Liz Canada: 00:00
This is local government right in it, like just being in the room and talking about how much noise is gonna happen if we build this, what are the stoplights nearby, and how are those gonna end up.

Ryann Wolf: 00:10
Do you know how many hours I've spent on parking spaces in Portsmouth? I never thought that I would read so much, so many parking studies in my life.

Liz Canada: 00:21
I heard you all are fine on parking. I've never heard any anything to say about parking. You're listening to New Hampshire Has to Choose, and I'm your host from the future, Liz Canada, who has done the homework from last episode about identifying three women and asking them to run for office. And I've done the homework for this episode, and I'm not gonna spoil it for you. So a few months ago, this little podcast received a media award from Housing Action New Hampshire. I was extremely honored, totally taken aback. And after the award ceremony, two distinct individuals came up and introduced themselves to me, and they would later go on to become guests on this very podcast. One was Pat McDermott from the AARP New Hampshire episode, where we learned all about cryptocurrency ATM scams. Still shocked about that. And the other individual was Cara Rodenheiser, who is today's guest, and she is here to talk about the Affordable Housing Week that is taking place next week, May 11th through 16th, with Home for All. Link in the show notes of the episode description with more details. If you would like to support the show, you can become a monthly subscriber at patreon.com slash nh has issues. If you have an idea for an episode, you can flag me after an award ceremony and chit chat, or better yet, you can send me an email right now, NewhampshireHasIssues at gmail.com. Thank you so much for listening. Welcome to New Hampshire Has Issues, the podcast that dares to ask, what's the plan for affordable housing? Trying to tie in the planning board there. It's funnier if I explain the joke. That's that's that's what makes it funny. Okay, my guests today, Dr. Cara Ann Rodenheiser, the executive director at Home for All, and Ryan Wolf, who serves on the Portsmouth Planning Board. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having us. Thank you. So glad that you are both here. So do you have a tagline for our episode today?

Ryann Wolf: 02:36
I do. But Ryan, if you have a better one. Well, not only am I on the planning board, but I am a child care provider and live in workforce housing. So if you trust me to take care of your children, why don't you trust me to live in your neighborhoods?

Liz Canada: 02:53
That is a good one. Cara, don't even try to give one now. Don't even think about it. That's the tagline of the show, folks. Beautifully done. All right. Well, we are going to get into the conversation of affordable housing. I've had a few episodes about housing already because it turns out housing is a pretty big issue in New Hampshire. Cara, maybe you can start right from the beginning. What is home for all? Are you an organization? Are you a coalition?

Kara Anne Rodenhizer: 03:22
What do you do? We're a little bit of both. Ooh. So we are a coalition now of about a hundred organizations and individuals that are all working around the shared goal of ensuring that everyone in the Seacoast has access to safe and affordable housing. And we define the Seacoast as Rockingham, Stratford, and York County. So we cover Maine and New Hampshire. And we bring partners together to strengthen both regional collaboration and to prevent homelessness, expand access to diverse housing opportunities, and we focus on the full housing continuum. So I'm not sure if you've heard of the housing continuum before, but effectively it's tell me more with being unsheltered and going into emergency shelter all the way up through market rate housing. So in between shelter and market rate housing, there are things like supportive housing, transitional housing, workforce housing, public housing, uh, your missing middle housing. So different rungs of the housing ladder. And so we really work to expand the housing opportunities across that continuum because we know that we don't need just one type of housing. We need many types of housing that are accessible to people across different income levels. Your two guests on my podcast.

Ryann Wolf: 04:43
How did you two connect? So Kara's son, who's now looking at colleges, started in my afterschool program when he was in second grade. So he would have been eight. So I've actually been taking care of her children since her oldest was eight. And now her middle one is eight as well. Did she just turn eight? Yep. And then her youngest will probably see me when he hits kindergarten age.

Kara Anne Rodenhizer: 05:14
Yep.

