PRESS CONFERENCE: JUST CAUSE ADVANCES
Negron, Alberto
***PRESS ADVISORY***
Tuesday, March 17, 2026
11:00 A.M. - 11:30 A.M. EST
PRESS CONFERENCE: JUST CAUSE ADVANCES—GOVERNOR COMMITS SUPPORT
Who: Lawmakers championing the Just Cause Eviction bill, SB 257, alongside the Connecticut Tenants Union, CT Fair Housing Center, Make the Road CT, and other members of the Just Cause Coalition
- We will update this advisory with a speaker list
What: A press conference celebrate the Housing Committee’s approval of SB 257 to expand Just Cause Protections to all renters in 5+ unit apartment buildings and to update on the public on the progress of this year’s bill, including Governor Lamont’s backing
Where: Capitol Building, South Lobby Portico (facing Capitol Ave)
When: Tuesday, March 17, 11:00am
Hartford, CT — Lawmakers and leaders from the state’s tenant movement are celebrating a milestone achievement after the Housing Committee passed SB 257, which will expand Just Cause protections and help stabilize the housing of hundreds of thousands Connecticut residents. Housing Committee co-chairs, Senator Martha Marx and Representative Antonio Felipe, have championed the proposed legislation, and Governor Lamont has recently committed his support.
SB 257, An Act Concerning Evictions for Cause, is a critical protective and preventative measure amidst our state’s ongoing crises of housing affordability, evictions, and homelessness. Currently, without “Just Cause” protections, tenants are routinely subjected to abuses of power by unscrupulous owners. They are likewise subjected to unacceptable levels of precarity, often being forced out of their homes and uprooted from their neighborhoods, towns, and cities because of speculative real estate practices that bake eviction into the business plan. Requiring that evictions be for a reasonable cause is a common-sense tool for raising the standard of living for hundreds of thousands of CT households who rent. SB 257 will expand existing Just Cause protections for disabled and senior renters in larger apartment buildings to cover all tenants in 5+ unit buildings, after the first year of a new renter’s tenancy.
By increasing housing stability, Just Cause reduces eviction rates; improves community safety; reduces hospitalizations and improves public health; promotes neighborhood-wide wellbeing; and even enables small business entrepreneurship. It does all of this without reducing housing supply or diminishing housing quality.
One in twenty renter households in Connecticut now face eviction, and some areas in Connecticut have some of the worst eviction rates in the country. Expanding Just Cause eviction protection would prevent an estimated 11% of eviction filings and countless forced moves.