workforce housing

New Hampshire faces a housing shortage that is affecting urban and rural areas alike. There is growing recognition that a lack of housing options is stifling our economy, harming businesses’ ability to recruit employees, placing financial hardship on many working and middle-class families, and, in some cases, leading to housing insecurity and homelessness. This recognition is backed up by the data. Over the past couple of years, rental vacancies have hovered in the range of 1-2%, well below the 5% that’s recognized as an indicator of a balanced market.

New Hampshire has long faced a housing shortage that threatens to constrict economic growth in the state and change the very character of the communities where we live. Many municipal employees and young adults can no longer afford to live in the communities where they work or grew up. To address this problem, in 2008 the New Hampshire Legislature passed a law that requires every community to provide “reasonable and realistic opportunities" for the development of affordable housing. But this obligation is not new law. In 1991 the New Hampshire Supreme Court said the same thing.