Published: 2/24/2021 4:35:46 PM
Melissa French’s family never quite bounced back from the 2008 housing crisis. They spent the past decade in tenuous housing situations before finding an affordable place to live in Peterborough in 2015. The stability allowed French to put down roots for the first time in years, even joining the Monadnock Area Transitional Shelter (MATS) board in 2018, but she was forced to face the region’s grim rental market once again this year when she received an eviction notice from their landlord, who wanted the house empty by April so he could renovate and sell. It took an exhaustive monthlong search and crowdsourcing funds to move and pay down some credit card debt, but she finally secured a rental in Dublin to move to in April with her husband, three kids, and a cat. To French, her experience highlighted the serious consequences of the Monadnock region’s lack of affordable housing.