individuals don’t have.”

State Rep. Roland Lemar, D-New Haven, the upcoming co-chair of the General Law Committee, said he’s already spoken with the DMV, Democratic leadership and the governor’s office about legislation he is drafting that would lengthen the 15-day window before a sale, expand the forms of payment that towing companies are required to take, and prohibit companies from patrolling private parking lots looking for cars to tow. Instead, they would be required to wait for a complaint.

“The tow trucks are just driving around looking for a problem,” he said.

A bill that Lemar proposed in 2023 to require tow companies to accept credit cards, in addition to other measures, passed the legislature’s Transportation Committee. But facing opposition from towing companies and property owners, it wasn’t called on the House floor.

Timothy Vibert, president of the Towing and Recovery Professionals of Connecticut, said towing companies are willing to talk about changes to the laws but that legislators don’t want to address the underlying reason for tows — lots of people driving unregistered and uninsured cars.

“The reason they’re being towed is because they’ve done something wrong,” Vibert said. “Yes, there are some unscrupulous towers out there, and that’s just the way they are, OK? But you can’t change every piece of legislation to push on and make the towers be the fall guy.”

John Souza, president of the Connecticut Coalition of Property Owners, said that 15 days seems like a short window, particularly for some of his tenants who get paid each month through Social Security, but allowing towers to patrol parking lots is helpful for larger apartment buildings. He doesn’t live at the rental properties he owns, he said, so it would be hard for him to call towing companies at all hours of the day.

“As a landlord, I get it,” Souza said. “You have to have rules, and people unfortunately take advantage. If the rules are too slack, people take advantage of them. There’s nothing worse than coming home after a long, hard day and someone’s in your parking space.”

House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, said his office quickly researched the issue following the story’s publication and found there’s a longer window for reclaiming minibikes before sale than there is for some vehicles.

“Fifteen days seems like a very short amount of time for anybody to be able to react and kind of do whatever they have to do to try to secure their vehicle before there’s an opportunity for it to be sold,” Rojas said. “For those reasons, and perhaps others too, it merits a look for sure.”

He said the issue “struck a nerve” with him and others because of how important it is to have reliable access to transportation.

House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, said he is willing to consider changes to the state’s towing law.

“I’m concerned about the potentially predatory nature of towing practices in Connecticut,” Candelora said. “A number of years ago, I thought we had addressed this issue by requiring the posting of signs and the cost of towing prior to allowing the towing of vehicles, but obviously there seems to be an issue that still needs to be addressed.”

Leadership in the state Senate said they were interested in exploring the issue. Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said there’s an “issue here about fairness” that should be examined.

The gathering solidifies a place for Connecticut advocates as national leaders in the conversation around re-shaping the way the United States approaches housing.

Desegregate Connecticut, a group that advocates for issues such as increasing housing density near train and bus stations and building more accessory dwelling units, is the host organization. YIMBYtown is a reference to the phrase “Yes, In My Backyard.”

Pete Harrison, Connecticut director of the Regional Plan Association, said organizers want to highlight the growth in New Haven. Desegregate Connecticut is a program of the Regional Plan Association.

“We want to specifically highlight that in Connecticut — both for folks in Connecticut to see this is possible and we need more help at the state level,” Harrison said. “ … But I think we’re showing the national movement that progress is happening here.”

The most recent YIMBYtown conference was in Austin, Texas, and boasted a diverse political lineup that included speakers such as the Republican governor of Montana and conservatives from Arizona who are interested in housing reform.

This was a shift from past years when the coalition was typically composed of Democrats and left-wing groups. Harrison said this will be a moment to see whether right-wing or Make America Great Again groups support the movement, if Trump doesn’t.

During his past administration, Trump spoke about the importance of leaving zoning up to localities and preserving suburbs, rather than the increased density housing advocates would like to see.

YIMBYtown began in Boulder, Colorado, in 2016. This year’s conference in New Haven will be Sept. 14-16. Harrison said he anticipates that there will be more than 500 attendees.

Last year’s conference included topics such as how to grow a coalition, zoning reform in different regions of the U.S. and federal housing policy.

Harrison said this year’s conference will focus on the ways housing and zoning intersect with the economy, equity and the environment.

He added that a benefit of having the conference in New Haven is that he hopes there will be a strong presence from tenant union groups. Connecticut’s recent tenant union movement largely started in New Haven.

In past years, YIMBYtown organizers have worked to include more tenants’ rights advocates in their work.

Harrison said the organizing committee has also worked to be cognizant of past criticisms that the movement lacks racial diversity. He said each year, the conference has made strides toward addressing the issue.

Karen DuBois-Walton, president and chief executive officer at The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, said in a written statement that as a member of the organizing committee, she has had inclusivity on her mind.

