HARTFORD, Conn. (WFSB) - All week the I-Team has been reporting on CT’s Housing Crisis, in our Impossible Dream series.

Thousands in Connecticut say they just can’t find affordable places to live. Does the state have solutions?

While showing us around his apartment, Stephen Bennett pointed out the obvious.

“That closet is actually full of milk crates of CDs that can’t fit out here. I have a little bit of a music problem,” says Bennett. That music problem wasn’t really a problem when Bennett had his three-bedroom, two-bath house.

It’s a little tighter squeeze in his two-bedroom apartment these days.

“It’s frustrating because, at this point in my life, I didn’t think I would have to start over,” says Bennett.

The 50-year-old got sick in 2020, and two years later, sold his home to keep his business afloat.

He sold the home for $250,000. It’s worth 343,000 today.

“I loved my home, I put some stuff into it. But it’s not a $300,000 and something dollar home now. They haven’t done anything to it since they bought it,” says Bennett. “I look at it, I don’t think I’m ever going to own a home again. It’s not realistic.”

There are many just like Bennett who feel home ownership, and even a reasonable rent price, is out of reach in Connecticut.

While national economics do factor in, state lawmakers say we need to start creating solutions on the local level.

Multiple housing advocates have told us, that one of the major barriers to building affordable housing is local zoning restrictions, and suggest the state needs to make it easier for people to develop housing.

“A lot of it has to do with zoning and having conversations with towns and saying there is a way to keep control over what you want to do but also you have to do something,” says Representative Eleni Kavros DeGraw (D) Avon.

She’s the co-chair of the state’s planning and development committee, which oversees zoning regulations.

She says she has some ideas on how to do that, that she’ll put forward in the 2025 legislative session.

“I have an idea for what’s called a housing growth menu. Basically, we’re trying to find what a good incentive for this might be.”

In Connecticut, all you need to be approved to build a single-family home in 91% of the state, is to apply for a building permit.

Kavros DeGraw’s housing growth menu would offer multiple multi-family housing options like duplexes, or triplexes, where towns would decide what they want to build for a not yet identified incentive.

“We’re trying to give towns the ability and flexibility to provide what they need in that town,” says Kavros DeGraw.

She says there should also be conversations about simplifying the permit process to build multi-family housing.

“I know the builders and developers and even the towns would be grateful to have a less onerous process and I think it would move us faster in terms of actually building,” says Kavros DeGraw.

Representative Joseph Zullo of (R) East Haven is a ranking member of the planning and development committee with Representative Kavros DeGraw.

He’s also on the housing committee.

“Do I think that we need better incentives for the development of housing, absolutely,” says Representative Zullo. “I think there’s a diversity of ways we can address this shortage.”

He says he firmly believes cities and towns should have control and doesn’t think just revising state zoning regulations will help, he says the state needs to change the way it approaches housing.

“Quite frankly we need to start taking money that often goes to large developers and putting it in the hands of small businesses, entrepreneurs, minority-owned businesses, women-owned businesses, people who are going to take that money and they’re not necessarily going to build a 60 unit complex but they’re going to make a two family, convert something, create more opportunity,” says Representative Zullo.

He also feels the state needs to start paying more attention to renters and landlords not holding up their end of the bargain.

“We have a number of housing units across the state that are offline because of code violations or other violations - that housing stock we can use right now with very few remedies without taxing a lot of resources. We need to dig into that,” says Representative Zullo.

“I truly feel that part of the housing problem that we have in the state of CT is that too many people are subject to the whims of the economy, the national economy and that is because they are stuck in a perpetual cycle of renting,” says Representative Zullo. “One of the things I’ve tried to do is pass legislation that would allow towns, not require, allow them to give a $500 tax abatement for up to 5 years for 1st-time homebuyers with a CT Housing and Finance Authority loan.”

Representative Zullo’s tax credit legislation was something Representative Kavros DeGraw supported. It passed the House unanimously twice but was tabled by the Senate two years in a row.

House Majority Leader Jason Rojas (D) East Hartford says all of these ideas are good but that the state needs to be quicker in finding solutions.

“I think if we create more units where people can own them, we’re going to be a better state,” says Representative Rojas. “The state should be more assertive in using the authority and power we have to move this issue, yes.”

He’s helped create the Majority Leaders’ Roundtable on Affordable Housing which has come up with dozens of recommendations .

“There’s lots of smaller ideas that we have, additional resources to our councils of government to provide technical assistance to smaller towns and cities,” says Representative Rojas. “How do we identify more dollars for sewer and water infrastructure that will allow for higher density developments to take place because that’s an obstacle as well?”

Stephen Bennett says, just figure it out. “I’m paying over $200 more for my rent than I was for my mortgage and it doesn’t make any sense. I’d love to see it happen where homeownership is an American Dream for a lot of people.”

This isn’t the end of our Impossible Dream series. We’ll continue to cover this important issue. If you have housing concerns you want us to investigate, you can email .