Sen. Maggie Hassan, N.H., speaks as the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee meets on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 20, 2020, to issue a subpoena to Blue Star Strategies. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Affordable housing has been an ongoing challenge in New Hampshire, even prior to the pandemic, but with the foreclosure and eviction moratorium ending soon, the shortage may become an even greater issue.

On July 1, Gov. Chris Sununu’s moratorium on foreclosure and eviction proceedings will be lifted. He has said $35 million from the CARES Act Coronavirus Relief Fund is available for those in need of housing assistance. But at the end of July the enhanced unemployment insurance benefits are slated to end.

“We know that because we have such a slim supply of both rental housing and owner occupied housing that housing prices in New Hampshire are already a stretch for a larger number of families, and certainly the challenge of the pandemic with sudden loss in income has really heightened this problem to new levels,” U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan said.

On Monday, Hassan hosted a virtual discussion on COVID-19-related New Hampshire housing and homelessness needs, hearing from professionals from across the state. Elissa Margolin, director of Housing Action NH, a statewide coalition of 80 organizations.

She said that for multifamily housing providers, the primary question is “How are my tenants going to pay rent?”

“It was quite likely that a lot of tenants in rental housing had some COVID-related job loss,” Margolin said. “So, we were bracing for what we’ve been calling the perfect storm for an evictions crisis.”

She believes 48 percent of New Hampshire’s renters pay more than 50 percent of their monthly income towards housing costs, leaving little emergencies and employment issues,

Margolin also cited a severe shortage that keeping the cost of rental housing very high in New Hampshire.

With the foreclosure and the eviction moratorium ending to open July, and the ending of the enhanced unemployment insurance benefits Juy 31, Ben Frost, managing director of Policy and Public Affairs, New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority said in August we’re likely to see this perfect storm come together.

“We see this as a strong possibility,” Frost said. “Can we predict it with absolute certainty? No, we can’t, but it seems like a likely outcome.”

Robert Tourigny, executive director of NeighborWorks Southern New Hampshire, said it has over 450 units in their affordable portfolio, and another 49 under construction. He explained that in March, they were bracing for a higher percent more of delinquency based on the trajectory of unemployment rates at that point in time than what has been seen. Tourigny said as of today, and pretty much consistently over the last few months they have seen about a 13 percent delinquency in their rental portfolio. However, he said over a quarter of those delinquencies are over 90 days.

“I’ve been describing the rental problem or the economic problem as not being as wide as we had initially forecasted,” Tourigny said. “It’s a little narrower, but it’s I think much deeper than we initially anticipated or projected and so those that are struggling and having a difficult time, it’s going to get worse and they’re going to be facing it for a much longer period of time than anticipated.”

He also explained that the nonprofit served as a hub for granite United Way’s relief fund, meaning they were providing gift cards to grocery stores and sending out checks, for example. He said they saw and have been seeing firsthand how desperately in need households have been for assistance. In addition, he said it is a really difficult time to start construction, citing high material costs and how supply chains are still being impacted, for example.

In terms of the $600 extra unemployment insurance, Tourigny explained that in theory if one is receiving the maximum amount of unemployment they could afford $1,200 a month without being severely rent burdened. He further explained that when that goes away that is then essentially a 60 percent reduction in their income.

“The market is going to remain as tight as it is, but it depends on what happens with the eviction prevention as to whether those folks will be able to remain housed and not be able to pay rent or whether it’s going to create this wide spread eviction,” Tourigny said.

Moreover, Hassan said there is a group pushing for another COVID-19 relief package, but that there does not seem to be a sense of urgency right now on the other side of the aisle in the U.S. Senate to get that done.

Adam Urquhart may be contacted at 594-1206, or at aurquhart@nashuatelegraph.com.

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