Liz Canada: 05:14
That's a continuum of child care and caring of a person and a family.

Kara Anne Rodenhizer: 05:20
And the thing that many people probably don't know about Ryan that I didn't learn uh probably until about a year ago is that um she has a degree in is it urban planning? You have a planning degree.

Ryann Wolf: 05:37
So it's a master's in historic preservation planning.

Kara Anne Rodenhizer: 05:41
Which is an interesting story in and of itself, I'm sure. But Ryan one day shared her experience that I'm gonna let Ryan speak to. But we discovered just through drop-offs and pickups, kind of her passion around housing and her experience either attending these meetings or watching them. And that inspired one of Home for All's newest initiatives that we're very excited to be uh sharing this May called Can I Be Your Neighbor? So it focuses on highlighting the many faces of people across ecos communities that we love, people who keep our towns running but are being priced out of the very places they serve. And through this campaign, we're amplifying their stories to show the impact of how the housing crisis affects people every day, workers, families, retirees, young professionals, employers, even housing developers. Um and Ryan is one of the stories that we're going to be featuring in that campaign that focuses really on the tagline of the show here that you trust her with the most important thing in your life, your children, but you don't trust her to be your neighbor.

Liz Canada: 06:52
I know the big reveal is going to happen in May, but maybe there's like a sneak peek of the story here. Can we get like a sense?

Ryann Wolf: 07:01
So I worked for Seacoast Community School, um, which is one of the biggest childcare providers in the area for 11 and a half years. And I was living, I finally got an apartment in Portsmouth, but it was like with roommates, and it was just not fun to be in your 30s and still having to deal with roommates because that was the only way I could afford to live in Portsmouth. So one of the families who I took care of her kids works for Portsmouth Housing Authority, and they were opening the Ruth Lewin Griffin Place, which is the workforce housing, and she said that I should put myself on the wait list. And so I ended up getting in. And in that, uh, Portsmouth Housing Authority was trying to do another workforce development in an old school. And there were a bunch of people who were just protesting it. And I went to one of the meetings and realized 90% of the people at that meeting who were against it for various reasons, some of them very valid, were parents of children that I was taking care of. And so this idea that they were talking about, you know, the people who would move into this when the people who would move into these buildings are the people who take care of your kids or the people who are working in restaurants. And so I started to get interested in affordable housing in Portsmouth and just how, you know, we have this childcare crisis and we can look at if you can't afford to live in a community, why would you become a child care worker when the pay isn't super high if you can't be close to where you're working? And so that's kind of how I got into the planning board.

Liz Canada: 08:44
Such a powerful story, Ryan. Thank you for sharing it and for advocating for yourself and others who are in that same situation of like you trust me in so many other facets of our lives. Why can't you trust me to live in your community as well? Oh, it's like a gut punch, honestly. And Ryan, you serve on the Portsmouth Planning Board. Maybe you can tell us what is a planning board? Like, what are the types of decisions that are made at the planning board level when thinking about housing?

Ryann Wolf: 09:17
So in Portsmouth, the planning board is it's called semi-judicial. So we do actually have powers to approve and uh not approve plans that come before us. We also help to work on the um master plan. Every city in in New Hampshire is required to have a master plan and have it updated. Portsmouth is currently updating theirs. Um, but we do everything from if you need a new deck on your house, we have to approve that. If it's in certain wetlands and things, which most of Portsmouth is a wetland, I've learned, and bigger projects will come before us to approve. Um and we also work with the city council, the zoning board, to change or update zoning regulations to hopefully make affordable housing more possible in Portsmouth. So when I first got into the planning board, we were looking at changing regulations in Portsmouth that would allow for co-living. So this idea of rooms with like a central kitchen living area. And so we were talking about how we could fit that in, especially with some of our older buildings and looking at different examples of how that might work. And could it work in Portsmouth? How did it work in other cities? There have been examples in a lot of European cities first, and then some of the major cities here in the States. When we were talking about it, the way people talked about people who would be living in this situation, you know, and just kind of those people or transient people and uh working people. And so for me, it was as much about just being one of those people on the board. Most planning boards, there aren't even renters on the board. Everyone on the board is a homeowner who's lived in the community for a while. It's an unpaid voluntary position. So most of them are older and retired because the idea of spending, you know, last month it was a four-hour meeting. This month we start at six and we'll go as late as we need to. And that doesn't include any of the preparation, which I usually get a 400-page document to have read. And so looking at the board, it was honestly a bunch of older white gentlemen on the board. And, you know, gentle. Gentlemen, very nice and very smart men, but it was that. It was, you know, there was one woman. I think there was one person under 40. And so this idea of if we don't even have a seat at the table, how are we gonna make these changes? How are you gonna hear us? How are you gonna really know what the problems are if we're not even sitting at the table?

