Connecticut to offer homeownership assistance to first responders

Against the backdrop of a red and white North Haven fire truck, Gov. Ned Lamont announced the upcoming rollout of a homeownership assistance program for first responders Tuesday morning.

The program, First Responders’ Time to Own, will provide eligible and certified firefighters, police officers and emergency medical services workers with up to $25,000 in assistance for down payments and closing costs. In order to be eligible for the program, first responders must have at least two years of work experience in Connecticut and buy a home in the community they serve.

Lamont lauded the program for giving first responders a “stake” in the town where they work.

“Being part of the community is a big part of community policing,” he said. “Being able to be nearby the firehouse just makes an enormous difference.”

The homeownership assistance program falls under Public Act 26-12, which Lamont signed into law in June. The broader law aims to increase first responder recruitment and retention through pay increases, state school tuition waivers and bolstered benefits for family members of first responders who died in the line of duty.

At Tuesday’s press conference, held at the North Haven fire department, three state police officers stood alongside Lamont and roughly a dozen state and local officials. More first responders peppered the audience, including North Haven police officers and firefighters from the Middlefield and Westfield departments.

“Take a look at who’s here today,” Ronnell Higgins, commissioner for the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, said at the conference. “That tells you how important this law is.”

Several of the officials, including Higgins and Comptroller Sean Scanlon, remarked on Connecticut’s struggles to recruit and retain first responders.

According to Higgins, Connecticut currently faces a shortage of hundreds of police officers and troopers and struggles to fill its police and fire academies. A May 2025 report by Scanlon’s office found that the number of volunteer firefighters statewide had dropped by more than 62% since 2017.

“We’re losing that fabric of volunteerism,” Scanlon said, “not because people don’t want to serve — because they can’t afford to live in the places that they want to serve.”

Scanlon stressed that the homeownership assistance program and the broader legislation presented “Connecticut solutions to a national problem.” Recent reports have identified recruitment and retention issues among law enforcement , firefighters and emergency medical services workers nationwide.

According to Connecticut Housing Commissioner Seila Mosquera-Bruno, the homeownership assistance program is modeled after the state’s Time to Own program, which was established in 2022 and has helped over 10,000 Connecticut families become first-time homeowners.

Mosquera-Bruno and Nandini Natarajan, the chief executive officer and executive director of the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, described the first responders program as a more “flexible” version of the original program.

The Time to Own program requires participants to have lived in Connecticut for at least three years and earn no more than their area’s median household income.

The first responders’ program requires just two years of Connecticut residency and does not restrict assistance eligibility by income. Participants will also pay a slightly reduced interest rate on their first Connecticut Housing Finance Authority mortgages, according to Natarajan.

The program will launch on Nov. 16, a month and a half prior to the Jan. 1, 2027, deadline laid out in the legislation. It will be funded through the Time to Own program and it will operate on a first-come, first-served basis, Mosquera-Bruno said.

“We’re sending a message to the people that have these jobs, and the people that want these jobs, that we’re going to be there for you if you’re there for us,” Scanlon said.

This story was originally published by The Connecticut Mirror and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.