SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Look, this is a policy choice

SPEAKER_01: 0:02

and

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

that we have gotten ourselves into this by failing to build enough attainable homes for people and affordable homes.

SPEAKER_01: 0:09

I think I have the answer then. We're going to solve this problem right now. Here's my solution. Right. Why don't we build more houses? Did I do it? Exactly. Did I figure it out? You did it. I did it.

SPEAKER_00: 0:17

This could be a pretty quick listen for everybody. Four

SPEAKER_01: 0:20

minutes and we are out of here. We're just building more houses. Welcome to New Hampshire Has Issues, the podcast that dares to ask, where did all the houses go? What do you think, Nick? What's yours? What's your tagline?

SPEAKER_00: 0:43

I think that's a great one. I was thinking, am I really going to listen to 60 minutes of zoning? And the answer is yes.

SPEAKER_01: 0:51

Don't turn it off. Don't turn it off. You're going to love it. I'm going to watch the metrics of this show, and you're going to say the word zoning, and people are going to turn it off. No, it's exciting,

SPEAKER_00: 0:59

riveting, and also extremely important. Yeah. Morally important, extremely important. It's how our communities grow. It's how we live our lives. I think it's a moral issue in addition to an economic one.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13

Welcome to New Hampshire Has Issues, the podcast that dares to ask, what is a zoning committee? And we're going to answer it for you. That's going to be the answer too.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21

I'll eventually get you to zoning board and planning board.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24

I'm so sorry. All right. So I haven't learned it yet. All right. Zoning board, planning.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30

We won't hold it. I don't hold it against you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:32

I am your host, Liz Canada, and joining me today to talk about housing affordability and affordable housing is the Director of Housing Action New Hampshire, Nick Taylor. Nick, thank you for being here and for taking the time.

SPEAKER_00: 1:45

Of course. It's great to be here, have this conversation with you, and thanks for putting this together. There are so many critical issues facing New Hampshire, and the ability to really just talk about them and share experiences and share organizations that are doing great work is fantastic.

SPEAKER_01: 2:01

Thank you. Yeah, it's been an interesting little journey. Some topics I'm more familiar with and some like housing. I'm familiar because I live in a house, but besides that, I care about it, but I don't really know the things that are going on. What does your organization do? What does Housing Action New Hampshire

SPEAKER_00: 2:17

do? We're an advocacy organization that works to ensure that New Hampshire is a place where everyone can have a home.

SPEAKER_01: 2:24

Perfect. What else is there to say? Great. Okay. So Let's start with a simple question. On a scale of 1 to 10, how affordable is housing in New Hampshire, with 10 being there are places in New Hampshire giving homes away for free, to 1, which is the opposite of that?

SPEAKER_00: 2:43

How affordable? You need to basically win the lottery to find a place to live. Yeah. We're closer to 1. I mean, this is as bad. We

SPEAKER_01: 2:51

are number one.

SPEAKER_00: 2:51

Wait, that's not. I know. We don't want to do that. This is going in the wrong direction. But it truly is as bad as it's ever been in New Hampshire in terms of the vacancy rates and the rental costs and the median sales price. It's never been this high ever before.

SPEAKER_01: 3:07

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 3:07

When we sort of think about so many of these issues, you're seeing it coming up in poll after poll and you're hearing about it from people and you're like, okay, well, is the data really backing up what I'm hearing? Or is it just the topic of the day? People want to talk about it. And here the data is really backing it up. And it's for the purchase market. It's for the rental market. You name it, there's a problem. It's all across the state.

SPEAKER_01: 3:33

You mentioned vacancy rate. And I've read that our vacancy rate is super low. That sounds bad. But what does that actually mean?

SPEAKER_00: 3:45

You're right to think it's bad right now. I mean, so basically if you're at 0% vacancy rate, it means there are no homes available.

SPEAKER_01: 3:55

No homes available. And so we're pretty close?