Liz Canada: 12:05
What an excellent point about how so many folks who serve on these types of committees might not be renters or might be workers who, you know, if you're getting a 400-page packet, that's gonna take a lot of time on top of if you're working hours that are later in the day. So it gets into the question of like who's in the room or not when these decisions are being made. What have you maybe each seen?

Ryann Wolf: 12:31
Ryan, do you want to go first? I mean, at a planning board meeting, it's usually the members of the board. Uh, there are nine of us, two women, I think maybe three of us who are under 40, multiple engineers, and then residents can come, but a lot of people don't know they're happening, don't understand what's happening, don't even really realize that planning boards and any board really, school boards, these are the people making the decisions that really affect your daily life. And people don't really understand that. You know, we go out and vote for the president, but most people couldn't tell you who's on their school board or their city council. Their planning board, they probably don't know anything.

Liz Canada: 13:14
Or even their state rep or absolutely. That is so true. People think of elections as being like that thing I do every four years. And it's like there are in New Hampshire especially, we love elections. There's all sorts of elected officials, including for things like planning board. And I wonder how many people, listeners, feel like I do, which is like it's a planning board. What do you mean?

Ryann Wolf: 13:35
I mean, one thing about Portsmouth Planning Board, it's voluntary and we're not elected. So we can apply and then the city council votes on us. So depending on who your city council is, could impact who sits on that board. If you have a city council that's more leaning towards developers and things, you might see a board that reflects that. If you have a board that's looking to be a little more progressive, you might see a city planning board that reflects that. And it's a three-year position. So I am not elected by anyone. I was approved by the city council.

Liz Canada: 14:14
Until Ryan, you run for office where we can vote for you, and then you will be elected by us, is what we're saying.

Kara Anne Rodenhizer: 14:19
Aaron Powell And so in terms of the planning board, I think we tend to see the people that are against a project, and we often see less folks showing up in support of projects, particularly projects that are creating more affordable housing.

Liz Canada: 14:35
That just blew my mind a little bit. You see, people show up to say no, but not a lot of people show up to say yes. Yes. No.

Kara Anne Rodenhizer: 14:43
And I I think there were probably a multiple reasons for that. Um I'm not sure if you've ever attended a Can I interrupt you for a second?

Liz Canada: 14:52
Because I feel like I feel like now is a good time to note to the listener that I bet this is not unique to Portsmouth or any one specific community. I bet if I were a betting person, I'm not, that around the state, there are probably that same sort of vibe of more people might come out to say no than to say yes. So I just wanted to clarify that we're not yes, this is not Exeter saying, what is Portsmouth doing, though I love that sort of debate. This is truly a statewide thing that's happening here.