“I have spent most of my career creating communities that work for families at all income levels, but most especially those in need of quality housing that they can afford,” she said. “I have now joined an organization that has centered its work around equity and opportunity and seeks to deepen its investments in inclusive growth. Against this backdrop, I am proud to be a partner in this year’s conference.”

Caroline Tanbee Smith, a New Haven Board of Alders member, said she’s “thrilled that New Haven,” has been chosen to host the conference.

“One of the most critical questions of our lifetime is about housing: How do we ensure every single one of our neighbors has a safe, stable, and affordable place to call home?,” Tanbee Smith said.

Ginny Monk is a reporter for The Connecticut Mirror (ctmirror.org). Copyright 2025 © The Connecticut Mirror.

Melissa Anderson was trying to wrestle her squirmy 2-year-old daughter into a winter coat in December 2021 when she heard the neighbors yelling outside, “She’s coming right now!”

Anderson immediately knew what was happening. The tow truck company that regularly roamed her Hamden, Connecticut, apartment complex was back, and it had zeroed in on her recently purchased 1998 Dodge Neon.

She rushed downstairs only to see a MyHoopty.com tow truck driving away with her car.

Her temporary parking pass from the apartment complex had expired. She’d tried to get an extension because her Department of Motor Vehicles appointment to register the car was two days away. But she said the management wouldn’t give her one.

“I only came upstairs to put the baby’s jacket on,” Anderson said. “It was within like five minutes, my car was gone.”

She never saw her car again.

Exactly 15 days later, as Anderson realized she didn’t have the money to pay the mounting bill, MyHoopty took advantage of a little-known state law available to towing companies: It submitted a form to the Connecticut DMV to sell Anderson’s car.

On the form, MyHoopty typed that the Dodge was worth $600, half of what Anderson had paid for it less than three months earlier. And, DMV records show, the agency quickly approved MyHoopty’s application to sell the car.

What happened to Anderson exemplifies how Connecticut’s laws have come to favor tow companies at the expense of low-income residents. Connecticut’s window allowing towers to sell people’s cars is one of the shortest in the country — just 15 days if they deem the value to be $1,500 or less. Only two states — Iowa and North Carolina — have shorter time spans. Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island require at least 60 days, giving owners more time to reclaim their vehicles.

The Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica reviewed thousands of the forms that towers submit requesting the DMV’s permission to sell people’s cars. Many cases didn’t start with parking tickets, accidents or police involvement. Instead, people were towed for breaking parking rules at their apartment complexes.

Towing and storage charges can quickly add up to several hundred dollars. And once cars are hauled away, some tow companies make it harder for people to get their cars back. Some only take cash. Others refuse to release cars unless they’re registered in the person’s name — even if that person had recently bought the vehicle and wasn’t required to register it yet.

In some cases, the 15-day window can be shorter than the time it takes to get a registration appointment at the DMV. And it’s far shorter than it takes for a complaint to be heard challenging the legitimacy of a tow.

When cars are sold, the owners are again at a disadvantage. Under Connecticut law, tow companies are required to hold on to the proceeds for one year so owners can claim the money. After that, tow companies are supposed to subtract their storage fees and turn over any remaining funds to the state. But the DMV has never established a process for towers to submit the money, and the state treasurer’s office said it has no record of receiving any money from the sale of a towed car.

How to lose a car in 15 days

Towers can charge up to $125, plus $5.65 per mile. With daily storage fees, charges can quickly add up to hundreds of dollars. If the owner doesn’t pay, the tower can notify the DMV of intent to sell.

That’s the system Anderson faced as she fought with MyHoopty and sought the DMV’s help.

“We live paycheck to paycheck and Christmas was coming, and we just couldn’t afford to try and get the car back,” Anderson said.

Michael Festa, the owner of MyHoopty, said he is simply following the law, which allows property owners to remove cars that break rules. In an emailed response to written questions, Festa said he’s never turned over money to the state because the proceeds have never satisfied the towing and storage bill.

The majority of the cars are “in severe mechanical and structural disrepair,” he said. “Any vehicle of any value is either redeemed by its registered owner or lending institution.”

Exactly how many Connecticut residents this system affects has been hard to pin down because the DMV has been slow to provide information. The CT Mirror requested the DMV forms 2 1/2 years ago under the state Freedom of Information Act. Agency officials initially said the request would cost $47,000 but lowered the cost after the CT Mirror’s attorney intervened. Yet the DMV still hasn’t produced all the forms.

The DMV is supposed to review each form and record the car’s book value in the top right corner, which ensures tow companies don’t undervalue cars and sell them faster. If a car is worth more than $1,500, towers have to wait 45 days. The book values regularly exceed the towers’ estimates.

Still, more than half of the roughly 4,200 forms the CT Mirror and ProPublica have received so far show the tow company requested to sell the vehicle citing the 15-day rule. In nearly 700 of those cases, the company asked to sell a car within three weeks.