SPEAKER_00: 3:57

That would be zero. And we're right around 1%. And so that means like regardless of your price point, what you're looking for, you're going to have a really hard time. That's going to hurt the folks who have the least amount of financial flexibility the most because there are a whole bunch of homes that are not within their financial capacity, right? And so it's sort of like a game of musical chairs in some ways, right? Where there were only so many homes. If you're not going to be able to sit in one of those chairs, you're going to be left out. When we think about the vacancy rate, what is generally considered a healthy market is 5%. That means that there's some flexibility. So if you want to move somewhere for a different job or something in your life changes and you're looking for a different place, you have a couple options. It's not that there are abandoned buildings and there's anything you can have at any time, but there's some flexibility that you're not going to have to turn down a job because... you can't find a place to live. When we're sitting at closer to that, like 1% or below, people are turning down opportunities because they can't find a place or they're still living with their parents or paying more than 50% of their take-home pay just in their housing costs, which you add in childcare and healthcare and food. It doesn't get you very far if you're spending that much on your housing costs.

SPEAKER_01: 5:24

Okay, so we have a very low vacancy rate. Not great. When I think about the housing issue, or I guess just in my own personal experience, I just look back and I think of my housing as being, was I renting? Am I buying a house? Am I roommateing? Which I guess is a form of Renting, really. What do folks who actually know about the housing issue, what do you all think about? What are the factors when you think about making change around housing?

SPEAKER_00: 5:54

Yeah, absolutely. When we're talking about housing policy, generally speaking, we're talking about either rental units, rental homes for people or for purchase homes. So if you're buying... One of the craziest stats to me on the for-purchase market, it took us 18 years to go from a median sales price of$200,000 to$300,000. It then took us three years to go from$300,000 to$400,000 and only two years to go from$400,000 to$500,000. You're saying

SPEAKER_01: 6:22

a lot of numbers to me, which is great. I love numbers. But what does it

SPEAKER_00: 6:26

really mean? You're naturally going to see some increase over time. So that's not surprising. But the fact that for 18 years, you were between$200,000 and$300,000 in the statewide median sales price. And there was sort of creeping up and you had the great recession in there and you had some fluctuation. But generally speaking, we were pretty stable with a slight increase. The last five years, it really has gone crazy. And that's where you start to shut up

SPEAKER_01: 6:55

really

SPEAKER_00: 6:55

fast. Exactly. Like if you're when you when you actually put this graph up and I whenever I'm giving presentations

SPEAKER_01: 7:00

are great for graphs and visuals.

SPEAKER_00: 7:03

Exactly. Exactly. Famously a visual format.

SPEAKER_01: 7:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 7:06

But you get like audible gasps from people when they look at it and they're like, oh, crap, that is wild. I'm sure they see it like that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 7:17

It's like that. I'm running. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So a gradual increase over time, over a long period of time, and then

SPEAKER_00: 7:44

big spike. So it took us three years to go from 300 to 400, and then two years to go from 400 to 500. And so that's where you're seeing folks who are just... unable to get into that for-purchase market when historically they might have been, right? They were renting. They might be wanting to put down roots and have a little bit more space as they raise their family. And trying to afford the down payment on that kind of immediate sales price home is impossible. And that's statewide. And so when you think about some of the Southern New Hampshire, the Seacoast, Hanover, some of the other areas that are even significantly above sort of the median statewide number, it becomes really, really challenging for people.

SPEAKER_01: 8:32

And the low vacancy rate, like that really small vacancy rate means, I think, if I'm looking for a house, if I'm like, this is my time, I'm going to go buy a house, that the Sort of variety of prices available of homes is very limited too, because there's just fewer homes for sale.

SPEAKER_00: 8:47

Yeah, exactly. And so you're looking at that, again, sort of on the, if you're trying to buy a place, but then if you're renting a place too, like across the board, it's just incredibly, incredibly challenging. And again, that like is so hard for folks that don't have sort of the flexibility or on a tight timeline. Look, this is a policy choice. and that we have gotten ourselves into this by failing to build enough attainable homes for people.

