My grandmother moved to Windward Village Apartments in Niantic after spending her life raising her family modestly in Long Island. She wanted to live affordably near her only son and remaining family. Last month it was reported that Windward Village Apartments was purchased by Shelton-based Alpha Capital Funds real estate investment firm in June for $8.4 million. By the end of this month, the new corporate landlord is demanding rent increases up to $900 more per month from the elderly and disabled residents like my grandmother who make up the majority of tenants in the complex.

My grandmother has since passed, but I do not want to imagine the distress this situation would have caused her. She wanted nothing more than to live her remaining days in peace, and I cannot imagine the turmoil and stress current residents must feel.

Enough is enough! Corporate takeovers of housing across our state including duplexes and apartment buildings in Groton and now Windward Village in Niantic cannot stand. Our state must take bold and decisive action to rein in these greedy private equity-backed real estate ventures and protect the rights of our neighbors to keep a roof over their heads.

People who are working hard and who have worked hard their entire lives, who have saved responsibly for retirement, and have done everything they are supposed to do are nonetheless being thrown out of house and home to serve the interests of greedy speculators who take out over-leveraged loans, purchase assets that people’s lives depend on and cover their irresponsible debts by bringing our neighbors to the brink of homelessness and bankruptcy. This is corporatism run amok!

Longtime East Lyme resident and Windward tenant Judi Glickstein “blame(s) the state senators and representatives for not having enough laws in place to protect the tenants here.” Further she notes, “I think that is why a company like the one that took over our building is here, and is doing us great harm and injustice.”

I agree with Judi 100 percent. This is unacceptable, and our state lawmakers bear responsibility to address our unaffordable housing crisis. Representatives McCarty and Cheeseman, along with their entire Republican caucus, have failed to support recent ‘Just Cause’ legislation to expand tenant protections and further protect all from indiscriminate and unjustified evictions. Further, in the only response she could muster to this catastrophic situation, East Lyme’s state representative called for “more workforce housing options.” Apparently, she fails to recognize that most of those affected are elderly, retired, and disabled and are therefore no longer members of the workforce. More to the point, there is no law currently in place to prevent the next ‘workforce housing’ complex from being bought out by private equity dollars seeking to prey upon residents.

As reported by The Day, “the only recourse currently available to … residents 62 or older is through the court system, which is an expensive and time-consuming process.” While tenants younger than 62 do not even have that limited avenue available to them. Legislation which provides some belated recourse through the courts, while a good starting place, still only treats the symptoms of the problem. To solve the problem, we must eliminate the cancer — corporate landlords.

We have laws, for instance, which make it illegal to speculate on the price of a bottle of water following a natural disaster. It would be unconscionable to allow Walmart to price gouge people $200 for a bottle of water in an emergency. Guess what? We are in a housing emergency! And we must make it illegal for corporate landlords to exploit us and buy the roofs over our heads, then instantly charge us an additional $900 every month to stay in our own homes.

The new corporate landlord of Windward Village Apartments has rigged the situation to its favor. Their speculative rent seeking is built on the debt of our neighbors and our neighborhoods. This is how the institutional real estate market operates — as a leech upon those of us who want to live quiet, peaceful and affordable lives. Furthermore, this is clearly not about increased costs, as they are forcing exorbitant rent increases within a month of their purchase. This is about greed, plain and simple, and it is coming to a suburb near you.

We must put people before profits and neighbors before greed.

Real change is desperately needed as many are reaching a breaking point. I sincerely hope as you read this you remember that we can make change; we can help ourselves and our neighbors, and that it needn’t take too long. We only need to have the courage to vote for those who have the courage to stand up to these corporations and pass laws in favor of our people over their greed.

Editor’s note: Nick Gauthier is a member of the Waterford RTM and a candidate for state representative in the 38th District.