MANSFIELD, Conn. (WTNH) — A new report that was released by Connecticut’s Office of Legislative Research highlighted what each city is seeing in terms of housing affordability.

The legislative research office looked at all 169 municipalities in the State of Connecticut.

Using data from the Connecticut Department of Housing’s appeals list, the report then broke down each municipality by affordability year-by-year between 2011 and 2022.

It found the percentage of affordable housing increased in 125 municipalities, decreased in 40 and remained the same in four.

Some of the cities with a decrease in affordable housing since 2011 included Canaan (-3.2 pp), Winchester (-3.0 pp) and Mansfield (-4.6 pp).

Mansfield Mayor Antonia Moran (D) said the need for more inexpensive options is high.

“Part of the problem with the data for Mansfield is that 13,000 UConn students live on campus and their housing is neither affordable or counted in our calculations,” Moran said.

Cities like Hartford (+5.2 pp), Bridgeport (+3.3 pp) and New Haven (+4.4 pp) saw an increase in the percentage of affordable housing.

“It’s something that doesn’t surprise us because we’ve been working really hard to expand the number of affordable housing in our city,” New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker (D) said. “Second in the state in terms of affordable units is true, while at the same time, people in the community are struggling right now with the economy, the way it is, and the rent’s going up just across the community. The need for more affordable housing units across the state is pretty significant.” 

In 2022, a number of municipalities saw housing affordability rates of under one percent including Bethany (0.5%), Bridgewater (0.1%), Easton (0.6%) and Goshen (0.3%).

Last year, the vacancy rate in the state was just over 2 percent, highlighting a lack of available places to live.