DMV Commissioner Tony Guerrera said in a written statement that he believes the 15-day window “strikes the right balance for consumers and towers,” protecting drivers’ rights while ensuring vehicles don’t “remain on a tow company’s property for months, amassing large storage charges.”

The DMV said it rigorously reviews the towers’ forms and requests additional documentation from them when their estimate differs greatly from the book value. Officials also said that the initial $47,000 records fee was “an error” and that the request has taken time because they have to manually redact thousands of documents.

State Rep. Roland Lemar, D-New Haven, who co-chairs the legislature’s Transportation Committee, said lawmakers need to look at the 15-day threshold and other towing practices in the upcoming legislative session.

“There are obvious abuses happening to residents across Connecticut, and those impacted are folks with lower economic means who can’t possibly be expected to access that amount of cash in such a quick time frame,” said Lemar, who will chair the General Law Committee, which oversees consumer protection, next session. “There needs to be reform within the DMV, but I think there’s also clear and obvious consumer protection issues.”

“Somebody Is Going to Get Hurt”

Connecticut’s towing law initially passed in 1921 with good intentions: As more people owned cars, more were abandoned, and municipalities needed a way to get them off the streets.

As car ownership grew with the development of highways and suburbs, state lawmakers in the 1960s increased penalties for abandoning vehicles and made it easier for towing companies to sell them.

Before those adjustments, towers had to store a vehicle for 90 days. If no one claimed it, they were required to notify the owner of the intended sale via registered mail and advertise it three times in the newspaper. In 1963, the legislature decided to allow sales within 30 days if the vehicle was worth $35 or less, about $360 today.

Lawmakers cut that time in half to 15 days in 1987 for vehicles worth less than $500 at the time. Local police officials said in public hearings that there were so many junk cars that even local scrapyards didn’t want them and that the shorter time frame would help towns dispose of abandoned vehicles more quickly.

Connecticut’s Towing Laws Compared to Nearby States

The state has the shortest time before sale among northeastern states.

Note: In Connecticut, New Hampshire and New York, the time varies based on the age or value of the vehicle. Maryland has a different time period for Baltimore. (Lucas Waldron/ProPublica)

The measure did face some pushback, though. State Sen. Thomas Upson, R-Waterbury, questioned whether the new law would violate due process because it did not offer a sufficient way for drivers to challenge a tow. Still, the measure passed easily.

Lawmakers continued to crack down on abandoned cars through the 1990s. They expanded the ability of tow companies to remove vehicles from private lots, where residents and owners complained people were parking without permission, and lowered to 45 days the time after which more expensive vehicles could be sold.

But by the late 1990s, lawmakers started to recognize the effects that towing policies had on people with low incomes.

“I’ve seen a car towed overnight and people not able to pay one and two days of charges, and every day they try to hustle the money to put it together, they can’t do it because the choice now is whether I pay rent, pay the food, pay the doctor or redeem my car,” then Rep. Richard Tulisano, D-Rocky Hill, said during a 1998 debate in the House. “Somebody is going to get hurt.”

Yet instead of heeding Tulisano’s warning, the next year, following concerns about parking from property owners, lawmakers expanded the number of cars that could be sold within 15 days by raising the threshold from $500 to $1,500.

Timothy Vibert, president of the Towing & Recovery Professionals of Connecticut, defended the industry, noting that in many cases, vehicles are towed because owners have been skirting the law by driving without registration and insurance. So they don’t try to get their towed cars back because they can’t afford the towing fees or the cost of owning a car.

“I’m not stealing cars,” he said. “I am removing cars that are either illegally parked, whether they be law or condominium rules.”

Most of the complaints, he said, relate to what’s known in the industry as “trespass towing,” when companies tow from private lots rather than in response to police stops and accidents. Some companies have contracts with apartment and public housing complexes to search their lots for cars that don’t belong to residents or violate other rules like not being backed into their parking spaces.

One large trespass tow company in Connecticut that has faced scrutiny is MyHoopty, which is based in Watertown, a small town northwest of New Haven. Since 2022, Watertown police have responded to 87 complaints from people who had gone to MyHoopty. Most said they either couldn’t get their cars back or were being overcharged.

In an incident last January, the police threatened to, but did not, charge Festa when he wouldn’t release a car to its owner. Body-camera footage shows that the woman presented Festa with the title and bill of sale and asked him to let her have it towed out of his lot. Festa told the police he couldn’t release her car until she showed proof it was registered in her name.

The department did not follow through with its threat. Festa said MyHoopty “goes above and beyond” to help customers get their cars back. “We understand that having a vehicle towed without consent can leave a person feeling violated, and some may even perceive it as theft,” he wrote in an email. The company provides several resources, he said, “ensuring a smooth and efficient process for vehicle recovery.”

