Sabin Canvasses Edgewood on Housing Crisis in 92nd District Race

Karen Branch didn’t let Eli Sabin finish his sentence.

The Edgewood resident was walking home on Norton Street when Sabin, a candidate for the 92nd District seat in the state House of Representatives, stopped her to talk about lowering the cost of housing. Before he could get the words out, Branch cut in: “PLEASE!”

That moment, from a Thursday evening canvass through the Edgewood neighborhood, captures what Sabin keeps hearing at the door: housing costs aren’t an abstraction for residents of the 92nd District. They’re a month-to-month crisis.

Three Jobs and a Countdown

Branch is an assistant teacher at a childcare provider. She’s spent years in that field, but her hours were recently cut from five days a week to four. The math got harder. “Between that and wages, it’s almost like you gotta work three jobs! I’m almost a senior!” she told Sabin on the sidewalk.

She’s weighing a job search. She’s also weighing something bigger. “I told myself I got one more year here,” she said. “Then I’m gonna move down south.”

Branch didn’t hold back on the city’s most powerful tax-exempt institution either. “I have one crazy question,” she said. “How come Yale ain’t paying more taxes? You got too much of New Haven to not be paying.”

By the end of their conversation, Branch told Sabin she’d vote for him in the Aug. 11 Democratic primary.

The Race

Sabin is running in a crowded primary. He faces 22-term incumbent Patricia Dillon and former Hamden Council Member Justin Farmer, both Democrats, in a contest for a district that covers parts of Amity, Westville, Edgewood, Dwight, West River, and the Hill.

Sabin is finishing his degree at Yale Law School and works as a legislative coordinator with Connecticut Voices for Children. He previously served as a Downtown and East Rock alder. On Thursday, he canvassed with campaign treasurer Jennifer Quaye-Hudson and deputy treasurer Ina Silverman, going door to door on housing affordability and education funding, and drawing out how the two issues connect.

Housing and education are also what pulled Quaye-Hudson and Silverman into the campaign in the first place. That alignment between candidate and volunteers isn’t unusual in a primary race, but it tells you something about who Sabin is recruiting.

Childcare Is the Through Line

Sabin keeps returning to early childhood education as a pressure point where housing stress and wage stagnation converge. He told New Haven Independent that he wants to expand the state’s newly created Early Child Education Endowment, which is designed to make childcare more affordable while giving providers a more stable revenue base.

The program’s early going hasn’t been smooth. Sabin said that right now, “it’s looking like there not as much money as we thought” for the initiative. That’s a real problem. Childcare costs in Connecticut rank among the highest in the country, and providers like Branch’s employer are already cutting staff hours. Connecticut Voices for Children has documented the strain on working families trying to navigate both the childcare and housing markets simultaneously.

Dillon, who has represented the district for 22 terms, enters the primary with the deepest institutional support. Farmer brings a different outsider energy and a base in organizing. Sabin’s pitch is that he can win by mobilizing residents who feel left behind by rising costs and who don’t see the General Assembly responding fast enough.

What the Doors Are Saying

The conversations Sabin had Thursday didn’t require much prompting. Residents in Edgewood aren’t waiting for a candidate to raise housing costs as an issue. They’re already doing the arithmetic, the way Branch is: fewer hours, same rent, same bills, and a growing sense that the city isn’t sustainable for people who work in it rather than just own property in it.

The Yale Homebuyer Program and the university’s annual voluntary payment to New Haven remain subjects of neighborhood frustration, and Branch’s question to Sabin reflected a long-running civic debate about whether Yale’s contributions match its footprint.

The Aug. 11 primary will test whether that frustration translates into votes for a first-time state candidate running against a deeply entrenched incumbent. Sabin’s campaign is betting the doors of Edgewood are telling him something the polls aren’t.

“I could be homeless, and I don’t want to be,” Branch said.