Evictions in Connecticut remained above pre-pandemic levels in 2023, data shows, one of the latest signs of the state's ongoing housing crunch.

Of dozens of regions analyzed by The Eviction Lab, a research initiative run out of Princeton University, Fairfield and Hartford Counties ranked among those with the sharpest uptick in household evictions. Connecticut as a whole saw fewer evictions in 2023 than in 2022, but more than in a typical pre-COVID year, the data showed.

"Things are beyond where they were even prior to the pandemic, beyond where they were during the depths of the pandemic in Connecticut," said Jacob Haas, a senior research specialist at The Eviction Lab. "And this really disproportionately hits Black renters and Latino renters and especially families with children."

Altogether, Connecticut saw 20,625 eviction filings from December 2022 through November 2023, the data shows, leaving about 3 percent of all renter households threatened with eviction.

The Eviction Lab's data shows a startling concentration of evictions in just a few neighborhoods, typically populated by Black and Latino residents. According to the group's analysis, more than 30 percent of eviction filings in Fairfield County occurred in just 100 buildings, mostly in Bridgeport.

Though residents can be evicted for numerous reasons, or for no reason at all, the principal driver is typically the inability to pay rent — an especially pressing issue for Connecticut families at a time when housing costs have increased steadily amid some of the lowest rental vacancy rates in the country.

Advocates say the state now has more than 1,000 people sleeping outside, in tents or in uninhabitable places, and more than 4,400 people in total experiencing homelessness.

"There are still way too many evictions happening," said Jeff Gentes, a lawyer with the Connecticut Fair Housing Center and Yale Law School. "We still have people who are facing sharp rent increases, they're paying for something that's not worth the money they're paying because the conditions are awful, and it's super hard to find a place, especially if you've been evicted."

The Eviction Lab regularly tracks data from 10 states, including Connecticut, and 34 cities, including Hartford and Bridgeport, comparing current eviction rates to those from before the COVID pandemic. The project originated during the public health crisis as a way to monitor evictions and track the outcomes of various policy interventions, Haas said.

Evictions nationwide stopped almost entirely early in the pandemic, the result of a federal eviction freeze, and stayed low in states like Connecticut where lawmakers passed statewide moratoria and established emergency rental assistance funds. More than a year into the pandemic, Connecticut's eviction rate remained less than half of where it had been before, Eviction Lab data shows.

But whereas some places, including New York City and Philadelphia, have maintained eviction rates below pre-pandemic levels even as COVID-era protections expired, that has not been the case in Connecticut. Here, filings rose quickly after the state's eviction moratorium ended in July 2021, peaking the following spring and remaining high ever since.

In 2023, evictions remained 5 percent above pre-pandemic numbers statewide, Eviction Lab data showed, including 12 percent higher in Fairfield County and 10 percent above in Hartford County.

"As protections have long since expired and as emergency rental assistance dried up a lot ... that's contributed to a rise in a lot of areas to or beyond pre-pandemic levels," Haas said.

Connecticut is one of three states that has sought to limit evictions through a right-to-counsel program that provides lawyers for low-income tenants at risk of being removed from their homes. Last month, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who represents Connecticut's third congressional district, re-introduced a bill that would promote similar initiatives nationwide.

At a news conference Friday in New Haven, DeLauro shared the story of her own family's eviction when she was a child, an event she said "turned our world upside down."

"No cost is more burdensome for Americans, especially for those who rent their homes, than their housing costs," DeLauro said. "People are struggling today to make it week-to-week and month-to-month."

DeLauro said great access to attorneys would "help to level the playing field between tenants and landlords" and enable families to remain in their homes. One 2023 report found that Connecticut's right-to-counsel program helped 71 percent of participants avoid an involuntary move and 76 percent avoid adding an eviction filing to their record.

Still, Gentes argued Connecticut must do more, particularly when it comes to housing supply. Right-to-counsel initiatives and rental assistance funds help residents stave off eviction, he said, but don't make up for a lack of affordable housing.

"Adequate, safe housing is not going to solve every issue," Gentes said. "But it's going to put a huge dent into things."