Festa, who wears his own body camera as an “extra measure of security,” has sued the police twice in state court in the past few years after the complaints prompted the department to take the rare action of removing MyHoopty from a list of tow companies they call after accidents and police stops. One lawsuit was dismissed. The other accuses Watertown officers of launching a “campaign of persecution” against Festa.

Watertown police Chief Joshua Bernegger declined to comment on MyHoopty, citing the pending litigation, and the town has asked the judge to dismiss the suit. But Bernegger said, generally, while “many standup towing companies” perform “crucial public services” in a dangerous environment, “there are, however, some tow companies that are operating on the fringe of a very ambiguous law.”

Festa has also faced criticism at the state level. In late 2022, Festa led an effort with other towers and the towing association to get the DMV to increase towing rates, arguing at a DMV hearing that expenses on everything from truck insurance to workers’ compensation had gone up. The DMV approved a modest increase, but the hearing also offered an opportunity for several people, including Anderson, to complain about MyHoopty refusing to give their cars back.

In response to those concerns, Lemar proposed a bill to require tow companies to give drivers 24 hours’ notice before a tow and to take multiple payment methods, including credit cards. The bill passed the committee, but facing fierce opposition from towers and property managers, it wasn’t called on the House floor. The 15-day rule was not part of that legislation.

Complaints to the DMV Go Nowhere

In some cases, Connecticut’s laws and the DMV’s processes make it harder for people to get their cars back once they’re towed. And for low-income people, the consequences of having their car sold can extend far beyond the cost of the car.

After her Dodge Neon was towed, Anderson pleaded with MyHoopty to release her car. She told them she had the bill of sale, title and proof of insurance and was going to the DMV in two days. But Anderson said Festa told her it wasn’t his problem; he wouldn’t release the car until it was registered.

This is where low-income people can get trapped. The law says that tow companies shall release vehicles to their owners once the fees have been paid and they present proof of registration. But there’s another law that seems to conflict with that: The DMV allows up to three months for drivers to register vehicles purchased out of state. And for private sales in Connecticut, the DMV says there is no deadline. So people can still run into problems even if they follow DMV rules.

Because Anderson bought her car in a private sale, she didn’t receive the temporary license plates usually provided by car dealers. She instead had to make an appointment at the DMV, which at the time took weeks to get, or go to an authorized dealer, which costs extra.

Plus, it was difficult for Anderson to get to MyHoopty’s lot, which was a 40-minute drive from her apartment. She said, one day, a person who answered the phone told her, “You’re wasting your time coming down here anyway, with all the fees and everything, you ain’t getting your car back, sweetheart.”

Anderson said her husband lost his job shortly after the car was towed because he couldn’t always get rides and it took more than an hour on multiple buses to get from Hamden to the restaurant he worked at in Milford.

To make matters worse, Anderson said, in the car were all of her husband’s chef tools, including knives he had been given in culinary school, which he estimates were worth more than $1,000.

After learning her rights from a tenants union, Anderson filed a complaint with the DMV in early 2023. In a three-page letter, she wrote, “It may be just a car to some, but for my family it was sanity, peace of mind stolen from us by MyHoopty.”

DMV records show MyHoopty sold her car to a Waterbury auto salvage facility for $800 within two months of towing it from her apartment complex. Anderson said her husband’s chef tools were never returned.

Festa declined to comment about specific cases, including Anderson’s. But he said MyHoopty employees “take the handling and return of personal property very seriously” by documenting every step of the towing process and “allowing customers to retrieve all personal belongings from their vehicles.”

The CT Mirror and ProPublica interviewed dozens of people across the state who had their cars sold after being towed. Like Anderson, they said their complaints to the DMV went nowhere.

This does not seem to be unusual. From 2021-23, the DMV conducted 17 investigations into complaints from drivers accusing MyHoopty of exorbitant bills and questionable reasons for towing their cars, according to records obtained by CT Mirror and ProPublica.

But most of the cases ended with no action being taken, records show. The law allows tow companies to sell people’s cars and doesn’t give owners a quick process to challenge a tow. The DMV has the power to issue fines of up to $1,000 or suspend or revoke companies’ licenses, and in a few cases, the department issued an infraction for overcharging on a towing bill — the legal equivalent of a speeding ticket.

Guerrera said the agency wants to make sure that everybody is held to the same standard. “If we receive complaints, we investigate and we adhere to the statutes that allow us to do things in regards to penalties or whatever it may be,” he said. “If it’s a formal complaint, we look into it, and if we find there’s something wrong, then we hold them to the letter of the law.”

Guerrera and other DMV officials said that tow companies could be charged with filing a false statement for lying on the forms, although they acknowledged they don’t remember a case when that happened.

