Norwich — Emotions ran high during Tuesday’s Broad Street Neighborhood Watch meeting, as residents criticized state officials and legislators for allowing state-subsidized housing for sex offenders at 152 Broad St., a location with numerous families with young children.

Since summer, seven different registered sex offenders have lived in the house, which is being leased by the state-funded nonprofit agency Connections Inc., with rents subsidized through the state REACH — Re-entry Assisted Community Housing — program.

About 30 residents, several city police officers and city officials attended Tuesday’s watch meeting, a revival of what was previously an inactive neighborhood group.

Angry residents questioned how the state could approve the setting for such a facility, how it could have opened without local zoning approval as a rooming house and why the legislature has allowed the private, nonprofit agency to control the state function. Connections Inc. leases the two-family house, and the REACH program has four state-subsidized beds in the house.

“I would slap (the owner) with a cease-and-desist order this moment,” said next-door resident Brian Curtin.

Mayor Deberey Hinchey and City Manager Alan Bergren, however, said the house operates as a two-family house with two apartments and is not classified as a rooming house.

State Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, whose district includes Norwich, said the legislature does not have the authority to approve contracts done through state administrative agencies. But Osten and state Rep. Emmett Riley said they plan to submit bills for four changes to sex offender laws, including one that would prevent placement of state-subsidized housing in residential neighborhoods. Since the Connections contract is annual, if that bill passes, it would eliminate subsidies to the house at 152 Broad St.

But Osten told residents there are currently 111 sex offenders living in Norwich, nearly all of them making their own housing and rent payment arrangements.

Neighbors told city and state officials the situation at 152 Broad St. has dramatically changed the neighborhood, making families feel unsafe and even causing one new homeowner to delay moving into a recently renovated house out of fear. Residents said there are two school bus stops within one block of 152 Broad St., and two schools nearby.

“I think we should definitely move them,” said 11-year-old resident Lohanny Baez, a sixth-grader at Kelly Middle School. “I’m at that bus stop. I can’t even ride my bike anymore.”

Resident Joseph Hughes said he saw a man with an ankle bracelet waiting for a bus on a Sunday, and not knowing what the bracelet meant, gave him a ride to a local supermarket. He said a woman in the neighborhood not knowing the situation might also have given the man a ride.

Others told of a man with a bracelet walking up and standing next to a woman with a young child at a school bus stop.

Curtin said he wanted to know: “Who in their right minds would put what amounts to a correctional facility in the midst of a residential neighborhood … and not tell anyone.” He said Connections Inc. “sneaked in in the middle of the night and filled it with sex offenders” without notifying residents.

“That is wrong, and I would expect that my state and my city would be on top of this,” he said.

Osten urged residents to come to Hartford to testify in support of bills the local delegation plans to submit. In addition to bills restricting placement of state-subsidized rental units, she and Riley said they would submit bills to stiffen penalties for sex crimes and create a tiered sex offender registry that would also provide more details of their crimes.

Hinchey summarized a recent meeting held by city and state officials held to discuss the issues with interim Corrections Commissioner Scott Semple in which Semple said he would not order the house at 152 Broad St. to close. Semple pledged to provide more information to city officials and residents about placements, sex offender monitoring and enforcement and to hold quarterly meetings in the city.

The first meeting will be held Jan. 20 at 10 a.m. in Room 335 at City Hall, Hinchey said.

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