SPEAKER_01: 9:11

Why is it not as simple as,

SPEAKER_00: 9:14

just go build more houses? The reality is a lot of it would be that way if we would allow folks to build, right? And so there's a couple different factors, and some that we have control over and some that we don't. When we're talking about why are there not enough homes or why are homes so expensive, we talk about these five factors L's. Lending, labor, lumber, laws, and land. All of those factor into housing costs and whether you're building something. A lot of those, we, especially in New Hampshire, don't have control over, right? We're not really... Mm-hmm. there were all sorts of different types of housing options out there that there were... In

SPEAKER_01: 10:17

New Hampshire, there were different types of...

SPEAKER_00: 10:19

In New Hampshire. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And across the country. I mean, we should say this is particularly, I think, acute in New Hampshire in terms of sort of where our numbers have always been. But this is a national problem. And that's why you're seeing more national conversations around this and federally and just sort of the dialogue out there. For a long time, folks were able to build a second accessory dwelling unit or a second home for their in-law or for a family member, or they were able to just put duplex up. And so they lived in a half and rented out the other half to help pay for their costs. Or they divided up their piece of land and had a couple small lots that were there because folks didn't need a huge track of land, right? And then in the 1960s, we really started seeing a lot more of that sort of exclusionary zoning piece where folks were saying, look, the only thing you can build is a large single family home on a large lot. And Not that all zoning is racist, but there is absolutely a racial history behind zoning and especially the exclusionary zoning piece of this. And so we kind of went through this long process where there was this idea that everyone needed their own single family home. And that was the only thing that should get built besides in some sort of core city areas. And that under building for a long, long time has led us. And so it's not to say that the answer to everything is just sort of let the market handle it, because we also need more attainable options for folks that need something other than a million dollar home.

SPEAKER_01: 11:58

I heard you say there's the exclusionary zoning practices. I serve... on our town's budget recommendations committee. That's one committee in our town where it's volunteers who come together to try to solve the things that are in front of our town. And I know one of those committees is called the zoning committee. What is a zoning committee? It sounds extremely boring. I'm not

SPEAKER_00: 12:20

going to lie to you. You're saying it's boring coming from a budget committee member.

SPEAKER_01: 12:25

Zing, Nick. Yes, I love a spreadsheet, but what do they talk about in the zoning committee? I understand what I talk about, but what do they talk about?

SPEAKER_00: 12:32

To kind of really nerd out, Yes. Go for it. Nerd out. your town rules about what you can build where. And so it's literally what can go in there, but also how high can it be? What are the setbacks? And so setbacks being like the side, how far away from your neighbor's lot? How big does your lot have to be to begin with to do anything? How many parking spots do you need to pave to be able to build a home? So all of this is in your town. In

SPEAKER_01: 13:29

our little town. In your town. There are these town rules that say you need to have this many parking spots before you build anything. Right. Or before you build specific things.

SPEAKER_00: 13:36

Exactly. Exactly. And it depends on which zone you're in. So you understand why people get confused when they try to do something with their property, right? And so if you are trying to do something that's outside of those town rules, that's when you go to the zoning board. And I sat on our city's zoning board for a couple of years. And so you get everything from, I'd like to build a deck, but I'm a little bit too close to my neighbor's lot and I'm supposed to have 20 feet, but I really have 17 feet. But you also get things like, I would like to build a sober home, or I would like to build 100 apartments, as opposed to the density that would let me build 50. And so you're getting a whole range of how far outside of those existing rules there are. And so that's what the zoning board does. The planning board handles much more of sort of the within the existing zoning framework, reviewing and asking questions and doing sort of that vetting process that comes with before you're trying to build something.

