ctmirror.org19%
I’ve knocked on 4,000 doors. We need more urgency to bring down the cost of living 90%
By Eli Sabin99%
7/20/2026, 4:01:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 33 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Indoctrination, and Negativity Bias, with Appeal to Emotion as the most egregious example at 36.1% saturation with 384 hits. Analysis detected 3,132 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,065 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 83.8% and a BS Rank of 90% (2,138 of 21,176 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 89.90% of the article peer group.
I started knocking on doors in the February snow.
Now, I’m talking to my neighbors in the boiling July heat.
During my campaign for state representative in New Haven, I’ve knocked on more than 4,000 doors across Westville, Amity, Dwight, West River, Edgewood, and the Hill.
Across a district that is incredibly diverse, the conversations on doorsteps keep coming back to the same thing.
It’s the question that has been my focus on New Haven’s Board of Alders and at Connecticut Voices for Children: Who is our state for?
And who will be able to live here if the cost of living keeps going up?
Making New Haven and Connecticut a more affordable place to live for families, seniors, and young people has driven my work.
And it’s why I think we don’t have time to wait for our state government to take on this crisis with urgency, creativity, and political courage.
A couple weeks ago, I talked to a woman in Edgewood who told me she was paying her rent but she was afraid she and her kids would be evicted.
She asked me where she could find an affordable place to move if she lost her apartment.
I’ve heard from so many seniors who are worried that their rising property tax bills are going to price them out of the homes they’ve lived in for decades.
And neighbors are always bringing up our state’s out-of-control electric bills, child care costs, and the growing sense that our city and our state are just not affordable for working people and the middle class.
A lot of us are relieved to live in a state run by Democrats, especially as the Trump administration attacks vulnerable Americans across the country.
But with the cost of living continuing to rise, we need our state government to do more.
The conversations I have with voters every day highlight four changes we should take on with new energy, ideas, and strategy:
Bring down property taxes by fixing how we fund schools.
One man I talked to in Westville brought out his property tax letters to show me.
He was frustrated.
Over the past three years, New Haven’s tax rate has gone up 7.5 percent, and tax bills have jumped even more because of the recent property revaluation.
Importantly, high property taxes and underfunded schools are related.
About 30 percent of New Haven’s city budget goes to our schools.
Our property taxes are high in part because state education funding has been largely flat since 2013.
The state’s Education Cost Sharing formula has not kept up with inflation.
If it had, New Haven would receive roughly $60 million more per year for our schools.
That funding could help us fully staff our schools and also offset up to 7 mills of local property taxes.
More state money for education would lead to better outcomes for our kids and also lower the burden on taxpayers.
Gov.
Ned Lamont recently established a commission on education funding reform.
With that process underway, now is the moment for our state legislators to organize and build coalitions between rural, suburban, and urban towns.
If we fight together for real education funding reform, we can make it a reality.
Both taxpayers and students across Connecticut are feeling the same pinch.
New state investment should also come with more transparency and long term financial planning from boards of education.
With more resources and better accountability, we can reform our school funding system to improve our schools and lower property taxes at the same time.
Help people stay in their homes.
For the woman I met facing eviction, and thousands like her, I’ll fight to pass just-cause eviction protections.
Tenants who pay their rent and follow their leases should not be uprooted from their homes without a legitimate reason.
Losing your home is devastating, and right now state law allows it to happen for no reason at all.
That needs to change.
Landlords have stopped this legislation from passing in recent sessions.
I will work with tenant advocates and legislators from around the state to continue raising the voices of renters who need this protection.
I believe that getting this legislation passed will require addressing small landlords’ legitimate concerns about rising costs and management challenges.
We can do more to expand homeownership, too.
New Haven has block after block of two- and three-family homes owned by absentee corporate landlords.
Many renters would love to become homeowners, but you usually can’t buy just one unit, and buying a multifamily is too expensive.
We should make it easier to convert these multi-family rentals into condos.
Done right —with tenant protections to prevent displacement—this reform would give more families a real stake in our neighborhoods and a path to building wealth.
Make daily life more affordable.
Families are also hit hard by our upside-down tax code and by high utility bills in drafty, inefficient apartments.
These are two different problems that we need to address.
First, Connecticut should enact a Child Tax Credit of $500 per child for families earning under $100,000 (or $200,000 for a couple), putting money in parents’ pockets to pay for the basics.
The CTC should be combined with other state programs and offered as a monthly benefit that fits better with family budgets.
Second, tenants deserve to know what their utility bills will be before they sign a lease.
I’ll push for legislation requiring landlords and utilities to partner to disclose past average utility bills when landlords advertise the rent.
These changes will make a real difference, but over the years, I’ve also heard something harder to fix with legislation: disillusionment.
As I walk down the street, people shout out that politicians only show up for elections.
Nearly every day during this campaign, someone has told me I’m the first person running for office who has ever knocked on their door or called them personally.
As a state representative, I’ll keep knocking on doors year-round.
In this moment when people don’t believe that government can deliver, it’s more important than ever to show up and prove that we can solve the big problems we face.
That starts with bold action, now, to make our state more affordable.
Eli Sabin of New Haven is a Democratic candidate for Connecticut House District 92.
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