Nearly a dozen New Hampshire communities are hosting vigils this week to remember friends and family who passed away because of homelessness this year. Keene hosted a vigil on Monday, Concord is scheduled for Thursday, with others scheduled for Saturday.

Click here for more details on the vigils scheduled around New Hampshire this week.

“It’s the first night of winter, the longest night of the year, the darkest day of the year,” said Maggie Fogarty from the American Friends Service Committee. “It’s a good time for a solemn reflection on the loss of our siblings to homelessness, also coming as it does during a season of celebration and of light.”

Fogarty helps compile the list of people who will be remembered at these vigils. She explained that it includes people who passed away while being unhoused, as well as people who died prematurely because of the toll from being unhoused, even after finding housing.

About 60 people will be remembered this year, either just with their name, or a memory from someone who knew them. While some names are submitted by friends and family, most are from people who provide supportive services to unhoused people.

She added that these vigils are also a chance for community members to reflect and commit to advocacy, especially because 2025 is a budget-writing year for state government.

“That commitment to system change and to ensuring that public policy, not just charity, combine to protect everyone from poverty,” she said. “That’s as important an aspect of this remembrance as the coming together as a community to remember our siblings.”

According to a new report, New Hampshire saw the highest percentage rise in homelessness in the country between 2022 and 2023. The number of people facing homelessness in the Granite State went up by roughly 52%, while other states’ saw an average increase of 12% during the same time period, according to the report.

The report is put out annually by the New Hampshire Coalition to End Homelessness using information from a “point in time” count, which is an effort to count the number of homeless individuals in the state on a single day each year.

That data in the latest report suggests that New Hampshire saw a decline in veterans experiencing homelessness between 2022 and 2023. But the problem worsened for people dealing with chronic homelessness, single adults, families and sheltered individuals.

NHPR’s Olivia Richardson contributed to this report.

Trade group now has 23 members working in a growing state sector

NH Life Sciences, a statewide trade group representing the life sciences industry in the Granite State, capped its inaugural year by adding several new members, bringing its total to 23, the group announced Thursday.

“As a newly formed association, our members have the unique ability to help guide the direction of New Hampshire’s life sciences growth,” said Andrea Hechavarria, president & CEO of NH Life Sciences, in a press release.

New Hampshire’s bioscience industry employed 9,330 individuals in 2023 across 1,048 business establishments, according to a Dec. 2 report by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization and the Council of State Bioscience Associations, of which NH Life Sciences is a member.

The new NH Life Sciences member companies are:

• Resonetics, a Nashua-based medical company that provides medical device advanced engineering, prototyping, product development and micro manufacturing.
• BA Sciences, a Salem-based company that offers a full-service analytical testing laboratory.
• Ovik Health, a Portsmouth-based health-care technology company with products ranging from wound and burn dressings, compression solutions, to tapes and bandages.

NH Life Sciences also added its first group of associate members who support the life sciences industry:

• Decco, a Nashua provider of specialized construction, maintenance, critical equipment handling and fabrication services to biopharmaceutical, technology and industrial clients throughout New England
• Ethikos Tech, an IT professional services firm.
• Middlesex Gases, a third-generation company manufacturing and analyzing specialty gases for biotechnology and life science companies that serves companies in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut.
• Piquette and Howard Electrical, a Plaistow-based service-disabled veteran-owned small business and regional electrical contractor that has an extensive portfolio of life sciences companies.
• SkyTerra, a Nashua-based provider of customized IT support for life sciences and biotech companies.

New Hampshire Life Sciences launched in January, when Novocure, an oncology company with its North American flagship location in Portsmouth, and Novo Nordisk, a global health care company with operations in West Lebanon, signed on as founding members. It has since added MilliporeSigma and Lonza Portsmouth as founding members, as well as other member and industry partners.

New Hampshire’s housing shortage dominated candidate platforms this election season, from the battle for governor to the races for the state House. And it has been top of mind for many voters, polls indicate. 

“The reality is the public opinion is changing on this, and it is changing in the way of looking for more housing options,” said Nick Taylor, the newly chosen director of Housing Action New Hampshire, a coalition of advocacy groups. 

A December UNH Survey Center Poll shows that 77 percent of Manchester residents support zoning code changes to increase housing, Taylor noted. And he pointed to an additional, statewide survey by Saint Anselm College in June that showed that 75 percent of respondents believe more housing needs to be built in their own communities.

“This is really important, as we look at the legislative session, to remember that the loudest voice is not the majority,” Taylor said. “The majority of New Hampshire residents want action on this and they need action on this.” 

Now, with Republican Gov.-elect Kelly Ayotte set to take office in January and expanded Republican majorities in the House and Senate, the challenge is on to meet those expectations. 