SPEAKER_01: 14:35

So these zoning boards, these planning boards, they operate within, you know, the town level or the city level. How does the state factor into this? Because if you have some towns that allow things and some towns that don't, where does the state jump into

SPEAKER_00: 14:51

this work? I mean, this is one of the central sort of questions, you know, when we get into sort of the housing policy piece at the state level is, is like the big issue is this idea of local control. And like, who's decision is it to allow for what can be built? Right now on most of these, municipalities could already do them, but sometimes they do not. That practice of preventing certain types of things from being built has statewide policy implications. And so one example of that is this bill that's been moving through the process, House Bill 631. This is sponsored by Representative Allie Murray from Manchester. It's kind of dubbed the Homes Near Jobs bill because it's allowing for Multifamily, where you allow for retail or office space, taking those aging strip malls and putting housing on top of them or taking a older office building and turning them into apartments, which obviously not always the easiest thing to do, but it just would allow you to do it. What would then happen is that would be state policy. You have to allow that. But then the municipality would still sort of say, okay, well, you can't go over this height. You have to have this many parking spots. That's where we start to talk about, well, what is the interplay between local communities and the state when it comes to these policies? And so this is sort of a situation of starting to put some guardrails on how far are we going to go and what are some baseline principles that we're going to sort of say everyone has to abide by these and then you can implement them as your community sees fit, right? It's like this housing shortage in and of itself is a state issue. It's not just a Manchester issue or an Exeter issue or a Keene issue, right? It's not just a city issue either. It's smaller municipalities that can't find a fire chief or teachers to teach in the classroom because there's no homes available, right? And so there's sort of that big picture idea of like, what does local control mean? Does it mean individual property rights? Does it mean central planning. You talk about those issues, but like when you actually think about sort of the practical implications of New Hampshire communities, you got to balance those and you got to find that happy medium that says, look, we can't go town by town and have everyone individually change their policies. There's got to be some overarching guiding principles that we have as a state that says you should be allowed to do this. Municipality go implement it, how you see fit, but within those barriers. And we've done this before. You know, there's sometimes this idea of, well, local control, especially on housing and zoning is sacrosanct in New Hampshire, right? But that's not really the case. When now U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan was governor, she signed the first ADU law in New Hampshire. And ADUs are accessory dwelling units, often sort of in-law apartments. And that allowed for ADUs to be attached to single family homes and said, you know, you've got to allow Right. okay, this is something that we value as a full state. Let's go allow you to implement it locally. And that's sort of where these conversations are coming up till now and saying, let's extend that to allow detached ADUs. So like a structure that's not a basement or an attic or attached garage, but maybe it's a barn and maybe that should be allowed to be an accessory dwelling unit. And right now about Half the New Hampshire communities allow it and half don't. And so that's just saying like, look, again, we got to move that ball forward.

SPEAKER_01: 18:36

What is the rationale for not allowing it? Like what arguments are made to say, no, we don't think you should be allowed to transform your barn into a living space for somebody else

SPEAKER_00: 18:50

yeah i mean that that's a great question right and so like i've

SPEAKER_01: 18:53

been practicing my question

SPEAKER_00: 18:54

that's what we're here for i mean so like there's like there's a couple pieces sometimes it's just the fact that updating all these zoning ordinances is also confusing and tough and you have hundreds of pages of of zoning regulations that it becomes you know just like a inertia problem right of like you need someone who's gonna go in there and sort of champion it and want to make the change and and all that. But you also run into situations where folks like, look, change is hard. There's a general feeling of I am here. Things are going well. Why would we rock the boat on this? And that's where you start to get into some challenges around municipal government and just government in general, where the folks who have time to show up to that zoning board meeting or show up to that planning board meeting or serve.

SPEAKER_01: 19:42

Or know what a zoning

SPEAKER_00: 19:44

board or planning board

SPEAKER_01: 19:45

is.

SPEAKER_00: 19:46

Yeah. If you've got time to be doing that, you're probably less worried about putting food on the table and where are you going to sleep at night and all of that. Not to say that everyone that serves on these boards is not well-intentioned, but there certainly are some well-intentioned folks and some folks that I think would love to learn more. But you do absolutely have some people that sort of say, look, I This town was perfect the day I moved here, and I don't want to see it change.

