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.
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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.
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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.
CONCORD, N.H. – New Hampshire lawmakers have moved to reject a Republican-backed proposal to launch an impeachment inquiry into the lone Democrat on the state’s five-member Executive Council.
On Friday, a key committee of lawmakers delivered a unanimous 17-0 vote against an impeachment inquiry into Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill of Lebanon, N.H.
The vote on House Resolution 41 followed an abbreviated public hearing, after the bill’s sponsor withdrew his support for the proposal and instead asked lawmakers on the committee to recommend killing it.
The push for Liot Hill’s impeachment was led by Representative Joe Sweeney, a Salem Republican and the deputy majority leader in the New Hampshire House.
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At issue were several emails Liot Hill had sent from her official account to help a partisan law firm identify voters impacted by a new state law. The law tightened voter ID requirements for absentee ballots.
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Sweeney had previously called Liot Hill’s correspondence “political lawfare run out of a taxpayer-funded inbox.” In December, a review by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office found that Liot Hill’s conduct was not illegal and did not constitute a misuse of office, clearing the complaint against her.
Reached by the Globe on Friday, Sweeney, who was not present at the public hearing, said in a statement he preferred to let voters decide whether Liot Hill should continue to serve in the upcoming November election.
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“After reviewing the matter and hearing the discussion, I believe the appropriate course is to move forward and allow the voters and the political process to do their work,” he said.
“The purpose of filing the resolution was to ensure that the constitutional questions raised were addressed seriously and transparently,” he said, noting that he stands by the process and the decision to recommend killing the resolution.
In an interview, Liot Hill said she was pleased with the unanimous vote from the House Judiciary Committee.
“The committee vote, I think, sends the message that there was no merit to this,” she said.
The proposal now heads to the full House of Representatives, which has the power to approve the committee’s recommendation to reject it.
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Amanda Gokee can be reached at amanda.gokee@globe.com. Follow her @amanda_gokee.
A woman has been arrested in connection with the death of her baby whose body was found in a pond in Manchester, New Hampshire last year. Hepay Juma, 26, of Manchester, is now charged with reckless second-degree murder.
The New Hampshire Attorney General said Juma was arrested for “causing the death of Baby Jane “Grace” Doe, her child, under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life.”
On March 27, 2025, the baby’s body was found floating in the water at Pine Island Park in Manchester. The baby’s death was treated as suspicious following an autopsy.
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Investigators have not released any information about how they made the arrest or how the baby died.
Hepay Juma, 26, of Manchester, NH, is charged in connection with the death of her baby.
Manchester, NH police
At the time, Manchester Police Chief Peter Marr said the baby’s death was “extremely tragic.”
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Police asked the public for help after the baby’s body was discovered. They wanted to know if anyone saw someone discarding anything in the water in the previous 14 days, or if anyone knew a pregnant woman who gave birth during that time who needed medical help.
A funeral was held for baby Grace Doe last May, and the public was invited to pay their respects. “The way she was discarded is heartbreaking, and it is important that we give her a proper farewell,” Chief Marr said last year.
The baby was named Grace by police “to celebrate the kindness extended to her by those who refuse to let her life go unrecognized.”
Juma is scheduled to be arraigned on Friday in Manchester District Court.
