NH Business Review
Measure to add another $10 million wins widespread backing at Senate committee hearing
February 17, 2021
It seems like there’s a good chance more money will be appropriated into New Hampshire’s Affordable Housing Fund in order to fill the gap in financing for such housing.
The money is in the budget proposed by Gov. Chris Sununu as part of Senate Bill 127, an omnibus appropriations bill proposed by Senate Majority leader Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro. And now it is in SB 152, an affordable housing bill introduced Wednesday to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee by Sen. James Gray, R-Rochester, who sits on the committee, to Bradley who chairs it.
By Bob Sanders - NH Business Review
• Feb 16, 2021
Credit Shane Adams via Flickr/CC - http://ow.ly/OJ5Pe
Can New Hampshire spend $200 million in federal money to keep people in their homes when it wasn’t able to spend $20 million last year for the same purpose?
That’s the question being asked by state officials, housing activists, tenants and landlords while they wait – after the state’s Housing Relief Program ended on Dec. 18 – for the new federal Emergency Rental Assistance program to begin.
And no one really knows the answer.
“It depends on the universe of need that’s out there,” said Taylor Caswell, commissioner of the Department of Business and Economic Affairs and executive director of the Governor’s Office for Emergency Relief and Recovery, or GOFERR.
Renters in line for more relief
Published: 2/15/2021 7:32:28 AM
Can New Hampshire spend $200 million in federal money to keep people in their homes when it wasn’t able to spend $20 million last year for the same purpose?
That’s the question being asked by state officials, housing activists, tenants and landlords while they wait – after the state’s Housing Relief Program ended on Dec. 18 – for the new federal Emergency Rental Assistance program to begin.
And no one really knows the answer.
“It depends on the universe of need that’s out there,” said Taylor Caswell, commissioner of the Department of Business and Economic Affairs and executive director of the Governor’s Office for Emergency Relief and Recovery, or GOFERR.
Housing relief program grinds to halt without funding
Published: 1/29/2021 4:39:06 PM
Seven months after its creation, a New Hampshire program to assist renters and homeowners is frozen, with no applications being accepted since Dec. 18.
Instead, the New Hampshire Housing Relief Fund is sitting in limbo. The state’s assistance agencies are unable to distribute aid even as New Hampshire awaits $200 million in additional funding for housing, passed as part of an end-of-year coronavirus relief package in Congress.
The situation is causing worry for at least one state official.
“The timing of the housing relief program ending and the start of the new funding has been a concern for a lot of people,” said Melissa Hatfield, chief of the state’s Bureau of Homeless and Housing Services, on a conference call with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen earlier this month. “I’m fielding emails about that around the clock. It was a decision that was made at some other level.”