Gubernatorial candidate Joyce Craig Courtesy photo

Eleven New Hampshire mayors recently signed a letter supporting SB 406, a bill that would fund emergency housing and homelessness prevention.

The letter, addressed to the chair of the Health and Human Services Committee, conveyed the mayors’ concerns regarding the homeless crisis in New Hampshire.

“This is the third time since 2020 that a majority of New Hampshire’s mayors have come together to request more assistance from the state to address homelessness in their communities,” said gubernatorial candidate Joyce Craig. “New Hampshire’s cities and towns won’t need to convince me to take action and support their efforts to end homelessness. We need proactive and engaged leadership in the corner office to partner with mayors and local communities, and that’s exactly what I’ll provide as governor so we can work together to find solutions to this statewide crisis.”

“For years, mayors across New Hampshire have called on the state to do its part in the fight against homelessness, and for years we’ve been left to address this statewide problem on our own. It’s past time that we have a leader that will partner with our local communities to deliver results,” said Nashua Mayor James Donchess. “As mayor of Manchester, Joyce Craig helped fill the void of leadership at the state level, building relationships with communities across the state to share best practices on how to tackle the issues of homelessness and the statewide housing shortage. Joyce is the leader and partner we need in the corner office to prevent homelessness, invest in affordable housing, and lead New Hampshire into the future.”

Craig has spent the last six years on the frontlines of the statewide struggles with homelessness and lack of affordable housing developing the type of comprehensive wrap-around solutions that can support all Granite Staters struggling with housing insecurity:

-Established the Mayor’s Task Force on Homelessness, hired the city’s first director of Homelessness Initiatives and created a new city Department of Housing Stability.

Set up New Hampshire’s first city-funded and run shelter when every shelter bed in the state was full in the middle of the winter.

-Opened the city’s first homeless engagement center to make recovery resources more readily available to individuals experiencing homelessness.

-Worked with mayors across the state to highlight its failure to adequately respond to the statewide housing and homelessness crises, calling for drastic change to address the problem and help Granite Staters.

-Called out the state’s 2023 budget proposal’s chronic underfunding of shelters throughout the state and advocated successfully for additional funding in the final budget to support the unhoused.

Partnered with the National Alliance to End Homelessness to use evidence-based solutions to reduce homelessness in the community by identifying gaps in service and determining how to best leverage federal funds.

-Allocated nearly $30 million to housing projects in Manchester, including investing $10 million into Manchester’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund, providing a flexible funding source to support development without Federal strings attached.

-Initiated the first revision of Manchester zoning rules in twenty years to create more affordable housing.

-Attracted affordable housing development, broke ground on new housing, and created more affordable housing by converting and updating existing buildings throughout the city.

There are now more than 2,000 units in development in Manchester, with more than 500 affordable units — including one of the largest affordable housing developments in the state.

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