Here’s what housing advocates are watching for in 2025. 

Ayotte reiterates promises to reduce state approval processes

Ayotte said the voters she heard from during her campaign convinced her that the housing shortage is constraining the state’s growth. 

“This is really about our future,” Ayotte said. “It’s about our now and it’s about our future.”

Speaking to Elissa Margolin, the incoming director of housing programs at Saint Anselm College, Ayotte called for an “all of the above” housing approach, and repeated her promises to work to streamline the approvals process for housing developers from state agencies such as the Department of Environmental Services and the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

“You can get stuck in one place or the other, and you can languish there for a while,” she said. “And we all know that if that happens, money dries up, opportunity dries up.” 

Ayotte also expressed support for public-private partnerships, such as one that led to a $20 million affordable housing development in Rochester. She cited similar developments in Berlin and Swanzey that she visited as a candidate.

During her campaign, Ayotte also said she doesn’t want the state to interfere with local zoning policy, a position that could put her at odds with some of the bills this year. 

“I believe that local voice is important in New Hampshire, so I would not want to interfere with local decision-making,” Ayotte said in an Oct. 15 debate. 

But Ayotte also said she is a supporter of legislation that encourages accessory dwelling units. 

Lawmakers to push for assistance for affordable housing 

As lawmakers enter the 2025 budget year, Taylor highlighted legislation to boost the budget of the state’s affordable housing fund. That fund is run by New Hampshire Housing, a public agency, and helps to provide financial backing for new developments that include rents with specific affordability criteria.

Housing advocates will push to double the amount that goes into the affordable housing fund by increasing the contribution, Taylor said. Currently, the first $5 million collected by the state’s real estate transfer tax goes into the affordable housing fund; Housing Action New Hampshire will push for that to change to the first $10 million.

Advocates will also push to double the budget of the Community Development Finance Authority, which helps to fund infrastructure projects that include housing developments. That agency has a program that allows businesses to donate to designated development projects run by nonprofit organizations and receive 75 percent of that donation as a credit against their business taxes. That includes the creation of historic housing preservation tax credit.

Currently, the authority can offer businesses up to $5 million in tax credits per year; one bill next year would increase that limit to $10 million.

“This would continue that and help really amp it up,” Taylor said. “There’s always more requests than there are resources for it, and so let’s unlock that as a continued potential.” 

Renewed efforts for ADUs

Ever since Gov. Maggie Hassan signed a law in 2016 that allows New Hampshire residents to create one accessory dwelling unit by right, housing advocates have said more needs to be done.

The 2016 law was intended to encourage the creation of ADUs, which often utilize existing structures on a person’s property. But the law allowed cities and towns to impose a number of conditions onto the creation of ADUs, such as a high number of parking spaces, that advocates argue helps prevent homeowners from using them. 

A series of attempts to expand the ADU law in the state have fallen flat in the State House. Most recently, in May, the state Senate killed a House bill that would have expanded the number of allowable ADUs to two per property, and removed many of the restrictions that towns and cities often apply to the first ADU. Senate Republicans argued it could erode property values by preventing neighbors from objecting to over-development. 

But in 2025, Taylor and other housing advocates are hoping to pass a specific type of ADU legislation: a bill allowing for detached ADUs by right. 

Sponsored by Sen. Dan Innis and Rep. Joe Alexander, the bill would modify the existing accessory dwelling unit statute – which requires that towns and cities must allow for attached accessory dwelling units either by right or by special variance – to also include detached ADUs. 

“Communities will still have the ability to regulate certain elements of it, but let’s make this process really work and start to flush out some of the pieces where we’re seeing roadblocks across the board,” Taylor said.

Soil-based lot sizing

Many New Hampshire towns employ minimum size lots requirements, and tie those minimums to concerns about water and sewer access. 

But housing advocates  say the minimum acreage can be arbitrary, and not rooted in what the property could actually support. By setting a minimum lot size for all single-family homes that is unnecessarily large, towns can discourage development of small parcel homes, ideal for starter homes, say advocates. 

Enter soil-based lot sizing. Proposed legislation for next year would require towns and cities to use assessments by the Department of Environmental Services to determine the minimum sizes for properties based on water and sewer needs. If the department deems that the property needs only a half an acre of space to sustain a single-family home, the city or town could not require a larger minimum lot size, the legislation states. The bill would not apply to all single-family homes, but it would require towns to apply DES standards to at least half of the single-family homes in its borders, allowing towns to designate denser areas closer to town and less dense areas further away.

“(The legislation is) to say that if you’re going to create lot size minimums, let’s have it be based in science and what the soil can affect, as opposed to arbitrary measures around certain acreage,” Taylor said.