By Chike Onyiuke, Central Connecticut State University

Harrison Trider, a library technician from New Britain, said his recent rent increase of $225 a month has forced him to move back home with his mom.

“The last year, I moved into a place… and I was paying $1,225 a month,” Trider said. “It was affordable for me, but it was a little bit of a stretch. And then we came up for renewal, they raised it by $225 a month. I was set to be paying $1,450 and I just can’t do that anymore.”

The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in New Britain is $1,308 as of January 2025, according to Apartments.com. In the past year, rent has increased by 5.6% or $74 a month, the website reports.

Council Majority Leader John McNamara, a Democrat, said Connecticut needs to help renters.

“Policymakers need to try and develop real affordable housing opportunities,” McNamara said.

McNamara also said property taxes play a role in rents going up.

“The rent increases are directly attributable to higher property taxes, which have been in the neighborhood [of] 18% to 20% in the last two years in New Britain without any increase in services for neighborhoods because of revaluation,” McNamara said. “The bad actors in the housing market take advantage of that and pass 100% of it on to tenants and that’s the calculation made when the rents aren’t as fair as they could be.”

McNamara said he has heard from residents who can’t find apartments in the city. 

“The vacancy rates on ‘affordable’ rents are not what people can afford,” he said, adding that they then look in other towns and cities. 

McNamara said with the COVID-19 crisis ending, rents are spiraling in the city.

“It has to be a post-pandemic bump,” McNamara said. “There was pressure from [the] landlord community to lift the protections that were imposed when we had a pandemic.”

Alderman Nathan Simpson, a Democrat, said rents are rising due to landlords treating housing as an investment vehicle.  

“People need housing to escape the natural elements and build community. Landlords use that need to drive prices upwards, beyond reasonable rents,’’ Simpson said. “If that goes unchecked, we end up with housing crises like the one our state faces right now.”

McNamara said the rent increases will affect residents to the point that they could be evicted. 

“It creates a thread of displacement,” McNamara said. “So New Britain tends to have higher than average eviction rates and so the impact of higher rents or rent gouging are that it can put people on the street or drive them somewhere else.”

A 2022 study by CT Data Collaborative found that New Britain had the fifth highest number of eviction filings in Connecticut, with 3,809 between 2017 and 2021. It trailed only Hartford, Bridgeport, Waterbury and New Haven. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were state and federal bans on evictions, but once they were lifted, eviction rates have risen in Connecticut, CT Data Collaborative reports.

Chris Anderson, a New Britain landlord and a former Democratic alderman, said he understands the struggles people are experiencing with the rising rents.

“So, I recognize that it’s really tough on folks,” Anderson said. “We’re in this economy where wages have been increased over the years at the same amount that the cost of living especially through rent has increased. So that’s putting a big strain on folks. I’ve noticed that some of my tenants have had those kinds of struggles.”

Anderson said landlords who had to put off evictions due to the bans are now able to do so once again. 

“The biggest factor has got to be that the moratorium was lifted and so landlords who had been wanting to evict the whole time were suddenly able to,” Anderson said. “But I think what drives most landlords, in particular small landlords to remove somebody from their property is number one, non-payment of rent and then number two is a mismatch of the landlord-tenant relationship.”

New Britain resident Raynaldo Almodovar, a CNC operator at a manufacturing company and a father of two children, said living with multiple people that bring in income is becoming essential.

“You need to have a roommate or at least two incomes coming into a household if you want to actually live comfortably ‘cause if not, it is difficult,” Almodovar said. “I’m the sole income in my house and it’s me, my wife, and two kids, and it has been difficult.”

Almodovar said he worries about his rent increasing. 

“Honestly, if we do have to move out of the place that we currently are in or they increase [the rent] further, it is gonna be a lot for the people who are sole providers in just a household,” Almodovar said.

Agnes Suzl, who works in the recovery room at UConn Health and lives in New Britain, said rents in the city are excessive. She said an annual rental increase of 2% would be more reasonable. 

Suzl said the increase will price current residents out of the city.

“I think New Britain as a town will lose a lot of the renters,” she said. “Owners of these homes might lose their homes if they don’t have tenants that are paying their mortgages for them. Therefore, the population in New Britain might decrease and people will just start looking elsewhere.”

Suzl said there needs to be a set percentage on rental increases statewide.

“I personally think there should be a cap and landlords can’t keep raising these rents,” Suzl said. “It should be a state thing all across the board, too, or town by town, and I think it should just be set at a certain percent. I think it should be kept at what it is or lower it a bit.”

Chike Onyiuke is a senior majoring in journalism at Central Connecticut State University.