SPEAKER_01: 20:12

Because I moved here. Right. Because I arrived

SPEAKER_00: 20:15

perfect. I arrived here. The town had never been better at that moment. That's

SPEAKER_02: 20:19

right.

SPEAKER_00: 20:20

And I'm never going to do anything about it. And it was really interesting. We had a public hearing on a bill this year, and you had someone who was testifying on the bill. And they were in opposition to it. It was a bill that would change some zoning rules. laws and the person was tearing up and they were saying, look, this change of the community, I want to be able to hand this community down to my kids and have them live there. And you had a member of the House Housing Committee who said, it's really interesting you bring that up because I'm in support of this bill for that exact same reason is I'm worried my kids won't have a place to live that they can afford in this community. And so you get people that sometimes are coming in and are afraid of that change and don't know what it will look like. And You have the other folks who are coming in and saying, look, we're going to grow. The question is, how are we going to do it? And how do you balance sort of the things we all love about New Hampshire and our communities with the need for more housing options? And oftentimes those things aren't in conflict with each other. There's ways to do this that make sense and are thoughtful and smart. And when we start to allow for more density in certain areas, it also allows us to have more conservation in other areas, right? And so you sort of go against these just like urban sprawl and suburban sprawl and all of that. But basically, you get down to this idea of change and how tough that is for people. And certainly, there are still some folks that would prefer to keep no new people moving in.

SPEAKER_01: 21:51

Don't want to become another state that might be towards the south. Let's say... I am upset. I've heard you talk about this, Nick. I'm mad. I'm like, wait, I think my town doesn't let me do this. Right. How do those rules change? How does a town decide their rules are outdated or they need to revisit them? What is the process for making change in a local community? Because that's as local as you can possibly get.

SPEAKER_00: 22:18

Planning boards can initiate in towns. So the towns that have a town meeting process, planning boards can initiate- zoning changes that then go to the full town meeting for approval by everyone in the municipality. And they can only change them once a year. I mean, it has to be that town meeting process. And so I would encourage folks to either run or get appointed, if it's an appointed position, to your local land use boards. You can make a real difference for people in advancing some of these policies. But also talk to existing members and ask them about it and take a look at your local regulations. And there's this new tool that St. Anselm College has put together, the New Hampshire Zoning Atlas, that actually allows you to visualize this. And that it used to be the only way to do it was to actually go in and read these huge documents that are very legalese. And now there's a great map and you can just click and say-

SPEAKER_01: 23:14

If you're looking for a good beach read, your

SPEAKER_00: 23:16

ordinances. Yeah, get involved. I mean, get on the planning board. You actually, you can have a huge difference about how things look and so much of how our communities end up are because of the zoning regulations that we have. I mean, people build to what you allow, right? And so if you want to see more mixed use where there's shops on the first floor and apartments on the second floor, like zone for it and allow it and you'll start to get it and encourage, you know, your state legislators to support policies that allow for these additional flexibilities. And so that's how you can take these issues at the state and local level and try to make a difference with them.

SPEAKER_01: 23:52

We've talked a lot about the local level, which is great because I think there's not enough conversations out there in general about what can happen in your own town and community. But also what happens with the state? We sort of touched on a little bit of it, but what has the state done or what has the state not done when it comes to housing?

SPEAKER_00: 24:10

So there's this sort of state regulatory policy where you can sort of say you have to allow for this. And that's one thing the state can do. The state has also passed this housing champions program in the last budget that Senator Rebecca Perkins-Quokka has long been a leader of. And this is an incentive-based program that essentially says, if you take pro-housing steps, and some of this is local zoning ordinances, some of this is just approvals and trainings. If you take some of those steps, you become a housing champions community and you get access to additional grants and that you can use for infrastructure investments or sidewalks or whatever you want to do with them. But essentially taking that carrot approach of saying, if you do something good, we will dangle some money in front of you and help make it easier. Good job.

