Budget Impasse Continues: Please Call Your Legislators Today!

Connecticut continues to operate without an approved budget for the current fiscal year. Under these circumstances, the Governor must run the state under an Executive Order Resource Allocation Plan.

On Friday August 18, the Governor announced an update to this plan, which included additional funding for homeless services ($1.43 million), additional funding for DMHAS Housing Supports ($943,000), and additional funding for DCF/Homeless Youth ($103,773) going forward. It is our understanding that this additional funding will, among other impacts, restore funding previously cut from existing Rental Assistance Payments (RAPs) that underpin supportive housing projects. This is good news during the period that the Governor manages by EO, which will continue until the legislature passes a budget. Thank you to all of you for the calls have already made. These changes are proof that our calls are working, but we can’t stop now.

Until a budget is passed, there is no certainty regarding funding for Housing and Homelessness Services for FY2018 or FY2019. Budget negotiations are ongoing. For this reason, we will continue to reach out to you every Tuesday to ask that you raise your voice to support funding through our state budget to end homelessness!

We are asking TODAY that you take five minutes to:

(1) Thank the Governor for supporting Housing and Homelessness Services in Connecticut; and

(2) Call your legislators and ask them to support homelessness response through a state budget.

Please Call the Governor and thank him for his support! He can be reached by phone at (800) 406-1527 or by email at Governor.Malloy@po.state.ct.us.

Phone Script

Hello, my name is _________, and I am a provider of homeless services. I’m calling to thank you for supporting homelessness and housing resources during this difficult period when our state has no budget. We are grateful for your support – it is critical to keeping up the momentum in our shared efforts to end homelessness. Thank you!

Call Your Legislators! Click here for a directory.

Phone Script

Hello, my name is _________, a voter in your district, and a provider of homeless services. I’m calling to ask that you pass a budget that preserves the DOH Housing and Homelessness line item at $74M, the DMHAS Housing Supports and Services line item at $23M, and the Homeless Youth line item at $2.3M. DOH and DMHAS funds are critical to move people from homelessness to housing and keep them stably housed – saving lives and saving taxpayer dollars. DOH as a stand-alone Department has been critical to our work: please preserve DOH. You can reach me at [your call back number]. Thank you!

Thank you for your continued support, and all your efforts and advocacy towards ending homelessness in Connecticut!
Please contact Sarah Fox (sfox@cceh.org) and Sean Ghio at (sean@pschousing.org) to relay any updates from your conversations with legislators and legislative aides.