New Hampshire

In wake of Supreme Court homelessness decision, NH advocates say fight not over • New Hampshire Bulletin

Published

2 years ago

July 9, 2024

In wake of Supreme Court homelessness decision, NH advocates say fight not over • New Hampshire Bulletin

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last month to allow an Oregon city’s efforts to clear out homeless encampments is already rippling through New Hampshire.

On July 2, the Manchester Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted to strengthen a ban on camping on city property, subjecting people to fines. And the board removed an exception that had allowed camping during evening hours if there were not enough shelter beds available.

The vote, which will make it easier for city officials to remove encampments on public sidewalks and parks, was a priority for Mayor Jay Ruais, a Republican who was elected in November. And it heralds a potential shift in the way New Hampshire cities and towns approach homelessness after the Supreme Court ruling, critics say.

In the case, City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, the court ruled along ideological lines, 6-3, that the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution does not prevent a municipality from evicting homeless people from public spaces – and that there is no requirement that those municipalities secure adequate shelter housing for them before carrying out such an eviction.

But even as cities like Manchester move toward enforcement actions, the ACLU and other New Hampshire civil rights groups say there are still avenues to stop those actions in state law. And they have urged cities and towns to move cautiously and humanely.

“We continue to warn New Hampshire officials and law enforcement that efforts to criminalize the unhoused may still violate the New Hampshire Constitution – and we’ll be watching,” Henry Klementowicz, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, said in a statement.

A dramatic shift

The Supreme Court’s ruling is a major swing in policy for cities like Manchester. Before last month, many municipalities and states followed the lead of a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision: Martin v. Boise.

In that decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco held that it would constitute “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Eighth Amendment for a government body to force out a homeless person from a public property if there were no reasonable alternatives for that person to find shelter.

Evictions could happen only if beds or shelter were available to those who were being evicted, the Ninth Circuit held.

The decision did not have direct legal power over New Hampshire, which is under the jurisdiction of the First Circuit Court of Appeals. But it still influenced homelessness policy, noted Gilles Bissonnette, legal director of the ACLU, in an interview.

After Martin v. Boise, cities and towns were more cautious when it came to eviction attempts, Bissonnette said. And city councilors in Manchester passed the ordinance that allowed camping in public spaces when there is no shelter space available.

“Many cities and towns – though that’s not binding in New Hampshire – were basically applying that principle, and I think to their credit,” Bissonnette said. “Saying ‘we’re not going to cite people or evict people from public places unless there is some shelter space available.’”

Manchester’s ordinance did not prevent all evictions. In January, the city removed a homeless encampment on a sidewalk, in a move that was later upheld by the Hillsborough County Superior Court after the judge found there was adequate shelter elsewhere. But the ordinance did require more deliberation and care, advocates say.

The Grants Pass decision struck a fatal blow to the Martin v. Boise precedent. In it, conservative justices directly rejected plaintiffs’ arguments that evicting someone without offering an alternative housing option is unconstitutional.

After the board of aldermen vote, Ruais hailed the change, arguing in a statement that it would allow the city to “make our streets safe, clean, and passable.” But he vowed to address homelessness in other areas.

“We must address this challenge in a comprehensive way, and we have already undertaken 11 initiatives to address the underlying drivers of homelessness and the need for more affordable housing in our city,” he said.

Continuing the fight

As some housing advocates privately worry about large-scale clearouts, Bissonnette says he believes such actions could still be challenged. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on the U.S. Constitution, the state constitution could still prevent similar evictions, he says.

New Hampshire has its own version of the Eighth Amendment. Article 33 of Part I of the state constitution states that: “No Magistrate, or Court of Law, shall demand excessive bail or sureties, impose excessive fines, or inflict cruel or unusual punishments.”

Unlike the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments,” the state constitution uses the word “or,” Bissonnette said, which could make it easier to apply.

“We have always taken the position that our state constitution provides more protections than the Eighth Amendment,” Bissonnette said.

And he noted that at least one superior court judge appears to agree. When Manchester attempted to clear out homeless people on Pine and Manchester streets in January, the ACLU and New Hampshire Legal Assistance sued the city in an attempt to get an injunction to stop the action.

Judge John C. Kissinger ultimately rejected that attempt, but in his order he also stated: “If there were no safe alternatives available, the Court would agree that forced removal of the encampment would likely violate the State and federal constitutional rights of the people residing in the encampment.”

In that case, Kissinger held that there had been safe alternatives, pointing to the city’s contention that month that 31 beds were available at the Cashin Senior Activity Center and three beds at a facility run by Families in Transition, and that a warming shelter was available at the 1269 Café.

But legal rights groups say Kissinger’s order could open the door to applying Article 33 against homeless evictions in cases where there weren’t enough shelter beds. The Grants Pass decision does not apply to the state constitution.

