Grantee Partner Spotlight: CHO-EC is preserving Eastern CT Communities
"We’re talking about the people who live here."
With collaboration, technical expertise, and lots of personal connection, The Connecticut Project grantee partner the Center for Housing Opportunity Eastern Connecticut (CHO-EC), an initiative of The Housing Collective, is aiming to address housing needs for all 51 towns in Windham, Tolland, and New London counties.
“When we talk about eastern Connecticut, we're talking about the people who live here,” said Beth Sabilia, Director of CHO-EC. “The sense and sensibilities are different than the rest of the state. There is this sense that we can take care of our neighbors, thank you very much. That New England 'we can do anything' spirit.’”
Sabilia and her colleagues are embracing that spirit to work with towns, tenant unions and other residents, nonprofit partners, and builders to produce and preserve safe, stable, affordable housing. In an area with many small towns, that requires listening to communities and tailoring their approaches accordingly.
“It's about building those relationships,” Sabilia said. “It’s about thinking things through and giving back to the towns. A 500 unit development might not be appropriate for Eastford. We talk to people about what's realistic for our communities and push to do a little bit more.”
In the last year, that “little bit” has meant hundreds more homes to keep Eastern Connecticut communities together. Right now, 961 homes are expected to be built in the area because of CHO-EC’s technical assistance with things like permitting, help securing funding, and deep collaborations with town governments, residents, nonprofits, developers, and others.
Ledyard’s Colby Drive Extension Project is one example. Decades ago, land around Colby Drive was supposed to be developed for multi-family rental homes. After setbacks, the land was donated to Habitat for Humanity of Eastern Connecticut, but it needed roads, sewers, and a host of other resources to make it habitable. The area, dug up and unused, sat vacant, and students at nearby Ledyard High School had to avoid it if they wanted to try to walk from school to the town center.
Working with Habitat for Humanity of Eastern Connecticut, the Mayor, the town finance board, town council, utility commission, town staff, and public hearings with residents, CHO-EC was able to get the project off the ground. Now, 38 families will have safe, quality, affordable homes because of it.
Sabilia credits the Ledyard community for the momentum.
“The community was so very supportive,” she said. “We sometimes hear that communities don't want affordable housing. That’s not necessarily true in all cases. Ledyard welcomed it. People loved the buildings, and it’s a benefit to the town.”
The housing costs facing eastern Connecticut residents are real. Forty-one percent of renters in Northeastern Connecticut and 45 percent of renters in Southeastern Connecticut are considered cost-burdened.
“My rent going up ripped my family apart,” said Kirsten from Norwich. “My kids were taken, because I could no longer afford our apartment, and it caused so many more issues. I feel and felt like a failure, even if I was working two jobs. My kids are stuck with other family members.”
Lisbon resident Virginia echoed Kirsten’s concerns.
“My husband passed away in 2022,” she said. “I support myself and live paycheck to paycheck. Rent goes up $100 yearly. I’m drowning and struggling to pay my bills and buy food. I don’t think I will ever be able to afford to buy a home of my own. I feel like I will be too old by the time I could ever buy a home. I’m happy living in my town. If I could afford to stay here I would be happy.”
As part of its work, CHO-EC is also focused on immediate technical assistance to protect renters. In 2025 and 2026, the organization collaborated with tenants and other organizations to support six tenant unions and organized tenant communities, together helping to rescind 22 notices to quit (a notice that precedes an eviction) and stopping 18 excessive rent increases.
CHO-EC learned that residents at Windward Village/Bay Point in East Lyme had gathered in an overcrowded hallway in Niantic. A developer had recently bought the building, shocking residents – two-thirds of whom were elderly or people with disabilities – by raising the rent by $600-$800 per month.
CHO-EC brought legal, housing, and community partners to the residents, helped them to find locations for meetings, provided technical support, stayed with them as residents spoke at Board of Selectmen meetings and advocated for the creation of the East Lyme Fair Rent Commission, and connected them to the Connecticut Tenants Union when they chose to formally organize. In less than a year, the residents had successfully persuaded the town to create a Fair Rent Commission.
For Sabilia, all of the work that CHO-EC does comes down to community preservation.
“Preservation is about fighting the displacement that we’re seeing,” she said. “We think of preservation as being a much larger ecosystem. Yes, it's preserving a building, but it's also preserving Salem Meadows, where 160 seniors live. It's also preserving tenants in your community, because they’re a paraeducator at your child’s school.”
