Drumroll, please!

On Sunday, after months of fundraising, community listening sessions, planning, research, interviews and editing, The Day is publishing the first set of stories produced by our Housing Solutions Lab.

The HSL, as we’ve taken to calling it, is a newsroom team we formed this past spring to investigate the housing crisis in our region. Affordable housing is in short supply, and The Day wants to be part of the solution.

We’ll post our first set of stories and photos online Saturday evening and will have a big spread in Sunday’s print edition. We’ll follow that with additional online posts Sunday and print stories on Monday.

In Sunday’s edition, you’ll see a story entitled “House of Cards,” in which reporter Elizabeth Regan lays out New London County’s housing issues in exquisite detail. We assigned her this daunting task in April, and she went to work reading and gathering data, interviewing experts and finding people who are affected. Almost every paragraph she wrote contains a personal story or a topic we plan to explore further over the next year while seeking out and highlighting solutions.

On Monday, we’ll publish Regan’s stories about people living at a New London motel because they can’t find affordable housing. It’s a complicated situation, as you’ll see from her interviews of people who reside there, the motel operator, city officials and the agencies trying to help.

Beautiful photos and video by Sarah Gordon accompany the stories.

We’re also producing a podcast, called In Short Supply, that we’ll roll out soon, and a newsletter. As we publish content, we’ll add it to our special section page, located at https://www.theday.com/section/housing-lab/.

You can go there now and take a sneak peek at a video produced by Gordon and a glossary of housing terms.

Watch for the second set of stories later this month. Reporter Johana Vazquez and Gordon have done a beautiful job reporting on people and issues surrounding the Thames River Apartments in New London. The high-rise apartments on Crystal Avenue, which provided affordable housing and a close-knit community, but deteriorated in condition over the years, were demolished this past spring just as our reporting started.

This is our first community and grant-funded investigation. We could not have produced these stories, and those that will follow, without your help. If you’d like to contribute to our ongoing investigation, go to https://givebutter.com/thedayhousing.

It’s important to members of our team that this work be available to those who are affected by the housing crisis and can’t afford to subscribe to The Day. Free digital access to the stories will be available at several public libraries, including New London, Groton, Norwich and Griswold.

Thanks as always for reading and supporting The Day.

Karen Florin is The Day’s engagement editor. She can be reached at k.florin@theday.com or (860) 701-4217.