As the designated community action agency for both Hartford and Middlesex Counties, the Community Renewal Team (CRT) is dedicated to helping people take steps toward healthy and economically stable futures. Since 1963, our 501(c)3 nonprofit organization has partnered with local elected officials, providers, funders, businesses and the community to address challenges like hunger, homelessness, unemployment and poverty. Together, we increase access to education, affordable housing, mental health services and much more for thousands of individuals and families throughout Central Connecticut each and every year.
Archives
Connecticut Fair Housing Center
The mission of the Connecticut Fair Housing Center is to ensure that all people have equal access to housing opportunities in Connecticut. Because Connecticut’s low-income residents are particularly affected by discriminatory housing practices, the Center devotes its scarce resources principally to assisting Connecticut’s low-income residents. In addition, communities of color have been particularly devastated by the foreclosure crisis. The continued instability that communities of color face in the housing market is particularly troubling because housing and home ownership is the best way for these communities to build their wealth and assets.
Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness
The Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, in partnership with communities throughout the state, creates change through leadership, community organizing, advocacy, research, and education. Our mission is to prevent and end homelessness in Connecticut.
Connecticut Citizen Action Group Inc.
Since 1970, Connecticut Citizen Action Group has been fighting for social justice, the environment, and better government. Our list of accomplishments is long, but most recently we won the passage of the most comprehensive campaign finance reform in the country, which takes effect this election cycle. Now we are fighting for equal access to health care and to end the war in Iraq. CCAG is a private non-profit organization, and it is our members who give us the political power to fight for change and win.
Connecticut Association for Human Services
Their mission is to end poverty and engage, equip and empower all families in CT to build a secure future. They envision a Connecticut where all children and families thrive, regardless of income, and contribute to and share in the state’s growth. A Connecticut where low-income residents work with government, business, labor and faith leaders in developing policies and programs that ensure Connecticut’s prosperity, as well as their own. CAHS works to reduce poverty and build family economic success (FES) through outreach, education, and policy work.
Founded in 1910, Connecticut Association for Human Services promotes family economic security strategies that empower low-income working families to achieve financial independence. Their mission is to end poverty and engage, equip and empower all families in Connecticut to build a secure future. CAHS plays a unique role as a catalyst and convener.
Connecticut Alliance for Basic Human Needs (CABHN)
The Connecticut Alliance for Basic Human Needs (CABHN) is a statewide network of more than 3,000 members, including social service providers, advocates, religious leaders, and individuals concerned about issues affecting lower-income families and communities throughout Connecticut. The CABHN network represents a diverse range of experience, expertise, interests, and access to resources. Members share a common goal of improving services to low-income residents, strengthening our public benefits programs, and increasing support to families to help them transition out of poverty and become self-sufficient and economically secure. We encourage the sharing of information and strategies to help advocates maximize their energy and resources.
UConn Law Asylum and Human Rights Clinic
In the Asylum and Human Rights Clinic, law students handle every aspect of representation in high-stakes cases that determine whether a client who has fled from political, religious or other persecution will be allowed to remain permanently in the United States, or face deportation. In this intensive, one-semester program, students develop their legal skills and learn to exercise professional responsibility and judgment. They deepen their understanding of human rights issues while providing an essential service to clients desperately in need of representation.
Hartford Community Court
Opened on November 10, 1998, the State of Connecticut Superior Court Community Court Session in Hartford is a collaborative effort between the State of Connecticut Judicial Branch and local authorities that seeks to address the “quality of life” crimes that contribute to the deterioration of local neighborhoods. Committed to the concept of restorative justice, the Community Court in Hartford utilizes a combination of court-supervised community service and social services to promote responsibility among defendants for their actions while simultaneously offering a helping hand to address the social issues that may be contributing to their behavior.
Efficacy
Efficacy was founded by Cliff & Margaret Thornton and is a Connecticut-based organization advocating drug policy reform. Efficacy provides leadership on a way forward into a new responsibility for problem drug use and educates the public on the consequences of the current approach — the “war on drugs.”
Office of Protection and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities (OPA)
The mission of the Office of Protection and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities is to advance the cause of equal rights for persons with disabilities and their families by:
- increasing the ability of individuals, groups and systems to safeguard rights;
- exposing instances and patterns of discrimination and abuse;
- seeking individual and systemic remediation when rights are violated;
- increasing public awareness of unjust situations and of means to address them; and
- empowering people with disabilities and their families to advocate effectively