SPEAKER_01: 24:54

Thumbs up. Here's a treat. Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 24:56

Exactly. Then the other piece that the state could play a role in is the below market rate housing. And so the things we've talked about so far in terms of Accessory dwelling units or mixed-use housing, again, where there's residential and commercial in the same area, all of those are sort of market rate but attainable. They're just naturally more affordable options. There's also below-market-rate housing that requires some sort of, generally speaking, some sort of financial incentive. And the state has really one main tool that it uses effectively. to incentivize and help make the math work on these developments. And that's the Affordable Housing Fund.

SPEAKER_01: 25:38

All right. I want to jump in for a second because you said Affordable Housing Fund. I see that phrase affordable housing a lot. And I have wondered, is it a technical term? Is it a legal term? Or does it just mean like my housing is not super expensive? I'm feeling pretty good. What does that phrase actually mean?

SPEAKER_00: 25:57

Yeah. The housing glossary challenges are real. And we can- Show notes, just a glossary of 85 terms. Exactly. Because it is used interchangeably all the time. And so there's a couple of ways to think about it. Affordable housing, lowercase a, that's just like affordable, is you can have affordable housing for anybody at any income level because generally affordability is defined by HUD and it's generally best practices around 30% of your income going to housing and no more than that. Now, a lot of folks-

SPEAKER_01: 26:33

30% or less of your income-

SPEAKER_00: 26:35

Going to your all-in housing costs. Yeah, absolutely. Then it is, quote unquote- Affordable, lowercase a. going to your all-in housing costs. Capital A affordable housing fund generally connotes some sort of legal financial incentive that you're going into as the developer to develop housing that is affordable using that 30% threshold to some level of the area median income. If you're in the Boston HUD region, the number is going to be a little bit higher. The Portsmouth region is a little bit higher than it is up in the of what you could charge and who you're renting it to. And so if you're using that affordable housing fund and you're a developer and you're saying, I'm going to do 20 homes at... 50% area median income or less. And so you go over and you sort of say 50% of the area median income in Manchester, I can't charge more than whatever 30% of that is for my affordable piece.

SPEAKER_01: 27:56

So what is in Manchester to qualify would be different than Portsmouth because of the median income being different within those two areas.

SPEAKER_00: 28:05

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 28:06

And then different in Berlin in the North country. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 28:09

And so the state affordable housing fund, which is administered by new hampshire housing is low interest loans and grants for below market rate housing and so this is things that are required to be set at a lower cost and oftentimes there's income verification to make sure that you know whoever's living in them you know qualifies and is truly sort of making at whatever level the the sort of proposal originally had that got the approval and so the state affordable housing fund is a big big tool when it comes to being able to do this Now, there's also a whole bunch of federal programs that folks also use to develop affordable housing, and New Hampshire Housing administers a lot of those locally, too. The financial incentive piece is a big issue around the state budget every two years and around additional funding. sort of appropriations. Who are the folks who are working on this? Who are the movers and shakers, whether it's at the local level or at the state level, who are advocating for the legislature to step up and continue

SPEAKER_01: 29:44

to fund that, increase the annual appropriation from the real estate transfer tax, and make an additional appropriation into the fund in this budget cycle? trying to solve. I don't even know if it's possible to solve, but trying to work on this housing affordability, housing availability options.

SPEAKER_00: 30:00

It's great. I mean, there's a really broad coalition who are concerned about this and it's starting to come up even more and more when people are asking their memberships, like what issues do you care about? It's really interesting. And I'll talk a little about sort of the legislative coalitions as well as sort of the outside the dome The regular people. their kids and so that they can handle some of the child care and be around the family. Just had that episode

SPEAKER_01: 30:51

a few weeks ago, needing child care. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00: 30:53