Kara Anne Rodenhizer: 15:24
This is a statewide issue, but it's also a national issue. We hear, have you heard of NIMBY, not in my backyard? Um so the NIMBY's of the world who I think um, and and Nick Taylor spoke to this on an earlier podcast. A lot of folks think when the day they move into a community, the community should never change and they lock the door and close it behind them. But if that door was open for you, it should also be open for others. And so while I understand um in New Hampshire and communities where there are older historic buildings, there's a desire to preserve that character. And affordable housing can exist in those buildings too. Um, and so I think we see this fear of change, which change is hard, change is real, and more folks that are willing to show up to preserve the status quo than folks that are coming to say, yes, we need this housing and here's why. Because oftentimes the folks that need that housing, they're at home with their children, they're working, there are barriers to participation, and they might not have four hours to sit at a planning board meeting waiting for that particular project to come next on the agenda. Or sometimes it gets moved to the next meeting.

Liz Canada: 16:40
Absolutely. And we see similar things in the statehouse too. Ryan, talk to me about what you find to be the biggest misconceptions that folks have when it comes to affordable housing.

Ryann Wolf: 16:52
So back in college when my roommates and I had Netflix, back when they mailed you the DVDs.

Liz Canada: 16:57
I long for those days, Ryan. I miss those days every day of my life.

Ryann Wolf: 17:02
But we got hooked on the show The Wire, which looked at Baltimore and specifically it was dealing with what we now call projects, which was urban redevelopment comes in, urban renewal in the 60s. They're using an architect who is the bane of my existence, Lake Caporsier, who believed in just high towers that were separate. So living and working was separate, and you just created these high towers. You could pack everyone in. Well, a bunch of urban planners looked at this in the United States and said, that's how we can solve housing. They did not think about what it does to a group when you kind of put poverty all in just one area. And it's not just about people having money or not, it's about the social capital. If you live in a neighborhood and you know, your neighbors are middle, upper class, their jobs are middle, upper class. And if you're poorer, you might hear about a better job from them that you could get. My neighbor works at the hospital. Oh, they're hiring a janitor. They need janitorial staff. I can do that. But if everyone in your community is only working low-wage jobs, where are you going to hear about these other opportunities? So in the 60s, when they concentrated poverty in these high-rise towers, you saw all of the things happen that everyone associates with the projects. And so when people hear about like workforce or affordable housing, first of all, they have no idea that there's even a difference in some types of housing. Like workforce housing is based on your income and you have to be working and things like that. They think it's all the same and they think it's all unemployed people who are gonna bring drugs and all these other things in their communities. And so when I was at a planning meeting, actually, when I was advocating for the Sherborne School project, and I think he was on the city council and he was an older gentleman, and he said, It, I don't want them to look like the projects. And I got so angry because the minute we start saying the projects, there's a connotation, there's an idea, and I get so frustrated. And so one of the things I really get mad about is when we kind of give it these terms that have such a negative connotation. And so, you know, when we talk about housing and affordable housing, I'm like, it's workforce housing. These are working people, it's not criminals moving in, it's not gangs, it's not the wire guys, it's Portsmouth. Relax.

Liz Canada: 19:40
Relax indeed. Yeah, there does appear to be a significant amount of stigma around certain types of housing. Cara, what would you say are the biggest misconceptions you've observed in your work around affordable housing?

