Posted on December 4, 2023
Hartford, Conn.—State Representative Tony Scott (R-112), Ranking Member of the legislature’s Housing Committee, serves on the Housing Advisory Panel. The group recently recommended to the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority (CHFA) a list of nonprofit organizations to receive funding from the Interest on Real Estate Brokers Trust Account (IOREBTA) Program. Scott advocated for The Center for Family Justice and Off The Streets Bridgeport to receive $20,000 and $15,000 in funding respectively.
“I was proud to support the work of these two vital organizations and bring awareness to my fellow legislators of the great things that they do. Constituents of mine, Theresa Oleyar of Monroe and Elaine Foley of Easton, brought these groups to my attention, and I appreciated meeting with the incredible staff and volunteers of these two organizations to talk about how this money can help their operations,” said Scott.
The Center for Family Justice provides free and confidential services to residents of six Fairfield County towns including Monroe, Easton, and Trumbull. They coordinate care for all victims and survivors of domestic violence, sexual violence, human trafficking, and child abuse.
“The Center For Family Justice provides support to survivors and hope to children, including through a robust preventative education program in the Monroe School District. Their clientele faces a unique challenge in finding safe, stable housing,” said Scott. “When I took a tour of their offices, I met a staff member from Monroe, who herself was a survivor of an abusive situation, and with the help of the Center was able to get out of it. She went to school for social work and is now paying it forward by helping others as a staff member.”
Off The Streets Bridgeport is based in Trumbull and has a mission to help the homeless Off The Streets, one-person-at-a-time in the Bridgeport– Fairfield County area.
“Homelessness is not a partisan issue, it’s a humanitarian issue that we need to address. As Connecticut experiences surpluses, funding to address homelessness needs to be a top priority for putting those dollars to good use. I applaud those on the frontline, like the volunteers running Off The Streets Bridgeport, for the hard work that they are doing,” said Scott. “Off The Streets Bridgeport has been able to place over 25 people into housing in 2023.”
Nonprofit organizations from across Connecticut submitted applications to the Housing Advisory Panel, which recommends allocations to CHFA for review. CHFA then obtains needed information from the nonprofits to issue the funding.
The Interest on Real Estate Brokers Trust Account (IOREBTA) Program was created in 1992. The program currently receives income from three sources: interest remitted by banking institutions on behalf of participating realtors/brokers, repayment of a loan made to the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) for the State’s Downpayment Assistance Program (DAP), as well as repayments of Habitat for Humanity loans purchased by CHFA on behalf of IOREBTA.
More information about IORBTA can be found online: https://www.chfa.org/about-us/pre-iorebta-reports/