Racial segregation is the result of decades of discriminatory lending, zoning and other housing policies in Connecticut. Several Hartford area towns had race restrictive covenants which have left us with racially discriminatory housing patterns today.
- Average fair market rent for Hartford area residents is about $11,44 for a two-bedroom apartment.
- An individual would have earn almost $48,000 per year to afford this housing, or work 96 hours per week at minimum wage to afford the rent alone, not including food, utilities, etc.
- The average annual wage for Hartford households in 2013 was just under $17,000.
- The city’s mill rate at 74.2 is by far the highest in the state. Homes are assessed at about 30% of their fair market value, not 70 % as elsewhere in the state. A homeowner in Hartford pays roughly the same tax on her/his single-family house as s/he would in West Hartford.
More than 37,000 people commute to Hartford for work everyday from just nine of our state’s 169 towns. Hartford has the 25th highest number of out-of-town commuters in the nation for a city its size. Few of these commuters feel tied to the welfare of our capital’s residents. Perhaps even fewer have experienced the poor housing choices of Hartford’s residents.