Rachel Massaro filed a complaint against MyHoopty after the company towed her 2004 Honda Civic from her townhouse at Seramonte Estates in Hamden in 2021. But the DMV didn’t find any violations.

Massaro had just bought the car for $3,000 two days earlier. She brought it home that weekend and said she was told by the property manager that she couldn’t get a temporary pass until Monday.

“She told me, if I park, I had to park where the visitors” parked, Massaro said. “I did that and I was still towed.”

Massaro said MyHoopty told her it would cost more than $700 to get her car back. State regulations permit companies to charge $125, plus $5.65 per mile, for a tow, and daily storage fees range from $23 to $37.

“I told them I just bought the car, and I can’t spend another — he wanted $740,” Massaro said, “and he was like, ‘I don’t know what to tell you, honey.’”

MyHoopty submitted the form, seeking permission to sell the car, to the DMV 17 days after towing Massaro’s vehicle. On the form the company listed the car’s value as only $600.

The reason: There was no key to see how well the vehicle ran. It was the same explanation MyHoopty gave the DMV for the price of Anderson’s car.

Massaro said the car was worth a lot more and that MyHoopty knew she had the key. “I told them to let me go in and at least get my stuff out of there,” she said. “He told me that until I paid that fee, I couldn’t.”

Massaro never got back the shoes and clothes she had just bought at TJ Maxx. And the Honda was also sold to a salvage dealer in Waterbury for $800, according to DMV records.

Massaro cried when she saw a copy of the DMV form showing her car had been junked.

“It’s just an abuse of power that they hold over people they know can’t afford to pay the fees,” Massaro said.

Under the statute, when a towing company removes a vehicle from private property, it must inform the local police within two hours. The law is designed to ensure that police don’t mistake stolen cars for ones that were towed.

Hamden is a town of 60,000 people. But call logs from the police department show that from January 2022 to June 2024, more than half of the agency’s 1,082 tows were from Seramonte Estates, where MyHoopty had a contract to tow vehicles.

The law requires tow companies to send a certified letter to the car’s registered owner informing them it’s going to be sold. Several people, however, said they were never notified.

Abdul-Basit Ajia was studying business and playing basketball at Post University in Waterbury in April 2023 when someone broke into his Toyota Avalon in his apartment complex parking garage, shattering the window and damaging the steering wheel and gear shift. He reported the break-in to police and left it parked until he could afford to make the repairs necessary to take it home to Rhode Island.

Ajia said he didn’t know it had been sold until a reporter called him to ask what had happened. He said he never got any notification from the state or the towing company, Durable Radiator & Autobody, about the request to sell the car.

DMV records list Ajia’s mother’s address in Rhode Island, but he said no notice arrived there either.

Durable Radiator declined to comment and referred questions to the Waterbury towing association, which didn’t return calls and emails.

Ajia said the lack of transportation as he finished college made it more financially difficult to get started. He still hasn’t been able to purchase another car and rents one from his uncle.

“You need a car for almost anything,” he said. “So I was really out there just struggling, even to find a job.”

The Mirror is investigating towing practices in Connecticut, where companies can sell people’s cars after just 15 days. If you’ve been affected, here is how to share it: https://ctmirror.org/2025/01/05/connecticut-dmv-tow-companies-car-sales/

Shahrzad Rasekh, José Luis Martinez and Andrew Brown of The Connecticut Mirror and Asia Fields and Ryanne Mena of ProPublica contributed reporting. Dave Altimari, Ginny Monk are reporters for The Connecticut Mirror (https://ctmirror.org/ ). Copyright 2025 © The Connecticut Mirror, and Haru Coryne | ProPublica

The Tuesday report from the state’s Office of the Child Advocate takes a look at the progress state agencies have made since the high-profile deaths of 2-year-old Liam Rivera and 10-month-old Marcello Meadows.

The report also makes a series of recommendations for the Department of Children and Families, the Court Support Services Division and the Office of the Chief Public Defender to make sure kids are safe in the future.

Liam, who was found buried in a Stamford park, died in 2022 by blunt force injury to the head. A report after his death found that DCF and judicial staff didn’t handle the case properly, and the court had incomplete information when it made decisions about the toddler’s care.

Marcello died in 2023 from ingesting opioids, and the ensuing report found that more could have been done to ensure his caretakers had the services they needed to cope with substance abuse.

The new report recommends changes that range from more training and accountability for staff to improving policies for referring caregivers to services for substance abuse. Acting Child Advocate Christina Ghio said the follow-up report is focused on progress made since the deaths.

“The changes on the system level are where we look for sort of long-term, sustainable change,” Ghio said. “What are you putting in place to make sure that whatever gaps existed before are addressed? And then also, what are you doing to make sure those things actually occur going forward?”

The Office of the Child Advocate reviews work done to protect vulnerable children in Connecticut, and periodically issues reports examining specific cases or issues, often with recommendations for improvement.