It is unclear how the state Supreme Court might rule on the Article 33 argument. In the meantime, legal groups are increasing their political appeals.

In a letter sent shortly before the July 2 board of aldermen vote, the ACLU and NHLA urged Manchester to show restraint, and wrote that incarcerating homeless people “only fuels mass incarceration, keeping people in an endless cycle of poverty, and institutionalization.”

“Whatever the United States Supreme Court may say about the Eighth Amendment, elected officials have always had a choice,” the letter states. “They can decide to invest in solutions – like safe, long-term housing and low-barrier shelters, as well as wraparound services and voluntary mental health and substance use treatment – which will increase people’s chances of obtaining employment and housing.”

Ruais and others say they are moving forward intentionally and humanely.

“If an individual wants and needs help, it is available,” he said in a statement. “However, anyone choosing to ignore our ordinances or break the law, will be subject to the applicable legal consequences.”

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New Hampshire

High winds, heavy rains lead to scattered NH outages

Published

10 hours ago

May 30, 2026

Press Room

High winds, heavy rains lead to scattered NH outages

High winds and widespread rain contributed to more than 12,000 power outages Saturday as a low pressure system passes over New Hampshire.

A high wind advisory remains in effect for southeastern New Hampshire until midday.

There is a high surf advisory in effect for the Seacoast area until 8 p.m. Saturday, with large-breaking waves in the range of 6-9 feet, according to the National Weather Service.

The forecast warns of dangerous wintry winds for hikers and campers, with heavy wet snow likely at higher elevations and a foot of snow possible on summits in the White Mountains.

In southeastern New Hampshire, the wind advisory calls for steady winds of 15-25 mph, and potential wind gusts up to 50 mph.

Eversource reported over 10,000 outages as of 9:30 a.m. Unitil had about 1,400 outages at that time.

The Mount Washington Observatory has recorded winterlike weather over the past 24 hours. Weather observers there say over half a foot of snow and sleet has fallen at the summit.

The Mount Washington Observatory reported Saturday morning that half a foot of sleet and snow was recorded in the past w4 hours at the summit.

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New Hampshire

Opinion: The farm bill passed the House. Western New Hampshire got the bill. – Concord Monitor

Published

20 hours ago

May 30, 2026

Press Room

Opinion: The farm bill passed the House. Western New Hampshire got the bill. – Concord Monitor

In 1794, George Washington wrote that he knew of “no pursuit in which more zeal and important service can be rendered to any Country than by improving its agriculture.” Two hundred and thirty years later, the House just passed a farm bill that proves his successors stopped believing it.

Drive Route 12 through Walpole. Take Route 10 up through Haverhill. Cut across to Littleton, past the diner that has been feeding the town since 1930. The farms are there. Lush land that produces. People who work till their sweat and blood soak the ground they nurture. A region with every ingredient to feed itself.

What is not there is the processing facility that makes it worth raising the animal. The cold storage that keeps the crop from spoiling before it finds a buyer. The regional market that pays a price worth planting for. I want to believe Washington did not forget to build those things. Regardless, it built something else instead — a system that works beautifully for an operation running 10,000 acres in the Midwest and leaves the farmer on Route 12 doing the math at the kitchen table at midnight wondering if this is the last season.

And the 2026 Farm Bill just made that system more expensive to survive. Large commodity operations received a $54 billion subsidy increase over the next 10 years, with individual payment caps that can exceed $900,000 per operation. Is the farmer at your farmers market in position for this kind of payout?

The bill guarantees money, codified by law, for the people who need it least. Local food programs were reauthorized with zero mandatory funding, but plenty of empty words. They exist on paper and nowhere else. It means a farmer in Plainfield cannot count on them. It means Coos County, where one in seven people cannot reliably put food on the table, keeps waiting for help that has been promised and deferred so many times the promise itself has become an insult. Especially when supermarkets and superstores — just 15% of SNAP-accepting establishments — vacuum up nearly 74% of every food assistance dollar, while the local farm stand sees almost none of it.

And that is before the input costs.

Local farmers know this better than most. You buy fuel and fertilizer on global markets you have no vote in and no say over. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, causing record high prices for fertilizers globally, all because Russia is the world’s top exporter and suddenly it wasn’t exporting. And while that news cycle is long buried, remember that the Iran war has closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which a third of the world’s seaborne fertilizer travels. Diesel recently crossed $5 a gallon, which large trucks that move food and tractors rely on. Fertilizer went from $500 a ton to $850. One tractor cost $350 more than it did last year. You did not start either of those wars, yet you pay for both of them. And that is not even accounting for the sharp sting of tariffs on the inputs you depend on to plant next season.

Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies rose 55% in 2024. Then another 46% in 2025, and those numbers only count the farms that qualified for Chapter 12, which requires the majority of family income to come from farming. The ones that don’t qualify quietly disappear, not even a balance sheet to mark the years of struggle, labor and community these farmers gave. They just stop. Since 2018, this country has lost more than 158,000 farms, with every size category shrinking except operations over a million dollars in annual revenue. Those are still growing, and will do so as long as the policy is written to grow them. Another example of an unlevel playing field where the rich get richer.

To be clear about something: large-scale agriculture feeds a lot of people and nobody sat in a room and decided to destroy the small farm. But does intent matter when these are the results? The system produces what it was designed to produce. That is exactly the problem. It was not designed with you in mind, and after enough years of that, the results look intentional even when they are not.

I got involved locally here because I believe western New Hampshire has everything it needs to feed itself and then some. Four thousand farms, nearly half a million acres, led by a direct-sales culture that leads the entire country. What is missing is not the land or the people or the will. What is missing is a representative who walks into bill negotiations fighting for the farmer on Route 12 instead of the operation collecting a $900,000 subsidy check in a state they have never visited, and pretending it actually helps their constituents.

I have a specific plan for how existing federal dollars already flowing into this district get redirected toward processing, storage and regional market access that actually serves the farms here. No new appropriations. No new programs. A full breakdown is at livefreenh02.com/food-independence.

Daniel Webster, born thirty miles from where I am writing this, put it in the Capitol: “The farmers, therefore, are the founders of human civilization.” Washington and Webster were not just statesmen. They farmed. They understood what was at stake when the land stopped producing for the people who worked it. The authors of the 2026 farm bill apparently do not.

Robbie Mahrou is an independent candidate for U.S. Congress in New Hampshire’s Second District and a Walpole resident. She can be reached out robbie@livefreenh02.com.

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New Hampshire

RFK Jr. visits NH to unveil new federal actions to fight Lyme disease

Published

1 day ago

May 29, 2026

Press Room

RFK Jr. visits NH to unveil new federal actions to fight Lyme disease

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited Concord on Friday to discuss a new health initiative to prevent and combat Lyme disease.

The visit was part of the “Take Back Your Health” campaign tour, a multimillion dollar initiative to promote dietary changes and exercise as preventative measures for chronic illness. Kennedy has been traveling the country to outline projects, including changing federal dietary guidelines, gut microbiome research, and addiction recovery.

Kennedy said his goal was to reduce Lyme disease by 25% by 2035.

Kennedy announced that over $2 million of federal funding will be up for grabs for projects focused on the prevention and treatment of Lyme disease. The grants, through a program called LymeX, will be available to businesses, scientists, and the public.

At the press conference Friday, Kennedy said the grants will go to projects including education tools and public awareness campaigns, front-line solutions like medication, and AI technology.

“This initiative will harness artificial intelligence and open data to help patients with Lyme disease and other invisible illnesses. Get answers faster and connect to care sooner,” he said.

Lyme in NH

New Hampshire has long been one of the epicenters for Lyme disease. The state has the seventh highest rate of Lyme disease in the country, according to the most recent data from 2023.

Read more: It’s tick season in New England. Here’s how to stay safe.

Tick season is a well-established time of year in New England, with an increase in cases and hospital visits in April and May. Research from Dartmouth shows half of adult blacklegged ticks in the Northeast carry the bacteria that causes Lyme disease.

In a health advisory issued on Wednesday, State Epidemiologist Benjamin Chan pointed out that Lyme disease is one of the most common infections spread through tick bites. Other tick-borne infections include anaplasmosis, babesiosis, and Powassan virus.

Lyme is also the most common tick-borne illness in America, with an estimated 476,000 people getting the disease each year nationwide, according to the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Service.

Kennedy’s record on Lyme disease

In the past, Kennedy has promoted a conspiracy theory that Lyme disease was bioengineered by the U.S. military. Late last year, he advocated for an investigation into a possible link between the military and the disease as part of a provision in a new defense bill, Scientific American and Politico reported.

Around that time, Kennedy said many patients’ claims were ignored, and he announced that “the gaslighting of Lyme patients is over.”

As an anti-vaccine activist, Kennedy launched a bid for the Democratic nomination for president in 2024. He then ran briefly as an independent before quitting and endorsing Donald Trump.

Trump later nominated him for health secretary, and he was confirmed by the Senate in early 2025 on a party-line vote.

Kennedy is the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, and a son of Robert F. Kennedy, who was slain during his campaign for president in 1968. In his own bid for the White House, RFK Jr.’s name was never on the ballot in New Hampshire. In mid-2024, a UNH Survey Center poll found he mustered only 3% support among likely voters.