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Appropriations Subcommittee on Human Services Hearing
February 11, 2010

Testimony of Betsy Crum, Director of Real Estate Development for the Women’s Institute for Housing
and Economic Development

To Members of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Human Services:

Thank you for this opportunity to address you today. My name is Betsy Crum,
and I am the Director of Real Estate Development for the Women’s Institute for Housing
and Economic Development. The Women’s Institute is a not‐for‐profit housing
development corporation that works with local partners in virtually every corner of the
state to help them meet their affordable and supportive housing goals. I am also a
Board member of the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness and sit on the state’s
Reaching Home Steering Committee. Today I am wearing both hats – that of a not‐forprofit
housing developer that works create housing and of an advocate for ending
homelessness in Connecticut’s cities and towns.

I would like to urge you to hold the line on reductions to housing and homeless
services. The Housing and Homelessness line item in the Deparment of Social Services’
budget includes critical funding for tens of thousands of Connecticut residents, including
many of our most vulnerable citizens. Programs like rental assistance, emergency
shleter and transitional living programs, residence for people with AIDS, Eviction and
Foreclosure Prevention, security deposit guarantees, and homelessness prevention
intervention are essential to keeping people stable and avoiding the much higher cost of
poverty and homelessness. Cutting essential services at this time to people who already
have so little can only serve to increase demand on other, more costly state systems.
I would also like you to appreciate the particular importance of the state Rental
Assistance Program (RAP) and the role it plays in ensuring that low‐income families
remain in housing. Connecticut has one of the tightest rental markets in the nation,
with a vacancy rate of only 3.7% as compared to 10% nationwide. Those vacancies are
primarily at the highest end of the market, far from the reach of low and moderate
income families. It is a fact that 25% of all renting households earn less than 50% of the
Area Median Income and pay in excess of 50% of that limited income toward housing.
This burden leaves little for food, clothing and other necessities and puts the entire
family at risk.

State RAPs offer a critical element in the fight against chronic homelessness and
poverty by ensuring that these households pay no more than 30% of their income
toward housing costs. Approximately 2,500 Connecticut families are served by this
program each year, with another 1,200 on the waiting list. The RAP Program has also
been an enormously important tool in the creation of supportive housing. RAPs have
been issued in conjunction with supportive service dollars to provide a powerful tool to
place and serve people in existing private housing. In addition, RAP vouchers have been
“project‐based” in new housing developments, tying the rent subsidy to the supportive
housing unit. This approach enables high‐quality supportive housing to operate
effectively and efficiently while permanently housing people who would otherwise cycle
in and out of expensive emergency and homeless service systems. In short, RAP is a
powerful and cost‐effective economic tool for preventing and ending homelessless.

Please preserve the RAP Program and reject any cuts to all of our important
housing/homeless services. Thank you for your consideration.

Betsy Crum
Director of Real Estate Development