In Liam and Marcello’s cases, OCA found that DCF didn’t follow agency policy and couldn’t produce records of what are called “collateral contacts,” meaning workers couldn’t prove that they were following up with service providers, counselors or doctors to ensure that families were sticking with their safety plans.

The report also says that there are some concerns in DCF data with issues such as properly monitoring cases, ensuring case workers visited the families and making sure families actually got the services they needed.

Only about half of the cases reviewed had evidence that case workers were making sure families got services and about 44% had social workers visiting once a week to check in for the first month after cases were investigated.

Since then, DCF has created a new position and the employee in that role is expected to bring more attention to safety practices. It has also established a team to review data and make improvements in how cases are handled across the agency, and is working on a new safety practice tool to make sure staff review child safety.

In a written response, DCF Commissioner Jodi Hill-Lilly pointed to some of the improvements and said that the state’s Office of Labor Relations didn’t find just cause to initiate formal discipline on the staff involved in the specific cases.

“I stand firm in our decision that formal staff discipline was not warranted,” Hill-Lilly said. “We remain receptive to feedback to learn from these cases and grow as an organization in order to improve upon our complex work and assist and support our front-line staff in the critical decisions they are faced with each day. Case practice issues that did not warrant formal discipline required follow-up to ensure practice improvements.”

The OCA report said that staff accountability needs to be “consistent and present throughout the workforce.”

Ghio said this doesn’t necessarily mean formal reprimands or termination, but regular access to training or counseling for staff.

OCA also recommended that the state quickly implement Public Act 24-126, a law that was passed last year. The law requires that DCF report certain data about child safety to its Statewide Advisory Committee, among other measures.

The report also said DCF should continue developing ways to monitor staff adherence to policy and make clear the way the Office of Labor Relations should get involved when there are missteps that need to be investigated by individual employees.

“We also stress that our child protection safety practice is always evolving and adjusting due to the rapid changes happening within our society that impact the lives of children and families,” Hill-Lilly said in her written response.

The Court Support Services Division, which oversees probation services, was involved with caregivers in both fatality cases. OCA recommended that in the future, the agency should expand its referral network for substance abuse services, offer more training and make sure that there is a policy in place to ask adults getting services whether they are caregivers to any children.

The division has made several changes including creating an audit unit to ensure that policy is being followed across the agency. It has also updated policies about reporting adult substance abuse to DCF and convened an internal working group to review probation staff training.

In a written statement, Melissa Farley, executive director of the external affairs division at the Judicial Branch, said the branch had worked with OCA in its investigation.

“The Branch has addressed the policy violations identified in this report to ensure similar violations will not occur in future cases,” Farley said. “Although the Branch’s policies and procedures were found to be sound in the areas reviewed, we will continue to review and discuss whether additional modifications should be implemented.”

After the deaths, the Office of the Public Defender worked to secure funding to hire 20 social workers to ensure that children are represented well in the agency.

It also updated child protection guidelines to ensure that attorneys assigned to represent kids are visiting with the children.

The OCA recommended that the public defender’s office implement a strong training framework for the new social workers and said it should get more money so that it can offer competitive salary to attorneys.

The office has struggled to recruit and retain staff because of low pay, Ghio said.

The public defender’s office didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

“I’s a fairly straightforward report in regards to expectations not being met, and what are we doing about it?,” said Brendan Burke, assistant child advocate.  “And that’s a big question for a state agency doing really critical, life-altering work.”

Ginny Monk  is a reporter for The Connecticut Mirror (ctmirror.org). Copyright 2024 © The Connecticut Mirror.

A community land trust is a way to create and preserve affordable housing in which a nonprofit owns the land and develops housing. Sometimes, additional community gathering spaces such as gardens or shops can go on the land as well.

The housing has regulations regarding ownership and transfer of the property to new residents that keeps it affordable. Connecticut’s laws regarding land trusts include one that reduces property tax burdens on the land. The law helps make the state amenable to land trusts, according to the report released last month from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Still, advocates say Connecticut can do more. They want to see more funding put toward the model as well as further tax reforms.

Kristin King-Ries, one of the report’s authors, said there has been a growing interest in community land trusts nationwide.

“There’s been a return to the idea of a full potential of community land trusts as a way to build the whole community up,” King-Ries said in an interview.

Connecticut is one of just six states that reduces property tax burdens only on community land trust-owned land. Land trusts can get property tax easements in the state. Eight others require local assessors to reduce the tax burden on land owned by a CLT and to take affordability restrictions on the homes themselves into account when calculating taxes on the homes, according to the report.

Taxes on the homes built on community land trust property have been an issue for homeowners on Southeastern Connecticut Community Land Trust property, executive director Mirna Martinez said.

