Connecticut is the latest state to help first responders reach their homeownership goals with assistance for down payments and closing costs.
The “First Responders’ Time to Own” program gives state and local police officers, full-time and volunteer firefighters and emergency medical service personnel $25,000 in forgivable assistance through the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority (CHFA) and the Connecticut Department of Housing. To qualify, first responders must have completed two years of service and purchase a primary residence within the community they serve.
In addition to down payment and closing cost help, the program gives applicants a 0.125 percentage point interest rate reduction on their CHFA first mortgage.
Gov. Ned Lamont
“Connecticut’s police officers, firefighters and EMS personnel dedicate themselves to protecting our families and communities, and we want to make sure they have the opportunity to build their own futures here,” Governor Ned Lamont said in a prepared statement on Tuesday. “By helping reduce one of the biggest barriers to buying a home, we’re investing in the people who serve our state and the communities that depend on them.”
The program is part of Public Act 26-12, a state bill that aims to increase the number of first responders with a number of incentives, including college tuition reimbursement and improved labor protections.
“The people who protect and serve our communities should be able to afford to live in those communities, and this program with help them do it,” Comptroller Sean Scanlon said in a written statement. “Helping the people who put their lives on the line for us every day buy their first home is literally the least we can do, and I’m proud to have worked with Governor Lamont and legislature to make this a reality.”
Seven other states also have down payment assistance programs for first responders. Florida, Nevada, Georgia and South Carolina provide flat amounts, ranging from $10,000 to $35,000. Texas, Maryland and Ohio’s programs are percentage-based and offer assistance ranging from 2.5 percent to 5 percent of the purchase price.
The terms of each program vary. Most states forgive the assistance after five to seven years, but Nevada requires homebuyers to repay the funds within 30 years. And like Connecticut, Ohio also offers a 0.25 percent mortgage rate discount.
“Homeownership offers more than a place to live. It creates stability, strengthens connections to community and provides an opportunity to build wealth over time,” CHFA CEO and Executive Director Nandini Natarajan said in an announcement. “Through First Responders’ Time to Own, we’re helping the people who answer the call for our communities take an important step toward achieving their own homeownership goals.”
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First responders often fall through the cracks of housing assistance programs because they don’t earn enough to afford market-rate housing but earn too much to qualify for federal housing vouchers.
Inman explored this dilemma last September in a feature on workforce housing in resort towns like Jackson Hole, Vail and Tahoe. These towns can’t operate without first responders and other essential workers in the hospitality and retail sectors. However, rental and for-sale home prices have far outpaced what these workers earn, forcing them to commute long distances from more affordable towns or take on second and third jobs to survive.
The solution for some of these towns has been investing in workforce housing, which caps prices for households that earn between 60 percent and 120 percent of their area’s AMI. Most workforce housing is rent-only, but some states are extending the programs to include for-sale properties.
“I think the fact that workforce housing can be necessary or is a thing in the first place is really an indictment of the state of housing affordability in the country today,” Realtor.com Senior Economist Jake Krimmel said. “I think it’s important to ground any conversation about workforce and affordable housing in that reality. It’s a market failure and a policy failure that someone could be a doctor, a teacher or another kind of professional and cannot afford to pay the market rent or own a home outright.”
Windermere Principal Economist Jeff Tucker said workforce housing isn’t a panacea for affordability and works within an ecosystem of other housing and economic policies, such as upzoning, to create a more equitable market.
Tucker’s comments came a month after the Senate introduced the ROAD to Housing Act of 2025, and three months before the House introduced the Housing for the 21st Century Act. The bills were eventually combined into the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which passed in June.
“A broad package of necessary reforms to make more housing construction possible in much of the country is a really important component of a long-term solution to the housing affordability challenges we face,” Tucker said. “Our current housing shortage took years to develop. So it’ll take years to build our way out of it.”
