A report by the Housing Assistance Council (HAC), titled Rental Housing for a 21st Century Rural America: A Platform for Preservation, aims to inform strategies for the production and preservation of rental properties financed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Section 515.

The USDA funds over 13,000 rental properties in rural communities, which provide affordable housing to over 415,000 households. USDA’s Section 515 targets rural communities, and funds rental property in every state, reaching 87% of counties across the country.

As part of its Livable Communities initiative, AARP has released six workbooks in the Roadmap to Livability Collection. The workbook series offers readers strategies and solutions for communities of all ages.

The workbooks include:

Sustainable CT is accepting applications for their Sustainable CT Fellowship Program. Fellows will be placed throughout Connecticut’s nine Councils of Government to assist towns with implementing the Sustainable CT certification program.

Applications are due February 25, 2019.

Click here to learn more about Sustainable CT and here to learn more about the 2019 Sustainable CT Fellowship Program.

CT Data Collaborative has released its new Hartford Data Platform, allowing users to explore the relationship between health and housing throughout Hartford neighborhoods. The platform provides health and housing data stories, as well as a Neighborhood Data Explorer tool.

The Health and Housing story guides users through research related to the connection between housing stability and quality and health outcomes. Further, using data and mapping, CT Data Collaborative identifies Hartford neighborhoods with the worst housing and health conditions.

A new report from the Warren Group shows an 11-year high in the median sales price of single-family homes in Connecticut.

In a year over year comparison, single-family home sales decreased slightly, by less than one percent (0.8%), to 2,454 from last year’s December total of 2,472. The median sales price for single-family homes increased to $247,000, up 0.9% from December 2017.

Charles Patton, PhD, previously served as the Senior Policy & Research Manager at the Partnership for Strong Communities.

Honor someone for their commitment to ending homelessness in Connecticut!

UPDATE: Nominations have been extended through Friday, March 15. Nominate your housing hero today!

The Connecticut Department of Housing announced a special round of affordable housing funding available exclusively to projects located in higher opportunity areas. The Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) is available here. The goal of this NOFA is to foster the creation and/or preservation of affordable multifamily rental housing in high opportunity areas to promote healthy lives, strong and

Smart Growth America recently published the LOCUS National Opportunity Zone Ranking Report. The report aims to rank the over 8,700 designated Opportunity Zones, based on their Smart Growth Potential and Social Equity Performance. The zones with the highest rankings are those that provide positive economic, environmental, and social returns.