Homes on community land trusts typically have certain restrictions around the sale that keep the homeowner from earning as much money as they might in a traditional private residence sale. The restrictions are meant to ensure the homes stay affordable in the long-term.

Martinez said Connecticut tax law doesn’t take this into account when assessors are evaluating the homes.

Connecticut was also one of the early adopters of a state law that had statutes that enabled community land trust development. In 2018, five had what the report defines as comprehensive community land trust legislation. These laws usually include measures that define a community land trust, have a state housing trust fund or other funding for land trusts, or taxation standards specialized to community land trusts, among other aspects, according to the report.

“I see this as sort of brought up as an important tool for affordable housing,” said Alexander Kolokotronis, director of the Naugatuck Valley Project, which owns a land trust property in Waterbury. “It falls in this broader ecosystem of affordable housing. And so there is definitely more interest. I hear and see more talk of it in Connecticut.”

The Waterbury property operates as a co-op, a corporation that allows residents to buy shares in the housing development so they can take votes on how the property should be managed. The units were built on property owned by the land trust, in a unique partnership that means land costs can stay low.

Kolokotronis said in his experience, community land trusts work to preserve affordability. He compared it to methods such as the federal low-income housing tax credit program, which offers tax incentives to developers if they keep a set percentage of units in a development affordable for at least 30 years.

The program is one of the federal government’s primary ways of encouraging construction of affordable housing. But critics have pointed out that the affordability requirements don’t last forever.

Connecticut runs the risk of having about 5,000 units of affordable housing expiring in the next five years, according to a report from the National Housing Preservation Database.

Martinez said while she thinks momentum is growing for community land trusts there is still work to do.

Often, when she’s talking about her work, she said people don’t know what a community land trust is.

“I think we still have a long way to go in telling the story,” Martinez said.

Her organization, which operates primarily in New London, encourages homeownership and community gardens on their land. She said she’d like to see the state target down payment assistance to programs like community land trusts that guarantee affordability in perpetuity.

Kolokotronis agreed that more funding would help the model grow, particularly to help with staffing and technical assistance for the nonprofits.

King-Ries said in addition to gains in popularity, her review found that more community land trusts are working to encourage density.

“It was a single-family model … but in the last five to 10 years, the shift to multi-family, that’s really been where the focus has been,” King-Ries said.

It reflects a larger land use conversation that’s happening around the country, including in Connecticut. Affordable housing advocates have been pushing for more density because it allows more units to be built on existing land and makes it easier for more residents to use public transit.

As community land trusts grow denser and have more units, King-Ries said there’s a push-and-pull between a desire to build more and the community feel that’s traditionally part of community land trusts.

But, she said, it’s helped by a growing number of land trusts that are using the land for community spaces such as gardens and churches.

“There’s been a return to the idea of a full potential of community land trusts as a way to build the whole community up,” she said.

The United Way of Central and Northeastern Connecticut is, for the second year in a row, opening up its Rapid Response Fund for Homelessness and Housing for families struggling to make ends meet. The United Way is putting $100,000 into the fund and anticipates that it’ll be able to help about 150 families.

The cash can be used for a wide range of expenses including past-due bills, food or transportation, officials said. The towns include many in the 860 area code region, including the Hartford area and stretching to the northeast corner of the state.

“​​As the cold weather approaches — it’s already here somewhat — we need to act to keep individuals and families in safe and stable housing with this diversion funding,” said Eric Harrison, president and chief executive officer of the United Way of Central and Northeastern Connecticut, during a press conference Monday.

The organization is opening the fund in the face of a rising homeless population that has shelters stretched thin. Homelessness has increased in Connecticut for the past three years, and the last count showed that there were 3,410 people experiencing homelessness on a single night in January.

“Too many Connecticut residents, too many of our kids, our families and our seniors, they find themselves this Thanksgiving without a home,” said Rep. Kate Farrar, D-West Hartford.

Gov. Ned Lamont spoke at Monday’s press conference, and said he was supportive of the effort to keep people in their homes, although the state isn’t contributing money to the United Way’s fund.

Housing advocates and service providers have criticized Lamont’s administration and the legislature for not putting more state money into housing and homelessness programs. Lamont has limited spending in an effort to improve the state’s fiscal health.

It’s likely this policy will create tension with advocates who want to see more spending on social services in the upcoming legislative session.

Russell Hansen, director of impact and engagement operations at the United Way, said that helping people with additional expenses such as transportation or food can help keep them housed because they aren’t forced to choose between necessities such as paying rent or buying gas.

Hansen said most people receive a maximum of about $1,000 through the program, and that United Way hopes to expand the fund’s impact through private donations.

People in need can be referred to the program through their town governments.

Matt Hellman, director of social services in Vernon, said he’s seeing more people at risk of losing their homes as out-of-state landlords buy properties and increase rents.

