As the city debates a major shift that could expand its year-round stock of shelter beds, organizations serving people experiencing homelessness remain at full capacity and a double-digit increase in demand in the region during the recent severe cold weather is likely an indicator what’s to come.
Journey Home, a nonprofit involved in shelter service planning in greater Hartford, said the number of overnight, cold weather beds this winter have increased in the capital region by 30%, rising from 222 beds to 289. In Hartford alone, the number rose nearly 40% this winter, to 133.
And that isn’t counting another 65 individuals who have currently been found beds at local hotels or motels in greater Hartford. The need became so dire that Hartford opened an additional overnight warming center for two days in late January.
“This is the most overcapacity we have ever been during a severe cold weather activation,” Matthew Morgan, executive director of Journey Home, said. He noted that the numbers are one indicator of future demand for year-round sheltering.
The administration of Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam is proposing changes to city zoning regulations that would expand where shelters could be located in Hartford, easing restrictions dating back a decade.
If approved, the changes would represent a significant policy shift under Arulampalam. The mayor has publicly taken to task suburban towns for not providing adequate or any shelter services at all.
Jorge Aponte sits on his bed inside the emergency shelter at The Open Hearth in Hartford. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)
“Those residents end up in the city of Hartford, and most of our homeless population is not originally from the city of Hartford,” Arulampalam said. “But we are a city that believes we need to take care of all our residents. We’ve worked to try to address the level of challenge that we’ve been faced with, with a fraction of the resources and very little help from some of our neighbors.”
Arulampalam said the city of Hartford has 90% of the permanent, year-round shelter beds, but only 10% of the population of 1.2 million people in the greater Hartford area.
At The Open Hearth, a shelter for men just south of downtown, chief executive officer Marilyn Rossetti said the nonprofit’s 55, year-round, emergency shelter beds are consistently filled, and that has been the case for at least five years.
Rossetti, also a member of the Hartford city council, says the expansion of year-round shelter services is necessary but it has to be done in a controlled way.
“It has to be done in a non-threatening way,” Rossetti said. “It has to be done in a realistic way. If you prevent it, folks will be just be on your front lawn. And you’ll say. “Hey, what are you doing here?” and the response will be ‘We don’t have anywhere else to go.’ ”
But Rossetti and others say sheltering is just one part of addressing the need.
Sarah Fox, chief executive officer of the Coalition to End Homelessness, applauded Hartford efforts to expand year-round shelter options.
Marilyn Rossetti, CEO of The Open Hearth in Hartford, says the shelter’s emergency beds have been at capacity for five years. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)
“What this does is it provides a dignified space for people to access — recognizing a critical shortage of a place for people to get their basic needs met,” Fox said. “It is not the answer to getting people into housing and to solve their experience of homelessness. But this is a dignified response that we support.”
Rossetti said she sees options for moving beyond the emergency shelter experience right outside The Open Hearth, on Charter Oak Avenue. She sees possibilities for converting an old firehouse, once the Stewart B. McKinney Shelter on nearby Huyshope Avenue.
“Just as there is first-time homeownership, there’s first-time apartments we need to look at, and there’s opportunities in the city,” Rossetti said. “The top floor of that firehouse could be five rooms, maybe two bathrooms and a shared kitchen. And folks could immediately, if they’re ready, get out of the shelter and they’d be housed.”
“They’d be working with a rent or a fee — if it’s managed by someone — that is far less than the traditional entry-level apartment,” Rossetti said.
Tricky political gambit
Nationally, the experience of homelessness rose to a record high in 2024, up 18% to 771,480 individuals from 653,104 a year earlier, according to a recent report from the National Alliance to End Homelessness, a nonpartisan organization. The report also noted that resources are simply inadequate to meet the demand, largely driven by the housing affordability crisis.
In Connecticut, the state’s homeless population rose nearly 10% in 2025 from a year earlier, the fourth year in a row of growth, the state’s latest one-night “point-in-time” annual census of homelessness found.
According to the count, there were 3,735 people living in shelters or outside in January 2025, compared to 3,410 in January 2024.
In Hartford, there were 334 beds in seven year-round shelters in 2024, down slightly from 348 a year earlier, according to Journey Home.
Expanding shelter locations is a tricky political gambit, however: balancing the need for more shelter beds with neighborhood concerns about changes that might affect property values or other potential development.
Cosab Hernandez sits on his bed inside the emergency shelter at The Open Hearth in Hartford. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)
What Hartford’s planning and zoning commission is now studying — in advance of a future public hearing that’s sure to draw a lot of attention — is expanding beyond industrial zones where shelters are now allowed under current zoning regulations.
The city’s proposal — narrowed from an earlier version — would potentially allow shelters in areas that now encompass a lower density mix of residential, office and institutional uses that are compatible with nearby historic neighborhoods, known as MX-1.
Those areas are most often clustered around major thoroughfares in the city such as Farmington Avenue, Asylum Avenue, Wethersfield Avenue, Washington Street and Broad Street. Establishing a shelter in these areas would not be a permitted use but would require a variance, which can only be approved by the city’s zoning board of appeals.
“We heard some real concerns from community groups around having no say in the process and that was taken into consideration,” Arulampalam said. “At the same time, we didn’t want to make it so restrictive that — and I think this is worth saying out loud — with our existing ordinances, there was no direct process for building homeless shelters.”
The Open Hearth. a shelter for men experiencing homelessness just south of downtown Hartford, says its emergency shelter beds are consistently occupied year-round. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)
What is now proposed, Arulampalam said, “allows for a process in which the community can lend its voice, but it also doesn’t allow a few loud voices to slow down the process.”
For weeks, the Asylum Hill Neighborhood Association, a neighborhood revitalization zone, has raised concerns about the proposed zoning change. The association argues that the neighborhood already has two shelters, one of them currently closed and its building blighted. The change would open the possibility of more shelters being established in the neighborhood, the association said.
The proposed regulation requires that NRZs such as Asylum Hill be notified by certified mail “at least 30 days in advance of a public hearing for such application, provided that a stated failure to receive demonstrated notice shall not preclude such hearing from being held and action being taken on such variance application.”
David MacDonald, executive director of the Asylum Hill NRZ, said he is particularly concerned about the second half of the proposed change.
“The wording is insufficient,” MacDonald said. “That does not provide the appropriate level of accountability from the NRZ. They have to notify us. There can be no loophole where if we didn’t get the notice, somehow it’s okay to go forward. It should stop the process.”
Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at kgosselin@courant.com.
