The New Hampshire Housing Crisis - Talking Points on Affordable Housing in NH
NH has an acute shortage of housing stock, especially of housing (both for home ownership and for rental) affordable to households earning less than area median income. In the past decade we have built fewer than 900 new multifamily units, and some of those have been luxury apartments.
Rents in the southern half of the state have increased as much as 37% over the last 5 years. The state median rent is $978/month, and over $1000 per month in Manchester, Nashua and Portsmouth.
Based on projections from the NH Economic and Labor Market Information Bureau, 65% of new jobs will pay less than the state level "housing wage" of $18.81, the amount needed to afford a typical apartment.
6553 people were sheltered in NH's emergency shelters in FY03, but 13,529 were turned away because there were no available beds. That doesn't count the number of people doubled up with friends or family.
Because of HUD cuts in funding, the NH Housing Finance Authority, among others, have closed their waiting lists for Section 8 Housing Vouchers and will not be able to issue any new vouchers for the foreseeable future.
Because land cost and construction costs are so high in most of the state, new construction of affordable housing can generally only be done using various federally funded housing production programs (Low Income Housing Tax Credits, HOPE VI, Rural Housing, project based Section 8, etc.)
Federal Housing Issues
In May of 2002 the congressionally appointed Bipartisan Millennial Housing Commission issued its report, "Meeting Our Nation's Housing Challenges."According to that report 37 million households, about 94 million people, pay more than 30% of their income for housing. The commission estimates that there is such a shortage of affordable housing that we need to produce 1.8 million units of housing to meet the pent up demand. Yet this administration's budget proposals have cut or eliminated the few federal programs producing new housing.
The proposed National Housing Trust Fund, endorsed by over 5,000 elected officials and organizations, would use surplus FHA funds that currently go into the general treasury to fund the production and rehabilitation of 1.5 million units of housing over the next ten years. 75% of the funds would be for rental housing, with at least 45% of those targeted to housing that is affordable to extremely low income households (those below 30% of area median income). In addition to developing critically needed housing, economists predict that producing this volume of housing would create more jobs in the first 2-3 years than created by the proposed tax cuts over 10 years.
Public housing, which provides 1.2 million apartments at affordable rates to elderly, disabled and lower income people, faces decreased funding in the FY2005 budget. Both the operating funds and the capital fund are cut, jeopardizing both ongoing management and repairs. Rural housing funds and the entire HOPE VI program (which revitalizes public housing) are eliminated entirely.
Section 8 vouchers help elderly, disabled and low income working families pay for housing in market rate apartments. The administration has proposed block granting this program to the states, which would be given substantial flexibility to redesign the program. It is estimated that NH would loose 2,655 of its 9,127 vouchers by 2009 under this proposal. This would leave the state having to either cut the number of vouchers offered or the dollar amount of the vouchers. Important protections for low income families could be removed, such as targeting 75% of vouchers to the poorest families. States could impose time limits and remove quality standards. And people using the vouchers would be restricted to the state of origin, creating problems along most state borders and in many metropolitan areas.
Proposed tax cuts are irresponsible and dangerous. They are too large, they would not provide immediate stimulus to the economy, and they are highly inequitable. In addition to creating huge deficits, they will force budget cuts that will hurt millions of people and fundamentally restructure government.
AFSC-NH coordinates the Granite State Community Reinvestment Association, which brings together civil rights, social justice, and religious groups to make banks more responsive to the needs of low income people and local communities for housing, jobs, and financial services.
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