You start to solve a lot of these other problems by kind of going back to some of the intergenerational living and some of the different options or just having some additional independence but flexibility. And so we've worked also on the ADU bill with the disability rights community because that's another great way to either have some independence for an adult child who can live independent Right. Right. law as well. The business community, this is an issue where they are hearing time and again from their members and their businesses and the large employers in New Hampshire that they can't find workers to be able to grow. And so you have the Chambers of Commerce and the BIA working on this too. And certainly, there's some great work being done by Stay Work Play and 603 Forward and Forward Foundation and the youth movement and some of the other sort of younger organizers who are hearing from that working age, young adults, folks who are just graduating college or entering the workforce from the trades who are saying, where's my opportunity to live here? I want to stay, but I can't possibly afford it. So it's a really broad coalition of organizations who are doing this work. There's also some incredible institutional players who do some of the lending on this that are doing great work. I mean, New Hampshire Housing as both a lender and an educator on the work that they do with the financing piece, but also the research piece to make sure that folks have the best up-to-date data. You know, the Community Development Finance Authority, they do some great work to help sort of turn old mill buildings and other tax credit programs that help revitalize things. So then all of this comes together into some really interesting coalitions at the legislative like under the dome state house level work and a lot of it depends a little bit on like is this a funding bill is this a regulatory bill but you know we've seen some of the regulatory you know like allowing for accessory dwelling units or allowing the homes to be built near jobs pass with half of the Republican caucus and two-thirds of the Democratic caucus. And so you end up in these coalitions that are unlike so many other sort of the hot button issues of the day, right? Because you have some folks who are coming at this from the moral imperative of not pulling the ladder up when you got there and allowing people to have more options and looking out for your neighbors. And you have some folks who are coming at this from a property rights perspective of like, I should be able to do what I want with my property. And it leads to some really interesting coalitions. There's that

SPEAKER_01: 33:45

word interesting. The word interesting does a lot of heavy lifting in a lot of these episodes, that's for sure. Do you see things moving in the right direction this year? Are we going to see a noticeable difference this year? Is it going to take some time? What happens next? You've got these interesting coalitions working together. What is the path forward from here?

SPEAKER_00: 34:10

Thank you so much. Some have made it through both chambers and we'll have to deal with the committee or conference.

SPEAKER_01: 34:30

Right. When the two sides, the two chambers get together in a room, they're like, all right, let's duke this out in a committee. Let's do this.

SPEAKER_00: 34:37

Exactly. And then things will go to the governor and she will have to sign some of these regulatory bills if they're going to have an impact. That piece is still TBD, but there's a lot of progress there. The funding piece is essential to be able to hit that whole thing. housing continuum when it comes to the affordability piece, when it comes to making sure that our emergency shelters are funded, that the transitional housing and supportive housing options are funded. And so you can't have one without the other. And it's not going to be a successful session unless we get both through because we've got to be able to hit folks at all levels of the income spectrum who are struggling with this. The other challenge is And what I think makes housing such a tough, in some ways, sort of political challenge to solve is that, you know, it took us decades to get here. It's going to take us a long time to get out. Even if you pass, you know, some of these proposals and you fund the Affordable Housing Fund. Projects still need to get built and there needs to be land and there's got to be that turnover. People got to want to do it. And there absolutely is some sort of pent up demand to be able to go ahead and do more of these projects. But even then they take years to get through oftentimes sort of the planning process and then actually getting them built and getting the materials and the construction workers and all of that. It makes it really challenging that you can have a great session Right. Yeah. Yeah. a huge package of policies, but it does point us in the right direction. And that I am absolutely optimistic about.

SPEAKER_01: 36:30

We didn't get into the unhoused population. And that might just need to be a whole other episode, honestly, because it's such a huge component when we think about there's not very much housing out there. And there are folks who are living in their cars, living in hotels. And, you know, maybe you could do like a little preview for a one day episode, but like, When people think of homeless folks or unhoused folks, they think of people on sidewalks or maybe in tents. But so many of them, they have jobs, they're sleeping in their cars, they're in a hotel. So what does the state do or not do for those folks? We