Kara Anne Rodenhizer: 19:56
I think one of the misconceptions is that not being able to find affordable housing is a personal failure, that you're doing something wrong because you can't live in the community that you would like to live in or that you work in or grew up in. And I think the reality is that today you can do all the right things, go to school, get a job that 10 years ago we probably would have said would give you a great quality of life. And the reality is you can't make ends meet. And I think it's not just housing, it's all of the other costs. It's health care, it's child care, it's the gas in your car and your weekly groceries that all chip away at what's left over for you to afford housing. And I encourage people to think about the people in their daily lives that they rely on, whether it's their child's teacher, their parents' in-home caregiver, their mailman, or their favorite barista or server. I would venture to guess a lot of those folks uh might struggle to pay the market rate rent in Portsmouth, in Hanover, uh, insert the name of a community in New Hampshire. Um, it's not just a Seacoast issue, it's not just a Portsmouth issue. It's something we're seeing across the state. And those are the people that we're talking about who need housing. You should not have to make $250,000 a year to find a place to live in your community and have some degree of choice. And I think right now, if we're being brutally honest, our housing in New Hampshire is working for the people who already have stability and options that, you know, have bought at the right time, they have higher incomes. And our communities ultimately hold the power and the keys to determining what gets built and what does not. And right now it's not working for the people who actually keep our communities running. We're seeing here in New Hampshire, employers can't fill open positions, and it's not because people Don't want to work because they can't afford to find housing near jobs. And this is not an entry-level issue. There are folks that I know that make a lot more money than I make in the nonprofit world that have said, I almost didn't take this job because I could not afford housing. And then you're seeing people commuting really long distances, which at the end of an eight-hour workday, when you have children or other responsibilities outside of that, that commute cuts into the time that you have for the rest of your life. And it makes it harder for someone to stay part of the workforce. And this, I would say, didn't happen overnight. It happened, I think Nick spoke to this over time. The decisions we made, particularly around zoning and land use and what types of housing we allow. And we've prioritized these single family homes and made it incredibly difficult to build anything that doesn't fit into that box. And I think we look at there's this one silver bullet housing solution, which is a giant misconception. We need all types of housing solutions. For example, ADUs have gotten a lot of attention. They are a really important type of housing being built. They've been the talk of the solve our housing crisis. Where they can be very helpful is you have aging parents, uh, additional rental income, um, maybe, you know, an opportunity for uh the local workforce to find something that is affordable, but um we're not going to be able to build them fast enough, and they're not the only type of housing that we need. You know, part of our challenge is we need to build a lot of different types of housing. And there is not this silver bullet solution, but we need housing that works for the adults that are looking to downsize, working families, and people with our lowest incomes that have the fewest options. And right now, that portion of the population, it's really hard with rising costs of things like land and just the construction itself. Um, it's really hard to get those projects across the finish line because even when you jump through the land use, the financing hurdles, if the public will is there and somebody says, we don't want those people here because they feel like they are different, uh, those people are your neighbors. And I I would venture to guess those people are in your communities most of the day because they're working in your communities.

Liz Canada: 24:33
Cara, do you want to talk more about the affordable housing week and the can I be your neighbor? Do you want to speak more to what that is, what you all are hoping to do, not just in May, but for the foreseeable future?

Kara Anne Rodenhizer: 24:49
Sure. Home for All is launching our first annual Affordable Housing Week. Uh, this year it's May 11th through 17th. And the intent of Affordable Housing Week is really to invite the community into this conversation and to understand the role that they play in shaping the solutions. I think Ryan said it so eloquently, many people don't know that their voice matters at these planning or zoning board meetings or uh their input in a master planning process. Um, and the intent uh for Affordable Housing Week is for us to engage the community, residents, businesses, um, elected officials, you name it, where we've probably outreached them at this point, but to really bring the housing conversation to places people gather. So we have um a series during Affordable Housing Week called Housing on Tap, where we're partnering with, I think it's nearly 19 different restaurants and breweries across the region who are bringing housing into the tap room and also giving back many of them to a nonprofit in the housing or homelessness space that they elect. In addition to that, we have some social networking events. We have educational events from virtual panels to in-person conversations with uh coffee with the counselors. Um, and then we have organizations like the New Hampshire Children's Museum and Arts and Reach who have developed programming. Uh, so the Children's Museum has a week of programming all around uh home. So from building ferry houses to STEAM activities. And Arts and Reach is doing a week-long uh April vacation camp where middle schoolers are creating some community art that will be installed in the Portsmouth Public Library and on display for the month of May that reflects what home means to them and this idea of housing as a community issue. Don't know what it's gonna look like, but I'm sure it will be great. And so really trying to bring different perspectives into the housing conversation because when you go to a conference, uh, you're often surrounded by folks that you're you're you're preaching to the converted. Uh, we all are there because we're pro-housing. Or when you go to a planning or zoning board meeting, um, it can be intimidating. So we want to create low barrier entry points into the conversation and share resources and tools so that residents across the region know how important their voice is in these local decisions and the role that they play in the solutions, because by ourselves, none of us are going to solve this. It takes every single one of us.

