Opinion: The Landlord vs. Tenant Debate

Fighting the Wrong War:
Why Tenants and Landlords Are Both Victims of Connecticut's "Ghost Debt"

By Peter C. Frank | The Bloomfield Community Dispatch

BLOOMFIELD, CT, January 7, 2026 — The other morning, a viral post began circulating in the popular local Facebook group "Hartford Dwellers" that perfectly encapsulates the boiling tension in Connecticut’s housing market.

Written by Andree Mills, a self-professed "Connecticut attorney" [Editor's Note: we could not find an attorney by the name of "Andree Mills" registered to practice law in the state of Connecticut and the only "Andrea Mills" we could locate is a corporate law attorney with no real estate law practice experience, who is from Pennsylvania], the post argues that the staggering 45% increase in homelessness isn't due to "greedy landlords," but rather a state government that has made the business of providing housing financially untenable. She lays out a "brutal economic reality" of crushing taxes and "Kafkaesque" eviction laws that she claims act as a "death sentence" for property owners.

The comment section immediately turned into a battlefield: tenants blaming landlords for greed, landlords blaming tenants for not paying.

But they are fighting the wrong war.

Having spent over 15 years working as a legal specialist in top global law firms in NYC, I read Mills' analysis with a critical eye. Her math regarding the costs is precise, but her diagnosis of the cause misses the forest for the trees. By blaming the symptoms (tenant protections) rather than the disease (structural state debt), we fall into a trap that keeps us divided.

Let’s deconstruct this argument, line by line, using the voices of the actual residents living through it.

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Part 1: The Diagnosis (Deconstructed)

THE CLAIM (Mills):

"The 45% increase in homelessness isn’t because landlords are greedy... Connecticut ranks as the #2 highest tax burden state in America... Property taxes are the highest in the nation."

THE REALITY CHECK:

We agree the math is broken. But the "why" matters. Why are our property taxes the highest in the nation?

It isn't because we spend too much on current services. It is because of Ghost Debt.

Decades ago, Connecticut decided to self-fund its own pension and healthcare systems for state employees rather than participating in the federal Social Security system like the private sector. This created massive unfunded liabilities. To pay for this "Cadillac" decision, the state has systematically offloaded the bill to municipalities.

The result? The burden falls almost entirely on municipal property taxes—a regressive revenue stream. When property taxes skyrocket to pay for those past debts, landlords pass those tax hikes directly into the rent. We are all—landlord and tenant alike—paying for the sins of 1980s legislators.

As commenter Elia Gonzalez rightly noted in response to calls for spending cuts: "Most of those programs have been cut, capped, or hollowed out for years... Shifting the bill to emergency rooms, shelters, and municipalities isn't savings, it’s delayed damage."

THE CLAIM (Mills):

"Landlords have zero recourse... Connecticut has transformed tenant protections into a landlord’s financial death sentence."

THE REALITY CHECK:

While small landlords struggle, tenants are facing a reality where rent hikes are rarely matched by maintenance. The narrative that landlords are helpless victims is challenged by residents like Matt Seremet, who notes:

"As a tenant just trying to have lights in my dark hallway for years the pushback from my landlord has been, to say the least, insane... Two months with a broken dishwasher... Landlords think it's a turn key operation with a one time investment... Leaks, water damage, landlord sits on their hands."

Otasha Victorious echoed this, demanding that landlords "make sure the properties are matching the hikes being enforced."

When the state safety net fails, the legal system is often the only thing standing between a family and the street. We cannot chastise individuals for using legal tools to survive. As Matt pointed out to another commenter, tenants often do have rights—like paying rent into a state fund until repairs are made—but the process is slow and "code enforcement is incredibly slow."

THE CLAIM (Mills):

"The claim that 'landlords are making housing unaffordable' ignores the brutal economic reality facing Connecticut property owners."

THE REALITY CHECK:

The "economic reality" isn't just a spreadsheet; it's human beings. Milton Rodriguez, who works construction at night, described the visible result of this crisis in New London:

"I really can’t believe how much homeless people there are. They walk around at 3 am to keep their body moving and warm."

While Mills defends the "Mom & Pop" landlord, the market is being consolidated by Private Equity firms. My heart doesn't bleed for a PE firm worth hundreds of millions that buys up city blocks, takes the tax write-offs, and then skimps on maintenance. The "barrier to entry" for homeownership has become a brick wall, trapping the working class in a rental cycle where they have no path to build equity.

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Part 3: The Actual Solution

The 45% increase in homelessness isn’t caused by "greedy landlords" OR "bad tenants." It is caused by a government that has failed to address structural debt. It's easy to play the blame game; the true challenge is proposing real solutions.

I propose we start here:

1. Diversify Municipal Revenue: We must end the over-reliance on regressive property taxes. Connecticut needs to allow municipalities to diversify revenue streams so that the cost of legacy debt isn't placed solely on the physical roofs over our heads. Allow municipalities to collect receipts on sales taxes (including hotel and other use taxes), parking and speeding fines, and implement a hybrid revenue model that includes: local option taxes on meals and hospitality to capture visitor revenue, a direct percentage of state income tax generated within town borders, and mandatory full funding of state PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) grants for tax-exempt properties.
2. Zoning Reform for Supply: We need to break the artificial scarcity of housing. Restrictive zoning in the suburbs drives up costs everywhere. Increasing the supply of multi-family housing will lower market rents naturally.
3. Tiered Legislation: Stop treating "Mom & Pop" landlords the same as Private Equity giants. Legislation should incentivize small, owner-occupied landlords who invest in their communities, while holding large corporate entities to stricter standards.
4. End the "Defined Benefit" Era: We need to stop digging the hole. Connecticut is one of the few places that still offers guaranteed, fixed-pension payouts and "pay-as-you-go" retiree healthcare promises (OPEB) that rely on optimistic market assumptions, rather than the "defined contribution" plans used by the private sector.
   The Method: Freeze the current systems to stop accumulating new unfunded liabilities. Move all new public hires and, to the extent possible, existing employees (including teachers, who largely do not participate in Social Security) into a modern system that integrates fully with federal Social Security and Medicare.
   For Healthcare (OPEB): Replace the open-ended promise of paying future retiree insurance premiums with a Retiree Health Savings Account (RHSA). The state contributes a fixed amount while the employee is working (Defined Contribution). Upon retirement, the employee uses those funds to purchase their own coverage or supplement Medicare. This ends the "blank check" liability for taxpayers and shifts the risk of future medical inflation off the state's books—just like it is for the private sector landlords and tenants paying the bills.

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A Call for Unity: Together Across America

For this final section, I am stepping out of my role as Editor-in-Chief and into my role as an advocate and community organizer. The only way we fix these issues is by refusing to be divided. We must reject the polarization that turns neighbor against neighbor. We need a movement that is less about "Left vs. Right" and more about "Bottom vs. Top."

That is why I am throwing my full, personal support behind Together Across America. While I continue my investigative work here at The Dispatch, I will be dedicating a significant portion of my advocacy efforts to TAA in the coming year.

This movement, gaining wildfire momentum across the nation, is dedicated to breaking down the artificial barriers that separate us. It is about recognizing that our struggles—whether we are renting an apartment in Hartford or paying a mortgage in Hamden—are connected. When we band together, the billionaires and the entrenched political interests lose their power. And that terrifies them.

Let’s stop fighting the war they want us to fight—against each other. Let’s join forces and fight for the future we all deserve.

Learn more at TogetherAcrossAmerica.org.