SPEAKER_00: 37:05

have to do more, no doubt about it. And I'm really glad you brought up the point of how this shows up in a lot of different communities because you do hear it. You hear from folks that say, oh, I don't think that's an issue in my community or even in New Hampshire. That is a big city issue that we're not dealing with. Right. And that's not true. It's like in all of our communities, there are folks who are living in their cars or sleeping in a tent or couch surfing friend to friend. So many of us out there are sort of one financial challenge away from being there. When we think about it, it really is an issue that is impacting New Hampshire and it's increasing. Ultimately, homelessness is a housing issue and that ultimately, if you're going to get out of this, you just need more housing. homes that are affordable for people. And that is the best sort of long-term stability piece. But in the interim, we need to make sure that the shelter capacity is there, right? And that right now we have 13 state-funded shelters are getting pennies on the dollar for how much it actually costs to house somebody under their roof and their shelter programs that is coming through the state. Department of Health and Human Services. You also hear about some of the challenges with the voucher program where folks may have a voucher, but we allow in New Hampshire for income-based discrimination. And so you could have someone that gets denied solely because they are trying to pay with a voucher. In a number of other states, that is illegal. You can't discriminate on someone just because they're a voucher holder. And so you have folks who get a voucher and they've waited years on these

SPEAKER_01: 38:46

lists. A specific housing.

SPEAKER_00: 38:48

A specific housing voucher. Yeah, yeah. Section 8. It's a federal housing voucher, but it is used through– administered locally through either New Hampshire Housing or a local housing authority. And they're waiting years and years for a voucher. They finally get one and they can't find a place that will either accept the voucher or is– rented at the level that the voucher will pay for, right? Because the voucher is also capped at a certain amount. It's not just a, you can go live wherever and we'll pay whatever, right? And so like that is a real challenge. And this is also where you start to touch on the federal uncertainty and the HUD cuts because so much of the sort of funding at that level is also coming from the federal government. And folks are really worried about that, rightly so.

SPEAKER_01: 39:35

Rightly so. Yeah, there are a lot of changes that are going to impact people. Definitely. Nick, thank you so much for sharing more about like, why don't we have enough housing in the state? What folks are doing about it, whether it's your organization or lawmakers or how to get involved at the local level. And queuing up another huge issue, which is the for folks who are unhoused, unsheltered, like, you know, I think that's a whole other episode that we need to dig into. But thank you for sort of enlightening us to get started in that way. So thank you for being

SPEAKER_00: 40:04

here. Of course. Liz, thanks for hosting this conversation, for inviting me on. I mean, it really was such a fun time to talk through these critical issues that are facing New Hampshire, what we can do about it, and how we're going to make progress by working together.

SPEAKER_01: 40:19

Everyone should go find their planning board and zoning board. Read all of the rules this summer. Liz Canada's summer reading list, or at least if this is something that you care about, you're someone they can reach out to.

SPEAKER_00: 40:30

Absolutely. So folks who are interested in learning more about this, definitely reach out to us. They're Housing Action New Hampshire. If you're looking for something even in your community, we can help put you in touch with folks who are doing this work on the ground in your town or in your region to be able to help you through it. And if you don't want to read your full zoning-

SPEAKER_01: 40:50

Why wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_00: 40:51

Ordinances. You can go to the Zoning Atlas. Nick, don't

SPEAKER_01: 40:54

talk it down. Talk it up. It is exciting, riveting.

SPEAKER_00: 40:58

Right. Tables of dimensions, plot sizes, setbacks. It's a real party trick. Right into the show, what was your

SPEAKER_01: 41:05

favorite zoning ordinance that you read this summer? That's what we're going to have in the fall. You don't have to start from square one. You don't have to try to figure it out on your own that your organization is here and you all are already plugged in and can plug people in. We'll have in the show notes your charts and graphs that if this were a video podcast... We would have blown

SPEAKER_00: 41:24

everyone's minds. Right. Wait till the YouTube channel starts to blow up. We'll come back. We'll walk through the slide deck, all the numbers.

SPEAKER_01: 41:32

Next slide, please. It'll be perfect.

SPEAKER_00: 41:34

That'll get people to tune out.