Liz Canada: 27:27
I myself, podcast hosts, talking about issues, I have never been to a planning board meeting. What even happens at a planning board meeting? Like, what does it actually look like? And what would like a member of the public like me experience if I were there?

Ryann Wolf: 27:43
So I actually have one this Thursday. You can actually go, I would assume, on your city website and look at all of the meetings. We are recorded, so you can look at all of Portsmouth's planning meetings. Um, so we start at seven and then we go through an agenda of projects usually that come before us. Some are big developers, some are local homeowners. This week, I think we have one from a developer who's looking to um redevelop a lot. And then we have one that's someone's just trying to add stairs to their garage. They built an ADU and they're trying to get stairs, but they're on a wetland, so they have to have a variance. And then there is a time for the public to speak about each proposal. Um, and they can speak for it, against it, and they can have three rounds of it. So the first time you get like three minutes, the second time you get like five minutes, and then the third one you get like a certain amount of time. But for each project or proposal that comes before us, the public can can have input. So if your neighbor is trying to build stairs on their garage and you don't like the way they look, you theoretically could show up and talk against it if you wanted. And then the board will vote on approving or not approving the project, or uh last month we had to move one. So we needed more information. So there's a vote by the board.

Liz Canada: 29:14
So if a developer is trying to change a lot, or if someone is trying to add more housing in a certain area of town, the public can come in and say, I like this. Here's what I like, I have questions about it. And they would ask you all that at the planning board.

Ryann Wolf: 29:31
Is that right? Yes. So they can ask the board, but they can also speak directly to the developer. And the developer can then respond to them. We've seen some heated debates happen between developers and neighbors. Because usually for people to really be speaking on it, it's the project impacts their property directly. And you have to remember that at the end of the day, the biggest investment you'll probably make is in a house if you purchase a house or purchase property. So your property values are incredibly important. And so that's why I always have some understanding of why people are looking at any project and being like, how is that going to impact my property value? Because this is my biggest investment. And this might be something I'm passing on to my kids. This is wealth. Um, so I do always have that sympathy. So public can speak for or against, and then the board will talk about it and then vote approval, denial, approval with conditions, denial with conditions, or we can vote to have them uh move it up but give us more information. Like we might get a noise study if a lot of the neighbors are saying, How is this gonna impact noise levels in the area? So we might say, you have to get a noise study so that we can see before we actually finally decide. But the thing that I think people don't realize is how much your life is actually impacted by small local decisions. Definitely. When I talk about your property value, nine people sitting on a board are deciding what your neighbors can do on their property, which ultimately impacts your property value, your taxes, your property taxes. So people don't realize that it's nine people they didn't vote for. So they might not agree with us at all. So if they don't come out and voice their opinions, then their voice isn't guaranteed to be heard. They elected the council that put us on the board, but they did not elect us. And I try and remember that that like I am representing them, but I'm not chosen by them. People's lives are really impacted by a small decision I made at 847 after having worked from 7:30 to 530 with children ages three to 11, and had read, you know, 400 pages and haven't had dinner yet. But this could impact your property values, your property taxes, the noise you hear all day. And so I think it's important that people really realize how many decisions are being made at a local level that impact them. Because we all pay attention to the national politics and then don't realize that what your school board is doing, what your planning board is doing, what your zoning board is doing are really impacting your life much more than you realize.

Liz Canada: 32:35
Local government makes sure that our streets are paved and there are sidewalks and that snow is plowed and schools are operating. Yeah, it's the local folks who do all of that. Pick up the trash or run the transfer station, do all the things to make sure that we can just live our daily lives.