“Tenants who have been at the same location for years are then faced with trying to figure out a way to make up the difference,” Hellman said. “This is extremely challenging, particularly for seniors or persons with disabilities who are on a fixed income. The other option is to find a new place to live. But as we all know, with the current housing shortage, this is also difficult.”

He said the United Way program offers a new way for towns to connect people to services.

Cassandra Gates, a Vernon resident, said she was a participant in the program at the start of the year after a house fire left her and her teenage son with nothing. They lost their clothes, her car and their belongings, she said.

Her son’s mental health declined, and Gates said the money helped her have fewer things to worry about. She could get transportation and new clothes.

“I was able to focus on my family and my son’s mental health,” Gates said. “It changed my life.”

She and her son are set to move into a permanent apartment later this week.

At a press conference in Newington, the Connecticut Apartment Association asked lawmakers to take steps to increase the number of multi-family units in the state, especially near public transit, make the permitting process easier for builders and enact measures to help developers more easily turn commercial properties into apartments.

This is the start of a more public push than in years’ past by landlords to put their political weight behind housing development. Landlord groups have typically gotten support from Republican lawmakers and pro-business legislators.

“We are here to engage the discussion now because there’s no easy fix and the old approaches must change. This is what we’ve been talking about with legislative leaders and will continue to do so leading up to the January legislative session,” said apartment association member and New Haven landlord Dondré Roberts. “Our message is simple and direct: Connecticut needs to make it easier to develop and build multi-family housing affordably now.”

Connecticut’s housing crisis has been a problem for legislators for years. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Connecticut has a shortage of over 98,000 housing units that are affordable and available for low-income renters.

State legislators have been pushing for housing reforms for the past couple of legislative sessions. Roberts said his group supports legislation like House Bill 5474, which passed last session and includes measures to provide incentives for middle housing development, require written notice of rent increases and develop ordinances for short-term rental properties, among other actions.

“Last year, H.B. 5474, which tackles the missing middle of duplexes, triplexes and housing that’s between single-family and multi-family communities like this one, is a great start and they need to keep going,” Roberts said.

Although members said they supported the bill, they did not testify publicly on it. The bill changed substantially between the public hearing and final votes, and members said Wednesday they’re working toward more support this session.

“It’s time,” Roberts said, of the need for more action. “Just as someone who lives in the state … it’s tough out there, especially when you are looking for housing that sometimes doesn’t exist for your budget.”

The landlords’ support may create tension within the coalition of people supporting zoning and land use changes. Typically, those in favor of zoning reform have aligned themselves with tenants’ rights groups.

But the apartment association has opposed bills pro-housing coalition members have supported and on Wednesday it called for lawmakers to stop focusing on landlord-tenant issues and get to what they called the root of the problem — the lack of housing.

“The legislature needs to turn away from the landlord-tenant battles like rent caps and forever leases that held us back last year,” Roberts said. “Those proposals were rejected. They took everyone’s eye off the ball, stalled progress, and they don’t add a single unit of housing.”

Lawmakers in past sessions have considered proposals to cap rent increases and to stop no-fault evictions, or evictions that occur when leases end. Neither proposal has gotten through the House or Senate.

Broadly, the apartment association members said they wanted to make it easier to build more housing of many types, including higher-density developments. They said lawmakers should explore methods such as tax incentives, among other solutions.

They pointed to data that shows the vast majority of Connecticut’s residential land is zoned for single-family housing and said that needs to change.

Landlords said they also wanted to see ways to make it easier to convert vacant commercial properties into apartments. The strategy has been used across the country in cities like Providence, where a shopping mall was transformed into apartments.

A major concern for the apartment association and other groups is the development process for housing around Connecticut. Kevin Santini, a principal at the family-owned property management and construction company Santini Homes, said developers struggle in Connecticut because of the extensive permitting process.

“If you go into a piece of land that isn’t zoned for multi-family, it’s very daunting and very unattractive to go in and try to go through the processes that you need to go through,” Santini said.

He emphasizes the need for predictability with infrastructure.

“You can’t make the process take two to three years, especially if you’re rezoning a parcel by that time,” Santini said. “It’s years and it’s hundreds of thousands of dollars if not seven figures.”

Roberts said the group supports incentive-based solutions rather than mandates for towns. That issue is one of the biggest debates in the conversation about zoning reform and housing development in Connecticut.

Top lawmakers and housing experts have said leaving control in the hands of local government isn’t working. But Gov. Ned Lamont and many opponents of statewide zoning reform have argued for incentive-based, locally driven solutions.

Santini said the responsibility for building the housing will lie with developers.

“To make positive changes, politics can’t be involved,” Santini said. “And I know that’s crazy to say, and maybe even naive, but we have to do what’s best for the state of Connecticut, and we have to put our agendas aside. And right now, the state needs us. The state needs builders.”