Ryann Wolf: 32:54
Think of generational wealth. Often it's tied up in property. So if these people are making decisions that impact your property values, they're impacting generational wealth. Your family was able to afford property in Portsmouth back in, you know, the 80s, and now you have a house in Portsmouth. All of this stuff is impacting future generations. And it was all based on decisions that nine old white guys made. Gentlemen. Nine old gentlemen made. Gentlemen, sorry. Old gentlemen. The kids I work with know I'm on the planning board because their playground just came up as something that we had to approve because it's in the wetlands. So I did disclose to the whole board that I was promised Sour Patch Kids if I voted to approve their playground. But the kids actually understood that like I was making a decision that impacted their daily lives. And so they kind of like they were talking about they're like, wait, so so these people are more important than the president. Decision you're about to make impacts my daily life more than some of the things that the Congress makes.

Kara Anne Rodenhizer: 34:03
I think we need to think beyond just the town we live in because we are so interconnected and we do share things like infrastructure. I am not an expert in that regard, but there are towns that share the same, I think, water or sewer systems, if I'm not mistaken. And so if they can come together around something like that, we should be able to come together around an issue of housing that affects all of us.

Liz Canada: 34:28
Kara, this is sort of gets into the question that I had for you regarding infrastructure. Because all of these local planning boards and all these local communities, like, we're all trying to figure it out on our own. We have our own little, like our own little bunkers that we're trying to figure it out. But what about like if we didn't have to do it like that? What would it be like if we like thought about housing in terms of like infrastructure? What's that dream scenario out there?

Kara Anne Rodenhizer: 34:52
So right now, I think we definitely were treating it as an individual problem. Um, and if you can't find something you can afford, that's on you. But if we treated it like infrastructure, something that communities across New Hampshire intentionally plan for and invest in because the well-being of the community depends on it, I think we'd make very different decisions. First, there would probably be enough housing. Um, when we are building roads in our communities, we don't say, well, we're only going to build half the roads. Like, good luck to the rest of you, like figuring out how to navigate your community. Um, and so we wouldn't be accepting a system where supply is so constrained that prices skyrocket and people get pushed out. Housing would be located uh more often where life happens. I think we have a tendency of saying it's for another community to figure out, or can we put it like on the outskirts of a community? But when we plan for housing near jobs, schools, transit, and services, it looks a lot different. It means shorter commutes, probably a more stable workforce and overall communities that function better. You know, in addition to that, I think housing in our communities would be more predictable and stable. Infrastructure is not something that just disappears overnight and fluctuates wildly in cost. I think people would have more stability in things like rent and homeownership, which really changes everything from whether you can keep your job or whether your kids can stay in the same school. And I think most importantly, we would stop moralizing this issue. We don't ask if somebody deserves access to roads or clean water. We recognize that is like a basic human need. And I think housing would be seen as the same, you know, basic foundation of a community, both in how we function and not some test that people have to pass of can I afford it where I want to live and where I'm working and where my support network is.

Liz Canada: 36:52
Cara, you do this as a full-time gig. Ryan, you serve on the planning board, you live it every day. For someone who doesn't work in housing, someone who doesn't serve on the planning board, what would you recommend that they do?

Kara Anne Rodenhizer: 37:05
Ooh, I think we need to be better at staying curious. Um, a lot of times folks uh have their mind made up before they even fully learn about a project or an issue. And so I think that listeners should uh take five minutes to really understand what housing costs in the community you live in and the income that you would need to be earning so that is no more than 30% of your total uh salary, and then talk to the people that you interact with every day and ask them what their experience is with housing. And I think it will change how a lot of folks see the issue. But I challenge them not to stop there. I challenge them to look at uh when their next planning or zoning board meeting is or master planning process and at the very least attend. Many of these meetings you can now listen to from the comfort of your home. They are live streamed, but I would encourage those to consider speaking at these meetings. As an organization, we have convened developers through our developer roundtable that we typically do once a year. And we have heard in the the two round tables we've convened that, you know, getting folks to attend these meetings and show up and support and share their stories about why this housing matters is so important because it ultimately can come down to two people who show up and say why this um housing is important in their community that determines whether or not a project gets across the finish line. Don't underestimate the power that um one has in showing up and and sharing their story. I guess I would probably be remiss if I didn't say get connected to home for all. Okay, there you go. And and what listeners can do. I'm like, oh, I really, I really dropped that ball, didn't I?

Liz Canada: 38:56
You're doing great.

Kara Anne Rodenhizer: 38:57
Our organization um has a variety of different ways that we engage residents in getting involved. We host um what is called a neighbor-to-neighbor housing chat where a neighbor invites people in their social lives and network into their home or backyard, and we help facilitate a conversation around an issue related to housing or homelessness. And so we are always looking for more hosts for housing chats. They are a great way to navigate tricky conversations from things like parking reform to what is a master plan, is homelessness really an issue in my community? Um, you name it. We we can bring partners in and help facilitate that conversation and then plug attendees and the host into real ways to engage in those issues right in their backyard. So get connected to Home for All, subscribe to our mailing lists, and consider hosting a housing chat or come to our next housing chat.

Ryann Wolf: 39:53
I think getting educated is so important. You can go on to your city's websites and look at previous planning meetings to see what's been happening in your community. I think also just talking to people in your community, asking your barista where they live, why they aren't living in the town your coffee shop is in, getting to know your child care providers because who knows, the child care provider, your son when he was eight, might be on a podcast with you like 10 years later.

Liz Canada: 40:27
Um you never know what's gonna happen.

Ryann Wolf: 40:31
And then if you can go into a planning meeting, even just looking at the agenda and being like, hey, that's my neighborhood, what's going on there? Like, what's the project? And you don't have to necessarily be informed on every single project in Portsmouth, but maybe the ones near you, or you know, the ones you're seeing 50 million comments on Facebook, except none of those people showed up to actually speak at the planning board meeting. So their comments are just on Facebook, but they don't actually make a difference when it gets down to actually making a decision about the project. We all have a little bit of homework.

Liz Canada: 41:09
I commit to both of you that I will watch a planning board meeting, an Exeter planning board meeting, because I know about them. I know they exist, but I I actually don't know what we're working on in in Exeter. So that's a good homework assignment for me.

Kara Anne Rodenhizer: 41:24
I love that. I love that. I think that is truly part of being a good neighbor is getting to understand your community and the things that are happening, but also making sure that door is open for the folks that come after you. I don't think it's always about loving every project, but it's about understanding that housing decisions aren't really personal preferences. And meetings like planning board meetings shape who gets to stay, who has to leave, and whether your community is going to look the same as it does right now five years from now. So I I love that you're going to a planning board meeting.

Ryann Wolf: 42:00
I would love to see young people getting involved in their local politics. And their local planning. From your lips, Ryan. From your lips. Because when you're talking about, you know, the people that you want moving into the community that we're trying to find housing for, a lot of times you're talking about young people, young families, but they're the ones who aren't going to the meetings and who maybe don't even know how civics work, and that in New Hampshire, your local municipal is very powerful. Um, so I would just love for young people in general, even if it's not housing, maybe it's childcare, maybe it's one of the other things that you've got on this podcast, but just young people to just get involved.

Kara Anne Rodenhizer: 42:49
And I will say people listen differently when a younger person goes to the state house and testifies. And the same thing I think is true of your city council meeting, your planning board meeting, it hits a little bit different than the same five people that always show up and generally have the same narrative for every project.

Liz Canada: 43:09
Feel a little bit like the mean. Hello, fellow youth. We're going to planning board together. Here we all go to the book.